"You are in so much trouble, Ciara!" Holly screamed. She opened the door and burst her way in, putting on her most terrifying face.

"I told you not to come in!" wailed Ciara. Holly was about to start screaming all sorts of insulting things at her sister but stopped herself when she saw Ciara sitting on the floor with what looked like a photo alb.u.m on her lap and tears streaming down her face.

TWENTY-ONE.

"OH CIARA, WHAT'S WRONG?" HOLLY said soothingly to her younger sister. Holly was worried; she couldn't remember the last time she had seen her cry, in fact, she didn't know Ciara even knew how to cry. Whatever had reduced her strong sister to tears must be something serious.

"Nothing's wrong," Ciara said, snapping the photo alb.u.m shut and sliding it under her bed. She seemed embarra.s.sed to be caught crying, and she wiped her face roughly, trying to look like she didn't care.

Downstairs on the couch, Declan peeped his head out from under the cushion. It was eerily quiet up there; he hoped they hadn't done anything stupid to each other. He tiptoed upstairs and listened outside the door.

"Something is wrong," Holly said, crossing the room to join her sister on the floor. She wasn't sure how to deal with Ciara like this. This was a complete role reversal; ever since they'd been kids it was always Holly who had done all the crying. Ciara was supposed to be the tough one.

"I'm fine," Ciara snapped.

"OK," Holly said, looking around, "but if there's something on your mind that's upsetting you, you know you can talk to me about it, don't you?"

Ciara refused to look at her and just nodded her head. Holly began to stand up to leave her sister in peace when all of a sudden Ciara burst into tears. Holly quickly sat back down and wrapped her arms protectively around her younger sister. Holly stroked Ciara's silky pink hair while her sister cried quietly.

"Do you want to tell me what's wrong?" she asked softly.

Ciara gurgled some sort of reply and sat up to slide the photo alb.u.m back out from under the bed. She opened it with trembling hands and flicked a few pages.

"Him," she said sadly, pointing to a photograph of her and some guy Holly didn't recognize. Holly barely recognized her sister. She looked so different and so much younger. The photograph was taken on a beautiful sunny day on a boat overlooking the Sydney Opera House. Ciara was sitting happily on the man's knee with her arms wrapped around his neck, and he was staring at her with a huge smile on his face. Holly couldn't get over how Ciara looked. She had blond hair, which Holly had never seen on her sister before, and a great big smile on her face. Her features looked much softer and she didn't look like she was going to bite someone's head off for a change.

"Is that your boyfriend?" Holly asked carefully.

"Was," Ciara sniffed, and a tear landed on the page.

"Is that why you came home?" she asked softly, wiping a tear from her sister's face.

Ciara nodded.

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

Ciara gasped for breath. "We had a fight."

"Did he..." Holly chose her words carefully. "He didn't hurt you or anything, did he?"

Ciara shook her head. "No," she spluttered, "it was just over something really stupid and I said I was leaving and he said he was glad..." She trailed off as she started sobbing again.

Holly held her in her arms and waited till Ciara was ready to talk again.

"He didn't even come to the airport to say good-bye to me."

Holly rubbed Ciara's back soothingly as if she were a baby who had just drunk her bottle. She hoped Ciara wouldn't throw up on her. "Has he called you since?"

"No, and I've been home for two months, Holly," she wailed. She looked up at her older sister with such sad eyes Holly almost felt like crying. She didn't like the sound of this guy at all for hurting her sister. Holly smiled at her encouragingly. "Then do you think that maybe he's not the right kind of person for you?"

Ciara started crying again. "But I love Mathew, Holly, and it was only a stupid fight. I only booked the flight because I was angry, I didn't think he would let me go..." She stared for a long time at the photograph.

Ciara's bedroom windows were wide open and Holly listened to the familiar sound of the waves and the laughter coming from the beach. Holly and Ciara had shared this room while they grew up, and a weird sense of comfort embraced her as she smelled the same smells and listened to the familiar noises.

Ciara began to calm down beside her. "Sorry, Hol."

"Hey, you don't need to be sorry at all," she said, squeezing her hand. "You should have told me all this when you came home instead of keeping it all inside."

