Page 144 of Snowed In
“This is the part where I tell you I took lessons.”
I stare at him. “You took dance lessons?”
“Every Saturday morning for two months.”
“So you could dance with Mam?”
“So I’d have the courage to ask her. And it worked. I was only nineteen years old. I had my whole life ahead of me, but she was all I could think about. And the thought of letting her start a life with someone without even trying…” He shakes his head. “I’d never be able to live with myself. I did everything I could to get her to notice me, and when I did, it was like a whole new world opened up. If Megan’s that person for you, then you need to let her know.”
“She does.”
“Does she?” His brows rise. “Have you told her?”
“Well, not in so many words, but she knows.”
Dad just stares at me. Stares and stares and…
“Right,” I sigh. “Okay.”
“Go see her tonight.”
“Tonight? It’s Christmas.”
“And she’s clearly all you can think about,” he says before stepping quietly back into the house. “They like gestures,” he adds sagely.
Gestures. “I already learned to dance,” I tell him.
“So think of something else. I’d think quick, though. The day after Christmas doesn’t have the same ring to it.”
THIRTY-TWO
MEGAN
“They’re bath salts.”
“Of course, they are!” Mam croons, examining the tub of pink crystals. “And they’re French! How lovely.”
Aidan gives me a look from across the room.
“Thank you both very much,” she continues, and I roll my eyes.
“Okay. You’re overdoing it.”
“No, really,” she says, reading the label. “I always say I need to take more baths.”
Christ. I should have just made her another scarf.
The front room is strewn with discarded wrapping paper and Christmas cards as we each sit in our designated seats in the living room, a pile of presents beside us.
Mam gave me some beautiful earrings and Aidan an old watch that used to belong to our grandfather. In our annual tradition of bad gifts, my brother got me a book of slow-cooker recipes for one, which made me glad I’d gotten him a jazz compilation CD.
“I don’t like jazz,” he said. “Or have a CD player.”
Mam told him off for being ungrateful.
I’d come home from Christian’s to find Aidan had stuck a Band-Aid on his lip. Neither of us said anything about what happened, and Mam seemed blissfully ignorant as she finished cooking dinner and we all sat down to it. It was a surprisingly peaceful evening once that started. A surprisingly normal one too.
After the presents, Aidan disappears while I take a quick nap as the last few days catch up with me. I wake around forty minutes later, groggy and disorientated and not wanting to be alone, so I text Christian to see how his dinner went and then pull on a sweater and head downstairs. It’s a little after eight p.m. now, and I find my mother in the kitchen, halfway through the washing up.
