The adventure continues in Heading Home, Book 3 of the dystopian series, The Irish End Game.
After two years of living and adjusting to life after the bomb, Sarah and John have discovered that happiness can trump grief and loss. Together they’ve created a life of fellowship and hard work, pride of self and community, good friendships, and, for Sarah, love. But the moment a messenger comes to the camp with the news that the United States government is gathering up all of its stranded nationals to help them get home, is the moment that Sarah and John’s world begins to crumble.
Who could guess that the one thing they’d prayed so fervently for would be the very thing that would destroy everything they’ve worked so hard to build?
Book Three of the Irish End Game Series
Copyright 2013
by San Marco Press.
All rights reserved.
Heading Home
Susan Kiernan-Lewis
The colors from the setting sun streaked across the summer sky in a vibrant display as Sarah stood in the front room of her cottage. She filled a basket with fresh-baked rolls for the upcoming dinner at Fiona’s. The days in Ireland were long and warm in late June. As she looked across the camp, awash with muted reds and yellows from the dying light, her eyes were drawn to the warm glow from inside Fiona’s cottage.
Even from a distance, it looked inviting and cozy. Sarah saw Fiona and Papin moving about the interior, doing the little homey chores necessary for putting a family meal together. She watched them until she saw Mike appear on the porch steps and heard Papin squeal her greeting to him.
She saw Mike open his arms and Papin and Fiona both came to him. Sarah would never forget the day, seven months ago, when Mike rode into camp with Papin cradled in his arms, her broken arm folded against her chest, her eyes wide with hope and expectation. When Sarah ran up to them, he dismounted and carried Papin to Sarah’s cottage. Sarah held the dear broken girl—and the man who had brought her home—and believed her heart would burst from happiness.
Since that day, Mike had stepped easily into the role of father to Papin, and the girl had responded like a Morning Glory to sunlight. Gregarious by nature, Papin slipped seamlessly into the pace and beat of family life as if she’d been born to it. For the first time ever, Papin had a loving family.
One thing everyone knew for sure: the bad times were behind her.
As Sarah packed her basket, it occurred to her that tonight was a typical evening meal with the people she loved most in the world. The anticipation she felt—hearing them share about their day and laughing with them, as she knew she would—filled her with a sense of wellbeing and security she’d never really had up to now.
The truth of it was they were finally all together—all except for David. A shadow passed over her heart as she thought of him, buried beneath a scattering of wild flowers in the far pasture by Deirdre and Seamus’s old cottage. She shook the thought from her mind. Tonight wasn’t the time for reflection or regrets or grief. It was a night for celebration and toasts and joy.
Tomorrow was Fiona’s wedding day.
***
Mike Donovan stood at the end of the aisle and watched the bride approach. He had to admit he had never seen her look more beautiful, her face flushed with excitement, her eyes sparkling when she saw him. It was all he could do to mask his quickly misting eyes as he gazed at her.
“You ready, then?” he asked gruffly, holding out his arm to her.
“As I’ll ever be,” Fiona said, grabbing on to his arm.
“Declan’s a good bloke,” Mike said, turning toward the chapel.
“I know.”
They stood at the end of the path as it wrapped around the last hut before entering the camp. It had been Sarah’s idea to have Mike and Fi approach the little chapel from the outdoor walkway. Mike had to admit, it felt even more special to take this walk with Fi, at the end of which he’d hand her over to the man who, in the last seven months, had become his closest mate since his school days.
Hard to believe it had been seven months since Declan and his gypsy gang of fortune tellers, goniffs, and grifters had stormed the little Irish settlement Mike had built and helped rescue them from an English assault. Seven months in which Declan had proved himself to be not only a friend and a capable lieutenant in managing the camp alongside Mike—but the one man in all the world that Mike’s sister, Fiona, would give her heart
“There’s the music,” Fi said, squeezing Mike’s arm. “I don’t know how your Sarah did it, but it really sounds pretty close to Haste to the Wedding.”
Mike grinned. His Sarah. As much as he loved the sound of that, and he knew Fiona only said it as a private gift to him on this special day, he also knew Sarah Woodson—an American stranded in Ireland with her family after an ill-timed vacation—belonged to no one.
It was true enough, however, that she was just about the most resourceful person he’d ever met. After everything that went down last year he had started calling her the female MacGyver.
“Let’s go, Mike,” Fi said, tugging on his arm. “I got the bugger to the altar but there’s no telling how long he’ll stay there.”
“He’ll stay,” Mike said, as he turned his attention back to his sister and her big day. “You’re not the only one who’s waited a long time for this day.”
***
The wedding could not be more perfect, Sarah thought as she dabbed her eyes, if it had been privately catered with a limo waiting for the happy couple afterward. As it was, they cut a homemade wedding cake that, due to the lack of sugar, tasted more like corn bread than cake and said their vows in front of a seriously inebriated justice of the peace in lieu of a proper priest. Just a few more things hard to come by after the bomb changed everyone’s world, Sarah thought grimly.
She turned to her thirteen-year-old son, who was whispering loudly to the bride’s nephew, Gavin. John was growing tall, like his father had been. His eighteen months of living in a world with no electricity, no electronics and no transportation beyond what a horse could provide had transformed him from an indulged child into a young man mature beyond his years.
