Free Falling (2 page)

David stepped out of the rental car. “Did the other one have horses?”

“Of course not,” she said, still seated. “There were no horses.”

“Dad! Mom! You gotta see this!” John ran back to the car. “There are three horses in there!”

“Are we supposed to take care of the horses?” David asked.

“Can we, Dad?” John literally jumped in delight. “Can the small one be mine?”

David looked at Sarah.

“Let’s look in the house first, son,” he said.  

Please let it have indoor plumbing
, Sarah thought as she climbed out of the car.

John ran to the front door and pushed it open. “It’s not locked,” he said before darting inside.

“I’m sorry, David,” she said. “The one I booked on the Internet was much bigger.”

John met them on the porch. “It’s just got one room,” he said. “And only one bed. I don’t get my own bed?”

Sarah and David went inside.

“Well,” David said with a sigh. “To quote my son, this sucks.”

A large king-sized bed was pushed up against the far wall. Next to it was a door, which Sarah hoped was to an indoor bathroom. A giant stone fireplace anchored the front wall of the house and faced the kitchen and dining area on the opposite wall. The floor was polished wood and several thick rugs covered most of it. Two easy chairs faced the fireplace.

“It’s actually very cozy,” David said. “Very comfy—except for the one bed thing.”

“Hey! There’s a TV!” John called out. “On the table next to the bed.” He began to fiddle with its dials.

“I wonder if they get Conan here,” David said, sitting down on the bed. “It’s a nice bed.”

“Look, David, I’m sorry, okay?” Sarah said. “I booked a
two
-bedroom cottage.”

“Why don’t we unpack our groceries and get settled in a little?” David said, clapping his hands together.

“Really?” Sarah looked at him. “You’re okay with this?”

“Do we have an option?”

“I don’t really know. I have a phone number.”

He got up and took her in his arms. “Don’t bother,” he said. “I say we make the most of what we’ve got.”

She put her head on his shoulder and felt some of the tension drain from her body.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

He kissed her then called to John: “Come on, John. Let’s unload the groceries and the bags and Mom and I can start getting supper on the table.”

“You gonna come out and see the horses?”

David turned to look at Sarah, who shrugged.

 “Right. The horses. Okay. Show me the horses,” he said. The two walked out the door and headed for the barn.

Sarah buttoned her sweater and rubbed her hands together. It was cold in the little cottage. She began looking for the thermostat she would never find.

CHAPTER TWO

It happened sometime during their first night.

They had built a fire in the fireplace and made a supper of canned stew with a fresh salad and a bottle of good South African red wine. John was able to get
Sponge Bob Square Pants
on the TV but was told he couldn’t watch his first night in Ireland. The three of them bundled up in jackets and a quilt and sat outside under the stars talking and identifying constellations. That night would be the last time that Sarah could look up to the heavens without praying fervently. It would be the last time any of them would choose to sit outside and waste the warmth of the fireplace.

On that first night, the experiences and trials of their day of travel and discovery had left them ready for bed.  However, the sounds of the Irish countryside, the creaking, cooing, cawing with the occasional horse whinny, made it difficult for both David and Sarah to fall asleep.

In the cold and foggy morning to which they awoke, they found the world forever changed. 

“Mom, can we ride the horses today?”

Sarah turned over in bed and put her hand out to touch her husband’s shoulder.

“David,” she murmured. “He shouldn’t be in the barn. Too many things to fall on his head.”

“John,” David moaned from his side of the big bed. “Stay inside until we’re all up.”

“But Dad—”

“Just hang tight, John,” Sarah said, groping for her iPhone on the side table. Eight o’clock. It had begun to rain in the night. “I’ll make breakfast.”

“Can I watch TV?” John came over and sat on the side of the bed. “Pleeeeeease?” He leaned over and kissed his mother on the cheek.

“We need to have some rules about the TV,” she said.

“Thanks, Mom.” He jumped up and snapped on the set.

“I am so not going to exchange one country’s television laugh-track for another,” she said. “It’s the same droning idiocy as back home. Only the accents have been changed.”

