Susan Kiernan-Lewis - Free Falling

“It’s just that…” David ran his hand over his chin. “If we don’t go now we’ll have to put it off until tomorrow.”

“If we put it off ‘til tomorrow, I’ll be more relaxed,” Sarah argued. “And I’ll have made sandwiches from the bread I was going to make today.”

“It’s okay, Dad,” John said. “We can just explore today.”

Sarah realized, although he’d done a good job of hiding the fact, David was anxious to get word on their family back home, and the status of things—like rescue. She leaned over and squeezed his hand.

“Let’s don’t rush it, darling,” she said. “We can’t afford any accidents, okay?”

David nodded. “Of course,” he said. “No problem.” She could hear his disappointment.

“Come on, sport. Let’s check out who our neighbors are.” They moved through the open paddock gate.

“Which way, do you think?” he said, squinting down the road that led from Cairn Cottage.

“I guess we should follow the road,” Sarah said, grateful that at least there wouldn’t be cars on it since the crisis.

“I’ll lead,” John said.

He trotted ahead of them between ancient, moss-covered drystone walls down the narrow, winding drive that led away from the cottage. The horizon was almost treeless. Sarah tried to remember how far away the ocean was. She thought she could smell it. The sun came out from behind wispy grey clouds to warm their backs as they rode.

“Just move with your pony,” Sarah called ahead to John.

“Relax, Sarah. He’s doing fine. How about you?”

“I just know how easy an accident can happen,” she said, feeling the girth on Dan to see if it was tight enough.

They trotted down the one-lane country road lined with rhododendron, Scotch broom and hazel. They rode without seeing another soul.

“How long do you think we’ll be stuck here?” Sarah said.

“I don’t know,” David said, clicking to his horse. “Maybe a few months. Maybe longer.”

“You think we’ll be home by Christmas?”

“I have no idea,” he said. “I hope so.” He trotted his horse away from her to catch up to John.

Sarah watched them both on the road ahead of her. Her spine stiffened, which slowed her horse. Not be home before Christmas? Was that possible? Her mind raced to remember all the appointments in the next few months back home that would have to be rescheduled, all the bills that would go unpaid. Would they lose the house? Was the house still there? Instead of relaxing, as it seemed David (who had actually begun to hum ) was beginning to do, Sarah felt the worry and anguish overcome her. Within minutes, her thoughts turned to the specific, incapacitating anxiety that hovered just beneath the surface of her every waking moment: what had happened back home? Were her parents still alive? As her son and husband rode ahead of her, oblivious, Sarah began to sob silently into the one hand that wasn’t clutching her horse’s mane for dear life.

Mack Finn sat in a plastic lawn chair outside the broken down caravan, a small pile of cigarette butts at his feet. His hands rested on his knees as he stared out across the scrubby Irish landscape. How strange that the world could look so totally different, he marveled, from one day to the next. Just yesterday, his bastard old uncle had physically thrown him into that bush just beyond his favorite pissing spot, and now the old sot was lying there himself, nearly but not quite buried beneath a quarter foot of muck and mud and weeds.

And wasn’t it Mack Finn, himself, who had put the old tosser there?

He heard the soft sound of crunching gravel just over his left shoulder as someone approached from the rear. He waited.

“Oy, Mack.” The young boy stood near the end of the trailer, as if afraid to directly confront Finn.

Finn lazily beckoned to him to approach. He didn’t take his eyes off the brown and grey landscape of the Irish autumn. He didn’t look at the faltering, approaching boy.

“Dee-Dee says to ask ya what we’re to eat,” the boy mumbled, rubbing his dirty hands up in down his jeans in a nervous tic.

Finn could smell the boy’s fear and he smiled to himself. With Uncle Liam gone, he thought with satisfaction, they’ll all be afraid of him now.

The eldest of five children in a poor gypsy family that once numbered in the hundreds, Finn felt the rank of protector and guardian of the flock which had finally, belatedly, come to him. Proud of the fact that he had left school at eleven— been forced to when he was caught trying to root that daft scanger in the class behind his —Finn grew up rough and he grew up ready. No one had given him a break. No one had given him a hand. Now, at twenty-two, he’d already spent seven years in an English prison learning more than school could ever teach him.

Finn leaned back into the chair and listened for the songbirds in the trees surrounding the old trailer. They sounded particularly sweet this morning, he decided. As if they knew that a better new world was coming. A world that was uninterested in rules or laws or should or musts. A world that belonged to the strong and the fearless. Finn smiled to himself, enjoying the sun on his face and the birdsongs.

Life may have come apart at the seams for everyone else. But for Mack Finn, it had just come together.

An hour into the ride, Sarah knew that the horses were docile and well mannered. Even though David and John had much less riding experience than she did, they both had found their seats and rode as if they had ridden for years. Sarah was amazed at the grace and ease with which her son rode his pony—no fear, no hesitation in letting the animal know what he wanted. Every once in awhile he called out to ask her how to get his mount to do what he needed it to. David asked for no advice and somehow he wasn’t being thrown to the ground or run off with. Sarah knew she had psyched herself out with horses many years ago. Now she had living proof that it was all in her head. She watched John turn his pony off the road into the bordering field to explore it at a trot. Her cry had done her good. She was still worried, but the tension in her gut seemed to have eased. When John trotted up beside her she realized she had been holding her breath.

“Isn’t this great, Mom?” he asked, his face pink with fresh air and his exertion. “Isn’t Star a great pony? We gotta bring him home with us.” With that, he nudged the pony into a trot on the dirt road to ride next to his dad.

Is it just Americans who think in terms of ownership when they like something? She found herself thinking. Or is that a legacy of this generation of indulged children?

John pointed to a running rabbit along the rock wall. Sarah smiled, and she could feel the knot in her stomach diminish. She could also feel Dan loosen up when she smiled.

“Poor Dan,” she said. “Your friends got happy-go-lucky green riders and you got the basket case.” She leaned down and patted his neck.

David trotted back to her. “I think there’s a farm up ahead,” he said. “If there’s anyone home, we can find out about our caretakers.”

Sarah squinted in the direction he was indicating. “Maybe they are our caretakers,” she said.

Within minutes the three of them turned down a long dirt drive that led to a small cottage with a barn, like their own place. A dog barked and ran to meet them.

“He looks unfriendly,” John said.

“He’s just alerting his owners,” David said. “Aren’t you, boy?”

An old man stepped into the courtyard and silenced the dog with a hand signal as they rode up.

“Hello,” David said. “We’re your neighbors from Cairn Cottage.” He smiled broadly. The man said nothing.