Which didn’t mean he still didn’t need to be shushed from time to time. “John,” she whispered.
He turned to her, grinning apologetically and mouthed the words, Sorry, Mom.
Sarah turned back to the wedding to see Mike kiss Fiona at the altar in the little chapel that two weeks earlier had served as a granary shed, then go to stand by Declan.
She glanced at the calluses on her fingers. Before coming to Ireland a year and a half ago, she had worked in an advertising office in Jacksonville, Florida. Her major skillset involved the usual office equipment and word processing software.
A lot had changed since then. Nowadays she baked bread and dug in the dirt and milked goats and mended clothes that she wouldn’t have bothered giving to the poor once. Back then she’d had a paralyzing fear of horses. Now, she rode nearly every day and couldn’t imagine her life without the presence of the gentle, forgiving beasts.
Back home. It was a painful image that never got easier for Sarah. When the hydrogen bomb exploded over the Irish Sea eighteen months ago, it detonated an electromagnetic pulse that effectively flung Ireland and the United Kingdom back into the eighteen hundreds.
Sarah’s dreams, her thoughts, her world would always focus on the hope that one day she and John would go back home to the United States.
Papin sat to Sarah’s left. A young gypsy girl, a year older than John, Papin had known only abuse and prostitution before meeting Sarah in Wales last year.
“Do they kiss when they marry in America?” Papin asked in a loud whisper.
Sarah nodded and looked back at the ceremony. She felt responsible, in part, for Fiona’s happiness, since it was Sarah who’d met Declan and his band of gypsies and urged him to come to Donovan’s Lot. It would never have occurred to her then that the rambling, handsome gypsy who lived off the land—and by his wits—and the fisherman’s daughter would fall in love. It had been a pleasure to watch it unfold over the last months.
Fiona, at thirty-five, had never married. Opinionated, fiery with a wild mane of curly brown hair, she looked like a gypsy queen, Sarah thought. Who would have guessed she’d been waiting for her gypsy king to find her?
As for Declan, his extended family had assumed after awhile that he would not wed and had given him the mantle of the family leader and patriarch—even though none of the many gypsy children that scampered around the camp were his. When it became clear that he and Fiona intended to be together, it was as if Donovan’s Lot had engendered its own William and Catherine love story, so eagerly did the people in the community endorse the match.
Declan, in his suede boots and demi-jacket, turned to Fiona and drew her close to him. Sarah watched Fiona turn to her new husband, her eyes shining, mouth slightly open as if to gasp at the wonder of the moment.
When the couple kissed, Papin gave a loud sigh. “So romantic.”
Several people in the seats in front of where Sarah and the two children sat turned to smile at Papin.
It was romantic. And for sweet, darling Fi to find someone after all this time…Sarah caught her breath at the pleasure and sheer happiness for her dear friend. Her eyes strayed again to Mike, standing solemnly as the couple kissed and the crowd began to clap and cheer.
Were all brothers like this when their sisters got married? Sarah frowned. She would definitely need a word with him as soon as she could get him alone.
The wedding feast was well underway. Two long tables stood opposite the cook fire loaded with fruit pies, roast chicken, fried apples, corn fritters and pitchers of buttermilk.
Sarah watched Mike talking with a few of the other men—clearly discussing camp business of some kind from the serious nod of Mike’s head as he listened. A natural leader, he had created this community of over a hundred people by bringing together neighbors and family right after The Crisis happened to form a place of security and fellowship.
Where before there had been only pasture and field, an assortment of huts, cottages and sturdy tents now ringed the main campfire. There were rules in the community, but the underlying belief held by all was that there was safety in numbers, and a good life could still be had, even without electricity or cars.
Sarah edged her way to the circle of men and slipped into the center. “Excuse me, gents,” she said as she slipped an arm around Mike’s waist. “The presence of the brother of the bride is requested on the dance floor. I’m sure camp business can wait one night.”
She felt Mike’s arm drape around her shoulders. A big man, he towered over her but she was grateful he didn’t resort to stooping to accommodate her. She liked his size.
“Jimmy, Iain,” Mike said, “we’ll sort it out in the morning. Sarah’s right. Tonight’s for celebrating.”
“Without even a glass of beer?” Iain said, shaking his head.
“Well, seeing how we don’t have any, yes. Come on, old son, can ya not dance sober?”
“Not anything you want to see,” Jimmy said, laughing at his own wit.
Sarah pulled Mike free of the group. His arm felt relaxed around her shoulders, beer or not. Maybe he’d worked himself out of whatever mood she thought she’d detected.
“You okay?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Sure, and why wouldn’t I be? Me with my only sister wed to my best mate and the luscious Sarah Woodson all but pulling me into her arms for a dance?”
Sarah grinned when Mike’s hand moved from her shoulders to her waist and then to her bottom. She removed it firmly. “None of that, Mike Donovan. Especially as we don’t have alcohol to blame it on.”
“I don’t need to be drunk to want to feel your bum in me hands, Sarah.” His eyes glittered meaningfully.
“Mike, behave yourself. This is Fiona’s night.”
“Nothing I have in mind will take anything away from my sister’s night. And did you have to remind me?”
Sarah laughed. “I can’t believe how old-fashioned you are! She’s not a virgin, you know.”
“Blimey! Did I need to hear that?”