David yawned and sat up beside his wife.

“Morning,” he said, and kissed her.

John turned up the TV. “Mom, I think something’s wrong.”

“Don’t tell me it doesn’t work, sweetie. Because it doesn’t matter anyway. We’re here to—”

David’s body tensed. He jumped out of bed. “Sarah, something’s happened.” He stood next to his son in front of the TV set. “There’s been a...an incident or something. John, go out and play.”

“It’s raining outside, Dad.”

“What is it?” Sarah pulled on a sweatshirt and joined David and John in front of the TV. “What’s happening?”

The images on the television looked like amateur video. There were explosions, cars flipped over, crumpled buildings, and fires. The Irish announcer alternated from a reporting voice to a shrillness bordering on hysteria.

“My God, what is—” Sarah covered her mouth with her hands. “It’s home,” she turned to look at David. “It’s America.”

Stunned by the images and sirens and screams, David held up a hand for silence. He listened as the newscaster intoned in a strong Irish accent: “…reports of nuclear contamination in several major cities…”

“What is?” John looked panicked. “What’s happening back home, Mom? Dad? Are we...are they attacking us? Are we being bombed?”

“Shhhh.” Sarah wrapped her arms around her boy. “Just listen,” she whispered.

“‘......too soon to attribute to any specific terrorist group but certainly an attack of this magnitude...” 

“My God,” Sarah said and tears filled her eyes.

“Take him outside, Sarah,” David said. “For God’s sake, don’t let him see this.”

John turned to his mother. “What’s happening, Mom? Is it going to be okay?”

Sarah stood and ushered the boy outside. The two of them stood on the porch. The rain splattered droplets of mud onto the legs of their pajamas. She hugged him tightly.

“It’s going to be okay,” she said into his baby fine hair. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Are they attacking us?” he asked.

“I don’t know, sweetie,” she said. “Dad will let us know in a bit.”

David stood in front of the TV holding his breath and trying to take it all in. His mind churned with the terrible images, the panic in the newscasters’ voices, his own tumultuous thoughts.

An hour later, the rain had stopped and David and Sarah sat on the front steps of the cottage. The clouds had blown away, leaving a clear blue sky. John hung on the fence of the adjoining corral talking to the horses and feeding them carrots.

“What do we do?”

David shook his head. “It’s bad,” he said. “They’ve shut down all flights in and out of the States. Indefinitely.”

“So we can’t get home.”

“And I tried to call the American embassy in Dublin,” he said, pulling out his cell phone. “But it just goes to a recording.”

They were silent for a moment.

“Should we drive back to Limerick?” Sarah watched her son as he laughed while petting the forelock of the biggest horse.

David frowned. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he said. “It’ll be crazy there. Probably wouldn’t be able to get a hotel room. At least here we have a place to stay.”

“Did they say who did this to us?”

David took his wife’s hand.

 “They’re suggesting some place in the Middle East, big surprise. They made it sound like whole cities are affected.”

“Which cities?” Sarah felt the panic rise in her throat. “Washington?”

“I...I couldn’t tell. It wasn’t much in the way of news. It was just, you know, mayhem and fire and explosions. The Irish newscasters didn’t know. Just knew the US was under attack.”

All of a sudden a bright flash appeared in the sky, turning the horizon briefly white with its intensity.

“John!” David shouted. “Come to me, son!”

The boy dropped from the fence, and trotted over to where his parents sat, a questioning frown on his face in response to the panic in his father’s voice.

It was over in less than five seconds. The brightness faded and the sky returned to a bright Irish fall day.  

“What the hell, David?” Sarah was on her feet. “What just happened?”

 “I’m not really sure,” he said.

“What was that big flash?”

“Sarah, calm down. Let’s all just calm down.”

“I’m scared, Dad,” John said, prompting David to hold him even tighter.

“Look, you guys,” David said. “We’re together and we’re safe. That’s what’s important.”

Sarah looked at him with fear growing in her eyes. “Something just happened
here
, didn’t it?” she said.

