Not that it mattered a pile. We let the images roll on while Arthur pulled the rings on the cans of Harp and put out the Tayto crisps for the waynes. They all looked a bit peaky. There was nothing to say except prayers for all the poor families who would never be whole again. God save us all, says Arthur, his voice catching. He raised his can and we raised ours, clinked and drank deeply to the hollow toast.

It seems that Ulster Television had been given a warning, the Samaritans had been given a warning, and the army had been given a warning. But the car had been parked on the wrong street, not in front of the intended target of Omagh courthouse, so the RUC were actually moving people on to it when it exploded. It was just another mistake in a swollen sea of mistakes. Omagh, our county town, was once again in the news.

It’s hard to adjust to such a sickening scene when you’ve just come in from fields swamped with buttercups and daisies, growing lush and perfect and impossible to make any sense of it. It would be days before we knew how many were dead, how many were injured, but we knew from experience it would be a lot. There was nothing to see but damage. Fear grew back into a knot in my guts: would I really have peace to finish rearing my sons? Would they be safe? It was only a few hours earlier that we’d made the decision not to let our children go. It would be a day to remember.

I look at them all now, white-faced and staring, speechless like John. Bridie, Auntie Eileen and Bernie are crying but they too are silent. Arthur had stepped out to mourn in private. Like everyone we were watching, picking their way through the shattered glass from blown-up shops, covered in dust and blood, Serena had only wanted to go out shopping and laughing in the sunshine.

I realise that she’s left my side. I hear her on the phone sobbing. I know she’s finally got through to the Reilly house. She shouldn’t have to have this conversation, I think to myself. No one should ever have to have this conversation, never mind a sixteen-year-old. She’s hardly done being a child, although she doesn’t know it. I want to be back, back, all the way back through the years, holding her against my waist and kissing her face until she squirms away to see to her dolls and teddy bears and their many picnics. Her pain and her words tear through me like shrapnel. I can’t keep any of us from harm.

–  Oh Nora! Thank God! I thought you were dead! I thought I’d lost you!