“We may live like we’re in the sixteen hundreds but we did all have twenty-first century lives until relatively recently.”
“It might surprise ya to know, Sarah Woodson, that I’m not so keen to be discussing my sister’s sex life.”
“Alright, settle down. I just want to make sure you’re okay. You looked a little grumpy up there during the ceremony.”
“Well, that’s just daft. I’m pleased as feckin’ punch for the both of them.”
“Remind me to make sure you don’t make any toasts to the happy couple.”
“And what would we even toast with?”
“God! Is it really the end of the world for an Irishman to have no alcohol?”
“I think you just answered your own question.” Mike pulled up a bench a few yards away from the music and the dancing and pulled Sarah onto his lap.
“Mike!” she squealed, but laughed as he held her firmly on his knee.
“Now we’ll just be watching the others dance and enjoy this special day,” he said. “And marvel to the good Lord above that it’s possible to do that without beer or whiskey. Sure, I’m not positive it is possible to do that, ya ken?”
Sarah slid off his lap and pulled him to a standing position. “Dance with me, Mike,” she said. “There’s no booze, no DJ, no canapés and no bouquet to catch. Dance with me.”
He stood up and followed her to the dirt dance floor, the rest of the dancers parting to make room for them. Some even clapped to see their leader—easily the tallest of them—coming among them. He nodded at Declan who was slow-dancing with Fiona and then drew Sarah into his arms. The music was scratchy and repetitive, but it was lively and had a beat.
As she relaxed in his arms Sarah glanced around the camp, taking note of where Papin and John were. Not surprisingly, John was standing with Gavin at the food table. The women of the camp had outdone themselves creating multiple tables of cakes, pies, ham, and devilled eggs.
She could see Papin on the dance floor. Iain, the man who had been arguing with Mike earlier, was methodically two stepping his way through the song, his large hands gripping her small waist. Sarah frowned. At thirty, Iain was way too old to be dancing with Papin. Plus, he was married.
She saw her fourteen-year-old adopted daughter’s eyes flash up at Iain as she spoke, the words drowned out by the music. Papin was flirting with Iain. It was practically the only way the girl knew how to relate to men. Half the time she did it to John and Mike, too, although they ignored it.
Iain didn’t seem to be ignoring it.
“Mike,” Sarah said in a low voice. She felt his body stiffen as she spoke. It hadn’t taken long for the two of them to develop an efficient shorthand communication.
“What is it?” he said. By the way he moved in her arms, she could tell he was looking around to see what had upset her. It didn’t take him long, either.
“Oy! Jamison!” he bellowed. “We’ll not be needing your minding services any longer.”
Papin reddened as Iain dropped his hands from her and backed away. “Da!” she said indignantly. “I’m not a baby!”
Mike had stepped up to the role of co-parenting Papin, a virtual orphan when she came to the camp last year, with Sarah. He had seen immediately that she needed a loving and firm male presence—and one who didn’t want to bed her.
Mike gave Sarah’s arm a squeeze of apology and went to Papin.
“I’ll be having this dance, milady?” he said, bowing at the waist.
Sarah held her breath but she needn’t have worried. Papin smiled at Mike and held up her hands for him to pick her up and swing her, which he did, to her delighted giggles.
Sarah saw Fiona sitting on one of the long wooden benches that had been brought out to line the center campfire. She sat holding the hem of her gown away from the dirt on the ground, her eyes wide with exhaustion and joy. Sarah joined her on the bench.
She reached out and patted Fiona’s knee. “Are you happy?”
Fiona turned her face to Sarah with real delight. “Oh, so happy, Sarah. I wish you this kind of happiness.”
“I had it once, remember.”
“Sure, that’s right. With your David.”
Fiona fanned herself. A light mist of perspiration coated her face, giving her the effect of glowing.
Sarah held her friend’s hand. “Declan is a good man. I can’t tell you how happy I am for you both.”
“Ta, Sarah. As happy as I’d be if you and Mike were ever to stop playing around and get down to being together.”
Sarah squeezed her hand and found herself looking for Mike in the crowd of laughing, dancing bodies milling around the center courtyard. She knew Fiona was right. Just seeing Mike, the way his body moved, the way he looked at her, was enough to make her want to grab his hand and take him right back to her cottage with a Do Not Disturb sign on the door. He would probably always have that effect on her.
She wasn’t exactly sure why things hadn’t moved along in that direction. It certainly wasn’t for lack of broad hints and downright trying on Mike’s part.
She finally spotted him, his hand on one hip, leaning down to listen, as an elderly couple seemed to be talking earnestly to him about something. Sarah loved seeing him like this, unaware of her—or anyone—and doing what he did best: looking after the families in Donovan’s Lot. His face was kind, his eyes alert as he listened. He was a good leader, Sarah mused. A little given to the my-way-or-the-highway type thinking, but possibly that was normal for natural-born leaders.
“I know you’re hot for him, Sarah Woodson. A blind person could see that. And you know he’s burned for you since the day he laid eyes on you.”
“Okay, Fi, let’s focus on one romance at a time, shall we?”
Fiona shook her head, but she smiled and plucked at the lace cuff of her wedding dress, a dated cocktail dress that some of the women in camp had fitted to Fiona’s slim body. “I just can’t believe he’s mine, you know?”