"But this is only minor compared to what's happened to you. I feel stupid even crying about it." She wiped her tears, angry with herself.

Holly was shocked. "Ciara, this is a big deal. Losing someone you love is always hard, no matter if they're alive or..." She couldn't finish the sentence. "Of course you can tell me anything."

"It's just that you've been so brave, Holly, I don't know how you do it. And here I am crying over a stupid boyfriend I only went out with for a few months."

"Me? Brave?" Holly laughed. "I wish."

"Yes you are," Ciara insisted. "Everyone says so. You've been so strong through everything. If I were you, I'd be lying in a ditch somewhere."

"Don't go giving me ideas, Ciara." Holly smiled at her, wondering who on earth had called her brave.

"You're OK, though, aren't you?" Ciara said worriedly, studying her face.

Holly looked down at her hands and slid her wedding ring up and down her finger. She thought about that question for a while and the two girls became lost in their own thoughts. Ciara, suddenly calmer than Holly had ever seen her, sat by her side patiently awaiting Holly's reply.

"Am I OK?" Holly repeated the question to herself. She looked ahead at the collection of teddy bears and dolls that their parents had refused to throw out. "I'm lots of things, Ciara," Holly explained, continuing to roll her ring around on her finger. "I'm lonely, I'm tired, I'm sad, I'm happy, I'm lucky, I'm unlucky; I'm a million different things every day of the week. But I suppose OK is one of them."

She looked to her sister and smiled sadly.

"And you're brave," Ciara a.s.sured her. "And calm and in control. And organized."

Holly shook her head slowly. "No Ciara, I'm not brave. You're the brave one. You were always the brave one. As for being in control, I don't know what I'm doing from one day to the next."

Ciara's forehead creased and she shook her head wildly. "No, I am far from being brave, Holly."

"Yes you are," Holly insisted. "All those things that you do, like jumping out of airplanes and s...o...b..arding off cliffs..." Holly trailed off as she tried to think of more crazy things her little sister did.

Ciara shook her head in protest. "Oh no, my dear sister. That's not brave, that's foolish. Anybody can bungee jump off a bridge. You could do it." Ciara nudged her.

Holly's eyes widened, terrified at the thought, and she shook her head.

Ciara's voice softened. "Oh, you would if you had to, Holly. Trust me, there's nothing brave about it."

Holly looked at her sister and matched her tone. "Yes, and if your husband died you would cope if you had to. There's nothing brave about it. There's no choice involved."

Ciara and Holly stared at each other, aware of the other's battle.

Ciara was the first to speak. "Well, I guess you and I are more alike than we thought." She smiled at her big sister and Holly wrapped her arms around her small frame and hugged her tightly. "Well, who would have thought?"

Holly thought her sister looked like such a child with her big innocent blue eyes. She felt like they were both children again, sitting on the floor where they used to play together during their childhood and where they would gossip when they were teenagers.

They sat in silence listening to the sounds outside.

"Was there something you were going to scream at me about earlier on?" Ciara asked quietly with an even more childish voice. Holly had to laugh at her sister for trying to take advantage.

"No, forget about it, it was nothing," Holly replied, staring out at the blue sky. From outside the door, Declan wiped his brow and breathed a sigh of relief; he was in the clear. He tiptoed silently back into his bedroom and hopped back into bed. Whoever this Mathew was, he owed him big-time. His phone beeped, signaling a message, and he frowned as he read the message: Who the h.e.l.l was Sandra? Then a grin crept across his face as he remembered the night before.

TWENTY-TWO.

IT WAS EIGHT O'CLOCK WHEN Holly finally drove up her driveway, and it was still bright. She smiled, the world never felt quite so depressing when it was bright. She had spent the day with Ciara chatting about her adventures in Australia. Ciara had changed her mind at least twenty times in the s.p.a.ce of a few hours about whether or not she should call Mathew in Australia. By the time Holly left, Ciara was adamant she would never speak to him again, which probably meant she had already called him by now.

She walked up the path to the front door and stared at the garden curiously. Was it her imagination or did it look a little tidier? It was still a complete mess with weeds and overgrown shrubs sprouting up everywhere, but something about it looked different.

