Susan Kiernan-Lewis - Free Falling

The bad thing happened on the second day of their vacation.

Although they would end up calling it many things in the coming years—the crisis, the blackout, the incident—the event would always be defined by one important feature: In a flash, it changed everyone’s lives forever.

The trip itself began with anticipation and expectation like every other vacation they had ever taken as a family. The Boeing 757 touched down at Shannon Airport outside of Limerick in early September 2011. Sarah could feel her ten year-old son’s excitement in the seat next to hers even when she wasn’t looking at him.

“And you’re positive I’ll be able to recharge my iPhone?” he said, as he stared out the airplane window.

“Ireland is not a third world country,” his father said as he unbuckled his seatbelt. “In fact, they lead the world in computer technology or something, I read.” He stood to pull down the carry-on luggage from the overhead compartment, then handed Sarah’s battered Vuitton to her.

“But consider giving the iPhone a break,” Sarah said. “We’re here to see Ireland. It’s a very rural country with—”

“You told me, Mom,” her son interrupted. “I get it. Rural, beautiful, lots of history and stuff. I just don’t want to be bored out of my mind, okay? I mean, while you and Dad are drinking wine at cafés and stuff and visiting museums, I need my stuff, too.”

Sarah frowned and caught her husband’s eye.

He shook his head. Plenty of time to fight this old battle later , his expression said.

“Let’s find some authentic Irish food,” he said with a smile. “And a lager.”

“Cool. They have logging in Ireland? Like in Seattle, and stuff?”

Sarah laughed. “Let’s go find those loggers,” she said.

That first night they stayed in a traditional Irish hotel and ate a simple meat stew. They spent three hours in the corner pub singing with the locals and washing away their jet lag with the local brew. They tucked John into a cot in the small hotel room. They kissed briefly before falling into bed early themselves.

The next morning it was raining.

“It’s freezing outside,” John said as he entered the hotel dining room. “And it’s only September.”

“Come get warm by the fire and eat something,” Sarah said. “Dad’s out renting the car for our drive to the village we’ll be staying in.”

John settled into a chair next to his mother and examined his breakfast plate.

“They cooked the tomatoes,” he said.

“They do, over here.”

“And I ordered bacon but they gave me ham.”

“This is what their bacon looks like.”

“It’s ham.”

“Well, so is bacon, really.”

“No, bacon and ham both come from a pig but bacon is not ham.”

“Okay. But this is as close to bacon as you get for the next ten days, okay?”

“The toast is weird.”

“John, everything is weird when you’re in a foreign country, okay? It’s part of the reason one travels. To have things not the same as where you live.”

John cut a piece of ham and ate it. “It’s not terrible,” he said.

“Good boy.”

The door swung open and an icy blast of air invaded the room. David strode in, gave her a quick kiss and sat down.

“It’s really cold out there,” he said, pouring himself a cup of tea. “Oh, crap. Don’t they have coffee?”

“It’s in the other carafe. How long do you think it’ll take us to get to Balinagh?”

David tousled his son’s hair. “Eating an authentic Irish breakfast, are you?”

“It sucks.”

“John.” His mother frowned at him.

“Just kidding,” he said, grinning sheepishly.

“About half a day, I think,” David said, pouring his coffee. “You got all the directions to the rental cottage?”

“There’ll be someone there to show us where everything is,” Sarah said. “And to change the linens every few days, but for the most part, we’ll be on our own.”

“Mom? Did you ask someone about the iPhone charger?”

As they drove through the countryside, David decided Ireland was green and largely wet in order to stay that way. The road divided undulating hocks and hills crisscrossed by ancient stone walls. With so few trees, the green horizon seemed to stretch on indefinitely, one verdant field after another.

“Hey, there’s sheep up ahead.” John tossed aside his Game Boy and pointed over his mother’s shoulder. “Don’t run over ‘em, Dad.”

“I won’t,” David said, slowing down. “But I have to admit to not knowing who has the right of way, here.”

“Give it to the sheep, dear,” Sarah said.

They braked to a halt.

John rolled down his window and stuck his head out.

“There’s, like, a real shepherd with them and everything,” he said. “And man, those sheep are dirty.”

“Lots of mud in Ireland,” Sarah murmured. “Rain makes Ireland emerald. Rain makes Ireland muddy.”

“Are you losing your grip, honey?” David grinned at her.

She laughed. “Just trying to adjust to island time, you know.”

“Maybe we should throw our watches away.”

“Or at least pack them away until it’s time to go home.”

They sat in silence as the sheep and their shepherd moved slowly across the road.

As he watched the sheep, David realized that Sarah’s idea to visit a remote part of Ireland was a good one. They had all gotten stretched thin with their schedules back in Jacksonville. She was probably right, too, about John’s obsession with his electronics, although David had been pretty addicted to television when he was his son’s age. Even so, just being some place so foreign—and rural—felt like it was already doing them a world of good. He glanced at his wife who was frowning at the way the shepherd was handling things—as if she could will him to move his flock faster.

It was all very well for her to orchestrate this vacation in order to amend what she saw as a deficit or undesirable feature in the family (and the marriage?) but he would be interested to see how she managed the next ten days without her smartphone, iPad and movies-on-demand.

The shepherd waved to them as he led his flock up the hill into a pasture enclosed by a dilapidated fieldstone wall.

John pulled his head into the car. “I’m starving, Mom. What’s there to eat?”

Sarah dug into her purse and handed her son a biscuit wrapped in a paper napkin.

“Here, I saved it from your breakfast.”

“Oh, great. Now we’re in an episode of Survivor Man .”

“We’ll stop for lunch in a bit,” David said to his son. “Want your first beer?”

“David,” Sarah said, admonishingly.

John took the biscuit and bit into it. “I’m dying of thirst,” he said.

By the time David stopped the car in front of the little cottage, Sarah was tired and her back ached. They had stocked up on groceries in Balinagh, the nearest town to the cottage. Because of the condition of the poor country roads, the drive had been longer than she expected.

The cottage was more like a one-level carriage house. It had a steep roof of shingles and a chimney between two large windows in the front. Grass lined both sides of the long drive that led from the main road to the front yard of the house. Flowering vines crawled up the window framework and around the door which had a small porch with three flat wooden steps. A back door from the kitchen led to a courtyard of stone flanked on one side by the entrance to a small paddock with broken fence slats, a very old barn, and a vegetable garden that looked like it hadn’t been tended in years.