“Trust me, Declan’s saying the same thing.”
“Which is even more amazing to me.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be, Fi. You were just holding out for the right one.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Fi said laughing. “Oh, here’s my husband. I think he’s got that ‘it’s time we’re away, wench’ look in his eye.”
“I think you’re right.” Sarah stood up as Declan approached, his faced flushed, his gaze focused on the only woman he had eyes for.
“Excuse me, Sarah,” he said, “I’ll be taking me bride, now. Fi?” He held his arms out to Fiona and she slipped easily into them. The two kissed and Fi pulled him away toward their cottage. “See you in the morning, Sarah,” she said over her shoulder.
“Aye, but not too early, mind,” Declan called out as the two disappeared into the evening.
Smiling, Sarah pulled her cardigan around her shoulders and turned back to the party, which appeared to be winding down. She could see mothers pulling their children back to huts and tents. While there was no sugar to wire the little ones, the music and general excitement had served to make most of them cranky and tearful.
“The lovebirds call it a night?”
Sarah turned to see Mike approaching with two steaming mugs in his hands. He handed one to her.
“Oh, that’s perfect,” she said, taking the cup. She sipped slowly and then coughed, her face reddening. She put a hand to her mouth. “Is there whiskey in this?” she whispered around another small cough. “You could’ve warned me, first.”
“I find the sneak attack is often more effective for my purposes. It’s some of the last of what we got from that trip to Limerick in the spring. There’s only just a dram so don’t go broadcasting it.”
“Perks of the rank?” Sarah asked, reseating herself on the bench.
“Something like that. Fi and Dec pack it in?”
“Please don’t put it like that,” Sarah said with a grin.
“Oh, very funny. You just don’t quit, do you?”
“Well, not when you make it so easy to tease you.”
They sat, shoulder to shoulder, sipping their whisky and hot tea and watching the last of the partiers pick up children, food, and musical instruments. A few of the gypsies—Declan’s extended family—seemed to be bedding down around the center campfire, which would burn all night long.
“Papin and John in bed, do you know?”
Mike shook his head. “They’re in your cottage but too excited to sleep, I’ll wager.”
“It was a perfect night,” Sarah said, finishing off her drink.
Mike took both cups and set them aside. “The night’s not over yet,” he said in a low voice.
When she saw his eyes regarding her, so full of tenderness and care, it was all she could do not to climb onto his lap right there. He was so much a part of her world, her support system in this life. So strong, so confident.
So damn sexy.
Her face must have expressed more than she intended because he leaned in and kissed her mouth. A slow kiss she couldn’t push away from.
She placed her hands on his broad shoulders and fell into the kiss, feeling him pull her close into his chest. A small moan escaped her lips as he looked into her dark eyes.
“Yes, Sarah?” he whispered.
“God, yes,” she responded without hesitating.
“I’d pick you up and carry you there,” he growled, his voice full of urgent need, “but I don’t want to alert the camp to my intentions.”
“Our intentions,” Sarah said, kissing him firmly. “I can walk. At least for now.”
“God, woman, every word out of your mouth is making me hard as a brick.” He tilted her head back to see her face lit by the firelight, her neck long and bare. He kissed her again.
“Oy, Mike! You still up, son? Is that you over yonder I see snoggin’ the Widow Woodson? Mike?”
Sarah stood up quickly, straightening her blouse and pulling her cardigan around her in time to see Jimmy Baskerville waving at Mike from across the campfire.
“Bloody hell,” Mike cursed, shaking his head. “Are ya kidding me?”
Sarah would have laughed if she weren’t so annoyed by the interruption herself—and if she hadn’t noticed that Jimmy was approaching with a stranger in tow.
“Oy, Mike,” Jimmy said, walking to stand in front of Mike, still seated. “We got us a visitor and you said we’re always to bring ‘em before yerself, like, whenever that happens.”
The stranger stood behind Jimmy, almost as if hiding, Sarah thought. He looked bedraggled and hungry. He’d clearly been traveling and living off the land for many weeks, if not longer. Camp policy was to welcome all travelers with food and a bed for the night.
“I don’t mean to disrupt the festivities,” the man said, peeking out from behind Jimmy. “But a bit of grub would be welcome.”
Sarah saw Mike work to pull himself together and shake off his disappointment. He nodded to Jimmy. “Go see if Molly is still up and have her put together a sandwich.” Jimmy saluted him and turned on his heel.
The traveler stood alone now, his eyes darting from Sarah to Mike like a canary between two cats.
“Won’t you sit down?” she said, although the grunt she heard from Mike indicated he had hoped the man wouldn’t be staying long.
“Thank you, missus,” he said, not moving. He had a tattered backpack on his shoulder, and even in the dark Sarah could see it held very little. She returned to her seat on the bench.
“Please, sit,” Sarah said again. “We usually ask visitors if they have any news to share.” She was hoping to make him feel less like a beggar by suggesting he had something to offer to the camp. The effect of her words on him was immediate.
“Can I ask you, missus,” he said, “if the way you speak is because you’re American? I’ve got nothing against Yanks, mind,” he said hurriedly. Not everyone in Ireland shared his tolerant attitude, Sarah knew.
“Yes, that’s right,” she said. “I’m from Florida. I was on vacation in Ireland when The Crisis happened.”