The sound of a lawnmower started and Holly spun around to face her neighbor, who was out working in his garden. She waved over to thank him, presuming it was he who had helped her, and he held his hand up in response.

It had always been Gerry's job to do the garden. He wasn't necessarily a keen gardener, it was just that Holly was an incredibly unkeen gardener, so somebody had to do the dirty work. It had been agreed between them that there was no way in the world Holly was going to waste her day off toiling in the sand. As a result, their garden was simple; just a small patch of gra.s.s surrounded by a few shrubs and flowers. As Gerry knew very little about gardening, he often planted flowers during the wrong season or put them in the wrong place; they just ended up dying. But even their patch of gra.s.s and few shrubs now looked like nothing more than an overgrown field. When Gerry died, the garden had died along with him.

This thought now reminded Holly of the orchid in her house. She rushed inside and filled a jug with water and poured it over the extremely thirsty-looking plant. It didn't look very healthy at all and she promised herself not to let it die under her care. She threw a chicken curry into the microwave and sat down to wait at the kitchen table. Outside on the road she could still hear the kids playing happily. She always used to love when the bright evenings came; Mum and Dad would let them all play outside longer, which meant she wouldn't have to go to bed till later than usual, and that had always been a treat for them all. Holly thought back over her day and decided it had been a good one, apart from one isolated incident...

She looked down at the rings on her wedding finger and she immediately felt guilty. When that man had walked away from her, Holly had felt so awful. He had given her that look as if she were about to initiate an affair when that was the last thing in the world she would ever do. She felt guilty for even considering accepting his invitation to go for a coffee.

If Holly had left her husband because she absolutely couldn't stand him anymore, she could understand being able to eventually become attracted to someone else. But her husband had died when they were both still very much in love, and she couldn't just fall out of love all of a sudden solely because he wasn't around anymore. She still felt married, and going for a coffee would have seemed like she was betraying her husband. The very thought disgusted her. Her heart, soul and mind still belonged with Gerry.

Holly continued to twist her rings around on her finger. At what point should she take her wedding ring off? Gerry was gone almost five months now, so when was the appropriate time to remove her ring and tell herself she wasn't married anymore? Where was the rulebook for widows that explained when exactly the ring should be taken off? And when it finally did come off, where would she put it, where should she put it? In the bin? Beside her bed so she could be reminded of him every single day? She plagued herself with question after question. No, she wasn't quite ready to give up her Gerry yet; as far as she was concerned, he was still living.

The microwave beeped as her dinner was ready. She took the dish out and threw it straight into the bin. She had lost her appet.i.te.

Later that night Denise rang her in a tizzy. "Switch Dublin FM on quick!" Holly raced to the radio and flicked the switch. "I'm Tom O'Connor and you're listening to Dublin FM. If you've just joined us, we are talking about bouncers. In light of the amount of persuasion it took the 'Girls and the City' girls to blag their way in to the club Boudoir, we wanna know what your thoughts on bouncers are. Do you like them? Do you not? Do you agree or understand why they are the way they are? Or are they too strict? The number to call is..."

Holly picked the phone back up, forgetting Denise had still been on the other end.

"Well?" Denise said, giggling.

"What the h.e.l.l have we started, Denise?"

"Oh I know," she giggled again. It was obvious she was loving every minute of it. "Did you see the papers today?"

"Yeah, it's all a bit silly, really. I agree it was a good doc.u.mentary, but the stuff they were writing was just stupid," Holly said.

"Oh honey, I love it! And I love it even more because I'm in it!" she laughed.

"I bet you do," Holly responded.

They both remained quiet while they listened to the radio. Some guy was giving out about bouncers and Tom was trying to calm him down.

"Oh, listen to my baby," Denise said. "Doesn't he sound so s.e.xy?"

"Em...yeah," Holly mumbled. "I take it you two are still together?"

"Of course." Denise sounded insulted by the question. "Why wouldn't we be?"

"Well, it's been a while now, Denise, that's all." Holly quickly tried to explain so she wouldn't hurt her friend's feelings. "And you always said you couldn't be with a man for over a week! You always talk about how much you hate being tied down to one person."

