Page 78 of Snowed In
“You asked me to!”
“I know, I know,” she says. “But I wasn’t thinking, and we held it there a few years ago, and it was lovely, and they have the space, and they know me, so they didn’t overcharge, and there we have it.” She taps a finger against the counter, biting her bottom lip. “You don’t have to go,” she adds reluctantly.
“Of course, I’m going. I came back just to go.” But I know she’s two seconds away from canceling the booking just for me, which would be so dumb, and I just—
“It’s fine,” I lie. “Seriously. It’s a building.”
“That you escaped from,” Aidan mutters, and I amthisclose to throwing a bagel at his head.
“I can find somewhere new if you want me to,” Mam says.
“Of course, she wants you to,” Aidan calls, leaving the room. I sit there silently, neither confirming nor denying.
“Whatever you want to do, I’ll do it,” she says gently, and I know she means it. I know in a heartbeat that if I told her I wasn’t fine, she wouldn’t go through with it. She wouldn’t go through with any of it.
But this fundraiser isn’t about me.
This Christmas isn’t about me.
It’s about her and us and our family, and I swore to myself that this year I wasn’t going to ruin it.
“It’s fine,” I say. “Mam, honestly. It’s just a hotel. You’re not going to be able to find anywhere else.”
“If you’re sure,” she says, relenting a little when I just stare back at her. “Alright. Thank you for understanding.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And I suppose now is a good a time as any to tell you I collected your dress from the dry cleaner’s yesterday.”
“My dress?”
“You don’t have to wear it. It’s one of your old ones, but I thought you might like some options on top of whatever you brought back for yourself. It’s hanging up in my room. Shoes, I can’t help you with. Not with my clown feet.”
“You don’t have clown feet,” I say, getting up.
“Tell your brother to come down and finish whatever he’s doing with this mess,” she calls after me, and I give her a thumbs-up as I jog up the stairs, only to find Aidan already waiting for me.
“I was promised egg bagels?”
“Well, you shouldn’t have been so dismissive of them,” he says, as I go past. “You need to stand up for yourself.”
“Excuse me?”
“With Mam. I know you don’t want to go back there.”
I pause in the doorway of her room. “It would just upset her.”
“She’ll be more upset if you’re unhappy,” he points out. “But you need to actually tell her. She doesn’t know what to do with you half the time. Let alone how to talk to you.”
“That’s such an exaggeration.”
“Is it? You make all these choices that she would never make, and she tries to understand you, but she doesn’t. And I know this because I’m the one who has to act as the go-between the two of you.” He pulls back his shoulders as he adopts an eerily perfect imitation of her. “Ask your sister ABC. Do you think she’d like XYZ?You need to tell her the truth more, or she’s never going to know how you really feel.”
I say nothing to that, conflicted, but Aidan’s already moving on to the next thing.
“You’re bringing Christian to the fundraiser?”
“Is that a problem?”