The man seemed to relax a little. He knelt in the dirt and shrugged off his pack and then slowly sat down, crossing his knees Indian-style on the ground. “Well, it’s mebbe that I do have news for you, in that case.”
Mike, who had been watching the newcomer closely, turned his head to look at Sarah. Had she gasped? News about America —other than groundless rumor—was rare these days.
“Yes?” she said. “You’ve news about the US?”
“It happens, I do, missus. I’m coming from Rathcoole. Been on the road, I guess, three weeks since but I reckon the news is still fresh.”
Jimmy appeared with a ham sandwich. He had a few deviled eggs wrapped in paper, too. “Sorry about no juice,” he said. “But we’ve been dry for months now.” He handed the newcomer a flask of water.
The traveler shook his head and took a large bite. He looked at this audience apologetically as he chewed. “Forgive me. Fresh bread…I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
He’s starving, Sarah thought. It was sometimes easy to forget that outside the walls of Donovan’s Lot there were many who struggled daily just to survive.
“I’m Mike Donovan. You’re welcome to stay the night. Jimmy’ll find a place for you to throw down a bedroll.”
“Ta very much. The name’s Randy Paxton.”
“English?” Sarah asked.
“No, missus. I’m from up north.”
“You’ve come a long way.”
“This news,” Mike said, eyeing the man suspiciously. “Where did you come by it?”
“News? He’s got news?” Jimmy looked at Mike. “Should I rouse the camp?”
Mike waved him back down into his seat. “Unless the news is that the bloody British are invading, we’ll have time enough tomorrow.”
Paxton finished off his sandwich and drained the water flask. “Thank you kindly for the food,” he said. “I came by my news in Dublin.”
“How is Dublin?” Mike asked.
“It’s…I don’t rightly know how to say it. I was there just shy of three months. It was the three longest months of my life.”
“Crime?”
“Aye, and sickness.”
Sarah felt her pulse quicken. “Disease?”
Paxton nodded grimly. “Garbage in the streets. And worse.”
Mike grunted. “It’s not surprising. The wonder is people hadn’t started getting sick before now.”
“You said you had news of the Americans,” Sarah said, tapping her nails against the seat of the bench.
“Aye, missus. In Dublin it was just a rumor, but when I came through Limerick I saw it for myself.”
“Saw what? What did you see, man?” Mike asked.
“The Air Lift, they call it. The Yanks have their military in Limerick and they’re coming and going back and forth to the US like nothing ever happened. I saw the transport helicopters and also the big planes. Looked like whole families were leaving.”
Sarah gasped and stood up, knocking the two teacups she’d shared with Mike to the ground. She was vaguely aware of his hand on her arm.
Limerick was only a day’s ride away.
She turned to look out beyond the boundaries of the camp, her eyes glittering with awe and wonder. “We can go home,” she said, her voice a whisper. “Thank you, God, it’s finally happened. We can go home.”
The road home started the next morning with a rock wedged tight against a horse’s frog, a steady drizzle, and a morning so quiet not even the birds seemed up for it.
In spite of the bad weather and the bruised hoof, the nine-hour ride to Limerick was uneventful. Mike rode without speaking, and Sarah decided that was probably a good idea—at least until they knew all the facts. If she and the children really were going to be able to go back to the States there would be plenty of time to deal with the emotional fall-out later.
And if they weren’t, well, she assumed the ride back to camp would be a little merrier for at least one of them.
Nine hours later they entered the first gateway leading to the center of town. One thing was certain, Sarah thought, as they rode through the city center, now that the Americans had come to town, Limerick was a vibrant, noisy metropolis of controlled chaos. As they passed groups of US servicemen, Sarah couldn’t help but think this must have been how it was during World War II when England was damaged, rationed and shell-shocked and the American GIs showed up with their chocolate bars and nylons. The 1940’s lament “over paid, over sexed, and over here” was accurate then, and it looked to be pretty accurate now.
The streets were full of working military jeeps shuttling well-fed American servicemen from one point to the other. Up and down the main drag, food kiosks and makeshift pubs were doing a bustling business, whereas not six months before they had heard news that the whole place had been little more than a ghost town. Sarah’s first thought when she saw all the trading activity was that they would be able to get some supplies they needed for Donovan’s Lot. Then she remembered they had nothing of value to bargain with. She tried to see what was being used for currency and thought she saw people handling greenbacks.
The excitement in the streets was palpable. The feeling that things were definitely getting back to normal imbued every happy face she saw as they rode down the paved street to the cul-de-sac where the American consulate was located.
Mike took the horses and went to buy sandwiches. He would wait for her in the little courtyard out front of the embassy. Before The Crisis, it had featured a koi pond and a cultivated French garden, with careful, manicured lines of lawn and flower beds. Since then, it had clearly been used as a parking lot for horses and wagons.
The moment Sarah stepped inside the consulate, the sight of the American flag that hung over the main foyer brought tears to her eyes. A young man in a US Air Force uniform sat at the reception desk. He looked up with a smile.
“Afternoon, ma’am,” he said. “Can I help you?”
“I’m an American,” Sarah said, feeling her throat close up as she said the words.
The young man’s face broke into an easy grin. “Well, ma’am,” he said with a Texas drawl. “Then I guess you’re home now.”
