Susan Kiernan-Lewis - Free Falling

“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.

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.

“Sure, why would you be walking and you with three big horses just standing around?” she said as soon as they walked into her grocery shop which was lighted only by the daylight coming in through the big shop windows.

Sarah wanted to slap her.

“Mom says we need to take things slow,” John replied.