“I don’t know, Sarah,” David said. “Maybe.”

She stood up. “We need to get into town and see if anybody knows anything there.” 

He could see she was terrified. His own heart was pounding fast in his throat. He looked out over the pasture where the flash had lit up the sky. Everything looked so normal now. So peaceful. So beautiful. The birds were singing.

 “Sarah, let’s stay calm, okay?”

“John, wanna go into town?” Sarah held out her hand to him. “Keys, David, please,” she said, her voice becoming shrill.

David stood up. “I’ll drive,” he said. 

They all got into the small rental car, buckled up and then sat in the driveway facing the main road.

The car wouldn’t start.

“Crap,” David said.

Sarah looked over at him. “Do you know something?” she asked in a frantic note.

“I was afraid of this,” he said. “The car’s too new. If there’s really been some kind of nuclear explosion—”

“Are you serious?” Sarah gaped at him. “Is that what you think happened? Ireland had a nuclear bomb dropped on it?”

“Mom? Dad? Is everything okay?” John’s voice shook.

David opened the car door. “Let’s don’t do this here,” he said. “Come on, sport. We’re not taking the car today.”

As Sarah jumped out of the car. Her purse spilled onto the dirt driveway.

“David, why is the damn car not starting?”

David ran his fingers through his hair in exasperation. “It’s a world catastrophe, Sarah,” he said. “If something happens to America...I mean…when
it
is in crisis, the rest of the world is affected too.”   

“I don’t understand,” she said angrily, as if David were somehow responsible.

John looked from one parent to the other. “Did America get bombed?” he asked.

David turned to him and put his arm around him. “Yes, son,” he said.

“So, why doesn’t our car work in Ireland?” he asked.

“That’s what I would like to know, too,” Sarah said, as she knelt in the dirt picking up the contents of her purse.

“If England was bombed too—” David said, waving his hand in the air.

“Did you hear they were?”

“No, but they’re our allies, and if they were hit,” David said, “Ireland is close enough to be affected.”

For a moment, no one spoke.

“That big flash that just happened,” Sarah said. “Was that
us
getting bombed?”

“I don’t know, Sarah,” David said. “Maybe.”

Sarah stared at the car as if she were in a trance. “I guess this answers any question of evacuating to Limerick,” she said, turning and moving slowly in the direction of the porch steps.

“Or anywhere else,” David said, looking toward the dusky blue horizon.

“So,
now
do we ride?” John said brightly.

CHAPTER THREE

The first day had been the hardest.

The terror and insecurity of knowing just enough and nothing more was literally almost more than Sarah could bear.

Were their homes bombed? Was Washington still there? Were her parents still alive?
The frustration of no news—of not being able to
do
anything while death and destruction dismantled their country—was an agony. All she could think was:
we have to do something
!  

The town of Balinagh was ten miles away—too far to comfortably walk over rough and rocky Irish back roads—but there was no other way of getting there.

 “Why can’t we ride?” John asked for the hundredth time.

“John, please stop asking me that,” Sarah said. “We don’t know if these horses are used to being ridden—”

“There are saddles all over the barn.”

“But if they haven’t been ridden in a while,” Sarah replied as patiently as she could without screaming, “they’ll be too difficult for us to handle.”

“Not for you,” he said stubbornly.

“It’s been too long since I rode,” she said. “I’m too rusty to be jumping on some horse I don’t know.”

“They seem gentle,” David offered.

Sarah stood up from the porch step where she had been sitting.

“Both of you, listen to me,” she said with exasperation. “They might be gentle on the ground but hell on wheels once you’re in the saddle.”

“Why don’t we try one out in the paddock?” David looked at his son who nodded enthusiastically.

“David, are you serious?” She looked at him with horror. “And what if one of us breaks something? Are you going to set the bone? Horses are not like golf carts, you know. They have minds of their own.”

So that day they walked into town. In slightly less than four hours, they arrived tired, foot sore, blistered, and thirsty.

The first person they met was Siobhan Scahill, the dairy and pub owner.