The consulate was able to find suitable, if separate, lodging for both Mike and Sarah, as well as boarding for their horses. In the meantime, she met with an adjutant who scheduled the necessary travel arrangements for her return to the States. Later, she shared a largely silent meal at the pub with Mike and fell into her borrowed bed exhausted and too excited to sleep.
The next morning, after an American breakfast of fresh orange juice, steak, eggs, and grits, which Sarah noticed Mike pushed around with his fork instead of eating, they tacked up their horses and left for the return ride back to Donovan’s Lot.
A very quiet ride back to Donovan’s Lot.
In Sarah’s saddlebag were three travel vouchers to the United States.
In the nine hours it took to ride back, Sarah hadn’t been able to think of three things in a row she could imagine Mike would want to hear. The thoughts that buzzed relentlessly through her mind were a jumble of giddy excitement the upcoming reunion with her parents, and the growing knowledge of impending loss.
When they finally arrived in camp, worn out more by the tension of all that was unspoken than the actual ride itself, Mike, his face unreadable, took both horses and disappeared in the direction of the stable.
Sarah walked across the length of the camp to its center and her cottage. Papin and John would be sleeping at Fiona and Declan’s.
She hesitated on the porch of her cottage and watched the moon dip behind the lacy shreds of remnant clouds. There were a few gypsies sleeping by the fire.
Her glance strayed toward the direction Mike had gone. To be physically so close to him all day long and yet feel so far away from him was not something she was used to. Mike had a bigger-than-life quality that seemed to push down barriers and grab a person by the lapels. She smiled sadly remembering the first time she’d ever laid eyes on him. She had pointed a loaded Glock at him while he stood, regarding her with bemused interest, unarmed and blocking her only escape route.
The truth was the man had always crossed her picket lines—whether she’d been married or not—right from the start.
And nothing had ever felt more right to her.
She sighed and sat down on the porch steps. Whatever joy she felt yesterday when it was confirmed that the Americans were indeed gathering up their stranded nationals for the trip home had long given away to stark practicalities. Witnessing the crushing disappointment of the man who in the last year had become the single biggest part of her life felt like a knife in her heart. It took every ounce of courage she had to remember that as much as it hurt her to see Mike so miserable, it was necessary to endure if she were to stay resolute. And for John’s sake, she knew she must.
John. She flinched at the thought of her last conversation with him. Turns out Mike isn’t the only one who can’t celebrate the good news. Before she left for Limerick, John had told her flat-out he wouldn’t leave.
Sarah rubbed the night’s chill from her bare arms. There was no sense in waiting for Mike to finish with the horses. Anything she could have said to him, she’d had nine hours to say. She stood up and surveyed the camp briefly before turning toward her front door, the exhaustion of the day finally settling on her shoulders like a fifty-pound sack of feed.
No, there was nothing for the fact that this wonderful news would bring no joy to the people who mattered most to her. But that didn’t stand in the way of the fact she knew it was the right thing to do.
The next morning, Sarah awoke to a pounding on her cottage door. She wore a long tee shirt of David’s that she slept in and opened the door to reveal Fiona, fully dressed, her hands on her hips and clearly ready for battle.
“Goodness, you’re up early. I don’t even have the stove lit,” Sarah said, stepping out of the way to let Fiona storm past her. “I don’t suppose you brought a thermos of Starbucks?”
“So, it’s official, is it?” Fiona strode to the center of Sarah’s cottage and whirled around on her. “You’ll have your on-demand television and upscale chain grocery stores, and sure, nobody could blame you. Why not? Nice to know this is all we mean to you. A hardship made a little less hard, that’s all.”
“So I guess that’s a no on the coffee,” Sarah said as she shut the door. “I haven’t gotten the tea started yet.” She moved into the kitchen and began sticking wood and kindling into the cook stove.
“I cannot believe you’re doing this, Sarah. I cannot believe this is all we mean to you. A stop-over until you could get where you really want to be.”
Sarah straightened up and faced her. “And you wouldn’t do the same, Fiona? If you could go home again? See your folks again?”
“You can see them and then come back. If you stay there it’s because you value convenience and drive-thru banking over your friends. Over Mike.”
“That’s not true.”
“If you don’t come back, then it is true.”
“Look, Fi, if it were just me, I would—”
“Oh, please. Spare me.”
“I can’t leave John there. Would you ask me to do that?”
“He loves it here! Mike is as close to a father as the lad’ll ever have after David. Why don’t you ask John if he wants to go?”
Fiona obviously knew John was vehemently opposed to going back to the States.
Sarah turned to light the stove. “Sometimes, the best things for our children aren’t the things they’ll thank us for in the moment.”
“Got an answer for everything, don’t you, Sarah? Why do I bother? Clearly, you want to go. And here’s me thinking we were sisters and all.”
Sarah whirled around to face her. “We are sisters! If you were a mother you’d understand why I can’t leave my only child in the US! You wouldn’t even suggest it.”
“Then don’t leave him. Bring him back with you.”
“I can’t. If he has a chance to go to college and live a normal life, which he does back home, then he deserves to have that chance. His father was a college professor, for crap’s sake. Am I going to allow David’s son to pick pole beans for the rest of his life instead of going to college?”
“Is that what you think we’re doing here? Growing pole beans and scratching our bums?”
