Emmerdale spoilers: Aaron Dingle reflects on the loss of Liv and Robert as he finally reunites with Chas in tearful scenes

Tuesday (January 30)’s Emmerdale played out the events following Chas Dingle (Lucy Pargeter) telling her family that she’s been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Aaron (Danny Miller)’s reaction to the news had been to walk out of the Woolpack, ignoring Chas’s pleading as she followed him out. Chas was devastated as it became clear that Aaron was intent on leaving the village. Charity (Emma Atkins) closed the pub so she could sit down with Chas and talk things through. ‘He’s not bothered if I live or die,’ Chas lamented.

She said even though she was surrounded by other family members who cared about her she’d never felt more alone in her life.

Meanwhile Mackenzie (Lawrence Robb) had decided to have one last go at getting Aaron to see sense, and caught up with him.

Aaron prepared to depart the village

Mackenzie and ‘sense’ are not words normally found in the same sentence, but he was the right person to be able to get through to Aaron precisely because he’s made such a mess of his own life. Aaron was quick to bring up the fact that he’d chosen Charity over his son Reuben.

Mack replied that he hated himself for losing Reuben and Aaron would hate himself if he walked away from Chas.

Eventually Aaron started to open up, and he talked about his sister Liv (Isobel Steele). He’d spent some time with her in the moments before she’d died from her injuries after being crushed by a caravan in a huge storm. He regretted that he hadn’t said more and told her how much he loved her.

He told Mack that he would give anything to have more time with her, to hear her laugh. He said he didn’t have a life without her.

It wasn’t just Liv, either. He talked about Jackson Walsh (Marc Silcock), his former partner who he’d helped to die, his husband and great love Robert Sugden (Ryan Hawley), his later relationship with Ben Tucker (Simon Lennon), who was killed by Meena Jutla (Paige Sandhu). And about his gran, Faith Dingle (Sally Dexter), who’d died of cancer in 2022.

‘Everyone I’ve ever cared about – Jackson, Robert, Ben, Gran, Liv – they’re all just ghosts and they never stop haunting me,’ he said. Technically Robert isn’t a ghost but he is serving a prison sentence so we’ll let that slide.

Because this was at the heart of why Aaron has been behaving in such a cold, uncaring way – he can’t deal with any more loss. He told Mackenzie that he can’t cope with another funeral. ‘If you’ve got nobody they can’t hurt you.’

It seemed that his mind was made up when a taxi appeared and he got into it, leaving Mack at the roadside. He returned home to Charity and told her that Aaron had gone for good.

But back at the Woolpack Chas was on her own – or she thought she was. She turned around and Aaron had come in.

‘Mum,’ he said, and it was all he needed to say because Chas just crumbled and held out her arms to him. They hugged each other tight, with Chas telling her boy that she loves him.

It was an moving end to what had been a very emotional episode, and hopefully marks the start of Aaron mending all the bridges he’s tried to burn in the village.