Free Falling Read Online Free Page B

her.
     
    An hour later, all the horses had been fed and their stalls cleaned. David threw the pitchfork onto the muck cart and pulled the cart behind the barn where there was a huge pile of manure.
    “I wonder if I have a job to go home to,” he said to himself as he dumped the steaming horseshit onto the pile.
     “I guess we won’t know until communications have been restored.” Sarah came up behind him, and wiped her hands on a towel.
    He looked up at her. “That might take months.”
     “And you think we should just live here in the meantime?”
    “Got any better ideas?”
    She looked at the pile of horse manure. “My God, how our lives have changed in the blink of an eye.”
    “Come on,” he said, grabbing the cart to steer it back around the barn. “Let’s find the damn goat.”
    The goat was in the pasture with a kid.
    John was delighted. “Isn’t he cute, Mom?” He laughed as the baby goat jumped around him.
    “Does this mean we can’t milk her?” Sarah asked.
    “Were you going to milk her?” David asked with surprise.
    “Well, I assume that’s what Siobhan meant when we said we needed milk and she referenced the goat.”
    David laughed. “God, this keeps getting weirder and weirder.”
    “Do we let them run wild out here?” She looked at the huge pasture. “I mean, is this where they live?”
    “Beats the heck out of me,” he replied, running his fingers through his hair.
    “Do we feed them? Can’t make very nice milk if we don’t feed them grain, do you think?”
    “Sarah, I have no idea,” David replied. “I’m a city boy.”
    “Lotta help that is!” she said, laughing. “Just what I need on a farm in rural Ireland in the middle of a damn blackout with no food and no clue—a damn philosophy professor.”
    He started to grin. “Well, I suppose I could analyze the bigger questions here.”
    “Yeah, that’d be helpful,” she said. “God knows, you’ll have time to do it, too.”
    They both laughed.
    “Are you guys okay?” John asked, frowning. He was holding the squirming kid in his arms.
    “We’re losing it!” Sarah said, still laughing.
    “Well, I wish you’d both chill,” he said. “You’ve got a child to think of.” Which just set them off even more, with David holding his sides and tears coursing down his face.
    That night they ate salted baked potatoes without butter and canned meat from the root cellar that looked and tasted like shredded Spam. John revisited his rickets question.
    “Look,” his mother said. “It’s only September so there should be berry patches somewhere. Tomorrow we’ll go looking. And there’s a jar of jam in the cabinet—”
    “With nothing to put it on,” John complained.
    “I’m going to make bread tomorrow,” Sarah said.
    “You are?” David asked.
    “We’ve got salt and water and bags of flour in the cellar. I don’t think I even need yeast to make it work.”
    “Eggs would be good,” David said as he got up to clear the table. “I wonder if we can meet up with our neighbors and maybe trade something for some eggs.”
    “How do we cook ‘em?” Sarah asked. “We’ll need butter or lard. This is all so difficult.”
     “Let’s just take this one step at a time.”
    “Who knows we’re here?” John asked.
    “What do you mean? Our whole family knows we’re in Ireland.”
    “What if they’ve all been killed?”
    “Don’t even say that, John. Our family is fine, I know it. They’re probably working right this minute to try to get us home.”
    “What if it’s worse for them? Maybe they don’t even have a house? At least we have a roof.”
    The rain began again as if to underscore the point.
    “Trust me, sweetie,” Sarah said as she kissed him. “If no one comes for us, we’ll get out and back home on our own somehow.”
    “Promise?”
    “Absolutely.” She looked at David and he nodded at John.
    “Promise, son,” he said.
     
    Sometime in the middle of the night, Sarah put a hand out to