“Well, you’re not doing a whole hell of a lot of reading and writing as far as I can see. And I get it. This life is hard and it’s about surviving. How can you fault me for wanting something better for my son? This kind of life can’t compare to the opportunities he’ll have in the States. Opportunities that are his birthright.”
“Well, then I guess we have nothing more to discuss.”
“You can’t understand why I’m doing this? Really?”
“We’re done, Sarah. Go to America. We don’t need your help for the harvest. In fact, it’s bloody cheek, throwing your scraps at us, saying you’ll stay to help. Typical bloody Yank, if you ask me.”
Sarah could see tears threatening in Fiona’s eyes, which felt worse than anything she’d said so far. She took a step toward her but Fiona bolted for the door, slamming it on her way out. Sarah watched her friend stomp across the camp, grabbing up a basket of wet laundry as she went. In their last year together in the camp, the two had nearly decided to move in together until Declan began to stake his claim and it became clear that Fiona would only be a temporary roommate.
As Sarah watched her now, her heart squeezed to think she might never see Fiona again after next month. Sarah couldn’t imagine a friendship back home as close. She turned back to her kitchen. Of course, she hadn’t depended on pals back home to quite the extent she’d had to with Fiona in the months following The Crisis.
It was a different world. When it came to forging relationships, she had to admit, maybe a better one.
She returned to the kitchen and pulled out a bowl of dough she’d allowed to rise all night. She grabbed the dough and began to knead and shape it until it was satiny smooth before plopping it back in the wooden bowl she always used. It was Dierdre’s bowl, the dear old woman who had taught Sarah so much in the weeks right after all the lights went out.
She touched the rim of it, worn smooth after decades of shaping dough. Sarah wouldn’t bring many things back home with her, but she’d like to have the bowl. On the other hand, items of function here were valuable, this bowl no less so. She would leave it in camp.
Voices coming quickly closer made her glance out the kitchen window. Papin and John were coming in. She frowned. John should be with Gavin, minding the goats in the north pasture—or mending harnesses or whatever chores Mike had them doing. At midday, it wasn’t usual for him to be home.
“Mum!” Papin called as the two entered the cottage. “Da gave John the day off to help you pack.” The girl frowned and looked around the cottage. “Cor, we’re not bringing any of this shite with us, are we?”
“Watch your language, Papin,” Sarah said, wiping her hands on her apron. “Well, that was nice of him, although not necessary. I told him we wouldn’t go until after the harvest. That’s four weeks yet.”
John sat at the table and threw a ball against the wall. It hit with a loud whack and rolled back to him. It looked to be a cricket ball.
“Stop that, John. As long as you’re here, you can fill up the wood box. I’m baking all day tomorrow and I’ll need at least twice as much as I have in there.”
John didn’t move or look at her.
“And Papin? Aren’t you to be helping Auntie Fi with the wash? I’m sure I heard her say you were.”
“She told me not to bother,” Papin said cheerfully. “Is there anything to eat? Only me and John haven’t had our tea yet, have we, John?”
Sarah sighed. She supposed she couldn’t force Fiona to have Papin help her, but the child managed better—even at the best of times—if she was kept busy. Sarah pulled out a piece of bread and spread it with the soft churned butter she kept on the table.
“I have some things you can do for me, in that case,” she said, cutting the slice in half and handing one to each of them.
John shook his head. “Not hungry.”
It took everything Sarah had not to scold him for his sullenness. But they’d already had all the words that could be said between them on the subject. Nothing she could say was going to make it any easier for him. He had it in his head that his home was here and his friends were here and his family was here, and that’s all there was to it.
At thirteen, he wasn’t really a child anymore. Except, of course, he was.
“Well then, go ahead and fetch the wood, John,” she said, turning back to the stove. “Dinner will be same as usual.”
“Except we won’t be having it with Aunt Fi and Uncle Dec, I guess.”
Sarah’s shoulders sagged but she turned back to him. “It’s true your Aunt Fi and I are working something out. But mostly it’s because she’s a newlywed and needs some alone time with her new husband. Okay?”
John frowned as if he hadn’t thought of that. “Really?”
Papin elbowed John in the ribs. “And you know what she means when she says alone time, don’t you, boyo?”
“That’s enough, Papin. Off you go, now, John.”
He pulled himself to his feet and trudged out the door, banging it shut behind him.
“All right, Papin, the dishes won’t do themselves. The rag is by the tub.”
“It’s impossible to clean them without soap,” Papin whined.
“It just takes longer. Like everything else in this life.”
“But not back in America.” Papin grabbed the rag and began polishing a ceramic dish with it. “Tell me more about what our lives will be like back there.”
“Well, we’ll have automatic dishwashers, of course. But I don’t want you to think there won’t be chores.”
“Work for the sake of work? To build character?”
“Something like that. And school, of course.”
“I’m too old for that.”
“Well, you’re not.”
“Sarah, I’ll be the class eejit! I’ll be in the same grade with the five-year-olds or the half-wits.”
“You’ll be in a class with people your age and ability. Don’t worry, it’s going to be fine.”
“And you’ll teach me to drive, right? Will we have a car straightaway? And all of us with smartphones? I had a mobile phone before The Crisis, you know.”
Sarah saw Papin stare moodily out the window, as if remembering her phone.
