My blood boils at the very idea.
‘Sorry, I’m not very good at this,’ he says, knowing he has hit a nerve. ‘I guess I’m used to a life where buying gifts is a way of showing gratitude.’
‘Well, that doesn’t work with me,’ I let him know. ‘In fact, I’m exactly the opposite. The last thing I desire is for you or anyone to try to buy your way around me!’
He shifts in his seat, searching for the right thing to say.
‘OK, so that’s no excuse, but I ran away from my life here looking for something I never did find in New York,’ he says, his voice breaking now. ‘I ran away trying to fill a void I could never fill over there, no matter how much money I earned or how much my father-in-law Bruce has told me I’m his right-hand man, because I know deep down he doesn’t care about me, Roisin! He only cares about how much money I can make his company, and so does his daughter!’
Ouch.
‘I don’t want to be like him,’ he says, a little softer now. ‘He’s not my true family and now I’ve absolutely no true family left, Roisin. Mabel is gone, and she’s asked me toget to know you and Ben, and I’ve no idea where to start. I’m sorry.’
I take a deep breath. So does Aidan.
We sit opposite each other with only the birdsong in the garden to break the blanket of silence that surrounds us as I think of what to say next.
‘Maybe you should stop trying to be something or someone you’re not comfortable with,’ I suggest to him, pouring more tea just for the sake of doing something with my hands. ‘Maybe just take this time to get to know the real you a bit better? You can’t buy friendship and you can’t buy family, Aidan, but you know that now. Just be yourself, and don’t try so hard to impress the wrong people.’
I see how his shoulders relax now he’s got this out in the open and, as the afternoon passes, we open up more and find we’ve a lot more in common than we thought we ever could have.
He tells me more about his job and how demanding it is sometimes, how he has lately really felt like packing it all in and downscaling when the pressure became too tough.
‘It’s like living in someone else’s cocoon, with high expectations you never seem to reach and even when you do, they only raise the bar until you’re so dizzy and don’t ever think you’ll find your way back to earth again.’
He opens up about the social life in New York and how he sometimes finds it too busy and fast, and how he likesto disappear when he can to a tiny Irish pub he’d found just to get a sense of comfort he often craved in such a huge, anonymous city.
‘You’ve no idea how much I appreciate the humour from home or even the familiarity of our own accent,’ he says with a smile. ‘Of course I can’t even admit to Rachel that’s where I’ve been. That would be the ultimate sign of weakness to her.’
‘Why?’ I ask him. ‘Wouldn’t she like to get to know more about where you come from, even if it’s only over a drink in a pub that makes you feel welcome?’
He laughs off the suggestion.
‘Control,’ he admits to me, and I raise an eyebrow at his admission, his story all too familiar. ‘It’s all about control at the end of the day in her world, and I’m so glad to be out of it, if only for a while.’
We talk until it’s time for me to pick up Ben from his horse riding lesson in Dunfanaghy, and Aidan agrees to come with me for the ride, a gesture I find much more endearing than any offer of money or material goods.
‘See, it’s as simple as this,’ I say to him as I drive my rusty pick-up truck towards the seaside equestrian centre. ‘Ben is going to be over the moon to see you, so be prepared for some mighty fine showing off on his part.’
I catch Aidan smiling out of the window as we drive along the coast and something touches my heart at the sight of it. It’s as if he is very slowly, day by day, minute by minute,going back in time to a much slower pace of life in his mind and, from what he’s told me, it’s exactly what he needs.
And so as the days of spring pass by, instead of pining every time I miss Mabel or when I feel like I’m drowning without her or if I too need an ear just to have a mild rant about something, I go into her kitchen and have a cup of tea with Aidan, dwelling in the place of her warmth, love and generosity. We sit together, we put on the awkward heating system or light the fire, and I do my best to wean myself off her love and guidance, little by little, feeling her breath on my back as I grow stronger and stronger without her.
We talk about music, we talk about movies, and Ben loves to tell Aidan all his really important news such as who in his class has a secret girlfriend, and his excitement for his eleventh birthday in August where he is torn between having a boys’ only soccer-themed party in the community hall or a bouncy castle in the back garden, which may or may not be cool enough for his friends.
More recently our chats have turned to the mysterious location of Mabel’s next message and the excitement and wonder of what it might say.
‘Have you checked the drawers in her bedroom, or you know the place she kept all her correspondence?’ I ask Aidan, when spring is most definitely well under way. ‘Or looked in the cupboard above the fridge? It has to be around the house somewhere.’
‘I’ve looked everywhere,’ he tells me, and I know it’s true. ‘Absolutely everywhere.’
Between us, we haven’t left a stone unturned as we search Mabel’s home for clues as to where the next message might lie, and I even take the opportunity to while away some time looking through some of Mabel’s photos. When I come across one of Aidan and his wife Rachel, I realize the mysterious lady who stood next to him at the funeral looked nothing like Rachel at all. They were both blonde, yes, but Rachel’s features are much sharper and she is a lot taller than the woman I’d mistaken her for.
My stomach flips a bit when I see that Rachel is a beauty queen, that’s for sure, in her full-length navy ballgown, and Aidan looks so dapper in his tux by her side. I analyse every inch of the photos, hoping I’ll spot something that will give me some sort of deeper insight into their relationship. Aidan hasn’t kept it a secret that their marriage is in trouble, but it’s the one area I tiptoe around still, knowing it’s as painful for him to talk about as my past with Jude is to me.
‘Maybe it’s not a video message this time?’ he suggests on our most recent search of Mabel’s home. ‘Maybe it’s something totally different and we’re looking for the wrong thing, but whatever it is, I’m sure it will turn up soon. Good old Mabel, keeping us on our toes. She doesn’t half like to keep us waiting, that’s for sure.’
We give up and open a bottle of wine in the garden wherewe while away an evening, telling stories and wondering what Mabel’s next message might reveal.
