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?”
&n
bsp; “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.