“It’s hard to imagine how different our lives will be,” Papin said softly, as if to herself.
Sarah turned back to the chicken she was plucking—a job she loathed and one that always reminded her of three terrible days she spent living in a chicken-processing factory in the Cotswolds—when it occurred to her that different might not necessarily be better.
A part of her hated the fact that she’d said they’d stay until after the harvest was in. As upsetting as their leaving was for everyone, it would be so much easier just to rip the bandage off and go. But the harvest was a lot of work and three extra hands picking and sorting would make a big difference to the community.
As Papin started to hum, a flash of red outside the window caught Sarah’s eye. It was Mike, wearing a red tee shirt, leading his gelding through the camp and talking with Gavin, who was trotting to keep up with Mike’s long stride. Seeing him unexpectedly like this gave her a funny fluttering feeling in the pit of her stomach, as it always did.
Watching him, she found herself facing down the barrel of a nascent thought she had kept at bay all these months of living so close to him, the same thought that had been slowly forming through the long, tense ride home yesterday.
I’m in love with him.
As she watched him, knowing for sure how she felt—how she had always felt—and knowing it just when she was about to leave for good was about the sickest, most excruciating feeling she’d had in a long, long time.
And she had felt some pretty sick things in the last eighteen months.
***
“So will we still have Lughnasa this year?” Gavin swung down from his horse. He, Mike and Declan gazed at the long line of irregular fence posts jammed into the ground before them.
Declan frowned. “Do ya usually have a harvest fair?” he asked Mike.
Mike shook his head. “What’s usual? We’ve never had a proper harvest ‘til now.”
“Right.”
“I meant what with Mrs. Woodson and John and Papin leaving straight after the harvesting,” Gavin said.
Declan patted his pony’s neck. “Sure, it’ll put a damper on things.”
“We’ll have the festival,” Mike said firmly to Gavin, “to celebrate the year’s harvest no matter what. Meanwhile, we need to get busy on these defensive boundaries.”
“Busy how, Da?” Gavin said. “It’s impossible to string wire between all the posts. We don’t have it to hang for one thing.”
Declan scratched his head. “I didn’t want to say anything, but wouldn’t it make more sense to use what fencing we do have to strengthen the pastures? Surely, keeping our livestock corralled has to come first…”
“First behind our security.” Mike said. “Nothing comes before that.”
“But, Da, we can’t put a fence around the camp. It’s just not…not…”
“Feasible,” Declan finished.
“Feasible or not, it’s what we’ll do. I’d suggest the two of you get working instead of working your gobs.”
“But, Da—”
“This is not a democracy, Gavin,” Mike said severely. “I have given considerable thought to the situation and I’ve decided that strengthening our perimeter is the best use of our resources for the now.”
“Why not have us dig a moat while we’re at it?” Gavin said under his breath as he turned away.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
“Too right.”
As Gavin mounted his horse and rode to the first fence post in the line, Declan turned to his friend. “Fi’s right out of her mind over Sarah and young John leaving.”
“I know.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“Who? Sarah? And what would I be saying? ‘Don’t go back to your own country where life is still normal but stay here and plant turnips with your new friends?’ Besides, she’s made up her mind.”
“Fi’s practically mental she’s so pissed off.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“How are you doing?”
Mike shrugged. “It is what it is.”
“You’re wrong about messing around with the perimeter fencing. It won’t keep anyone out who wants in bad enough.”
Mike clapped a heavy hand on Declan’s shoulder. “Dec, me boyo, I’ll tell you what I told me lazy gobshite of a son.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know, we’re not a democracy.”
Mike watched as Declan pulled out a roll of fencing wire from his saddlebag and began unspooling it. It was late July but still not hot, even at midday. By Mike’s calculations, they should start harvesting within the week. There was a good crop this second year and they would have much to celebrate.
He went to his horse and rummaged around in his saddlebag for pliers. They didn’t work nearly as well as wire cutters would but, like everything else in this new world, he would make do with what he had.
The summer day had a fresh scent to it that filled his lungs with the pleasure of being alive and a part of it all. He caught a glimpse of a butterfly moth inspecting one of the gorse bushes by the closest fencepost.
As he watched it flit through the leaves, he found himself thinking that to his dying day he would remember the look on Sarah’s face when she realized she could leave Ireland and go back to the US. There was no conflict, no doubt, no ambivalence at all. Just sheer undiluted joy at the thought of leaving Ireland.
Of leaving me.
Didn’t he always know this time might come? Would come? Ever since that first US military helicopter showed up last year, wasn’t it always just a matter of time before another one came?
Honestly, as he’d told Fiona earlier that morning, he had hoped that his relationship with Sarah would have progressed to the point that she wouldn’t want to go home. He shook the thoughts away. What possible good is to think like that now? He and Sarah had been close this last year, but not in the way he’d hoped. And now there was no more time.
Now she was leaving.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Declan had stood up from his fencepost and was looking down to where Gavin worked. Mike twisted around to see what he was looking at.
“Who do you suppose that is?” Declan said.
Gavin stood a hundred yards in the distance, his hands on his hips, his long hair moving in the summer breeze. He was talking to a tall man with a pack on his back.
Mike swung up into his saddle and put his heels into his horse’s side. “Stay here,” he said to Declan with more force than necessary as he cantered the distance to his son and the stranger.