"Yes, well, I said I couldn't be with a man for over a period of a week, but I never said I wouldn't. Tom is different, Holly," Denise said breathily.

Holly was surprised to hear this coming from Denise, the girl who wanted to remain single for the rest of her life. "Oh, so what's so different with Tom then?" Holly rested the phone between her ear and her shoulder and settled down in the chair to examine her nails.

"Oh, there's just this connection between us. It's like he's my soul mate. He's so thoughtful, always surprising me with little gifts and taking me out for dinner and spoiling me. He makes me laugh all the time, and I just love being with him. I haven't gotten sick of him like all the other guys. Plus he's good-looking."

Holly stifled a yawn, Denise tended to say this after the first week of going out with all her new boyfriends and then she would quickly change her mind. But then again, perhaps Denise meant what she said this time; after all, they had been together for over several weeks now. "I'm very happy for you," Holly added genuinely.

The two girls began listening to a bouncer speaking on the radio with Tom.

"Well, first of all I just want to tell you that for the past few nights we have had I don't know how many princesses and ladies queuing up at our door. Since that b.l.o.o.d.y program was aired people seem to think we're going to let them in if they're royalty! And I just want to say, girls, it's not going to work again, so don't bother!"

Tom kept laughing and tried to hold himself together. Holly flicked the switch off on the radio.

"Denise," Holly said seriously, "the world is going mad."

The next day Holly dragged herself out of bed to go for a stroll in the park. She needed to start doing some exercise before she turned into a complete slob, and she also needed to start thinking about job-hunting. Everywhere she went she tried to picture herself working in that environment. She had definitely ruled out clothes stores (the possibility of having a boss like Denise had talked her out of that one), restaurants, hotels and pubs, and she certainly didn't want another nine-to-five office job, which left...nothing. Holly decided she wanted to be like the woman in the film she saw the night before; she wanted to work in the FBI so she could run around solving crimes and interrogating people and then eventually fall in love with her partner, whom she had hated when they first met. However, seeing as though she neither lived in America nor had any police training, the chances of that happening didn't seem too hopeful. Maybe there was a circus she could join somewhere...

She sat down on a park bench opposite the playground and listened to the children's screams of delight. She wished she could go in and play on the slide and be pushed on the swings instead of sitting here and watching. Why did people have to grow up? Holly realized she had been dreaming of going back to her youth all weekend.

She wanted to be irresponsible, she wanted to be looked after, to be told that she didn't have to worry about a thing and that someone else would take care of everything. How easy life would be without having grown-up problems to worry about. And then she could grow up all over again and meet Gerry all over again and force him to go to the doctor months earlier and then she would be sitting beside Gerry here on the bench watching their children playing. What if, what if, what if...

She thought about the stinging remark Richard had made about never having to bother with all that children nonsense. It angered her just thinking about it. She wished so much that she could be worrying about all that children nonsense right now. She wished she could have a little Gerry running around the playground while she shouted at him to be careful and do other mummy things like spit on a tissue and wipe his pudgy little dirty face.

Holly and Gerry had just started talking about having children a few months before he was diagnosed. They had been so excited about it and used to lie in bed for hours trying to decide names and create scenarios in their heads of what it would be like to be parents. Holly smiled at the thought of Gerry being a father; he would have been terrific. She could imagine him being incredibly patient while helping them with their homework at the kitchen table. She could imagine him being overprotective if his daughter ever brought a boy home. Imagine if, imagine if, imagine if...Holly needed to stop living her life in her head, remembering old memories and dreaming impossible dreams. It would never get her anywhere.

Well, think of the devil, Holly thought to herself, seeing Richard leaving the playground with Emily and Timmy. He looked so relaxed, she thought, watching him in surprise as he chased the children around the park. They looked like they were having fun, not a very familiar sight. She sat up on the bench and zipped up her extra layer of thick skin in preparation for their conversation.

"h.e.l.lo, Holly!" Richard said happily, spotting her and walking across the gra.s.s to her.

"h.e.l.lo!" Holly said, greeting the kids as they ran over to her and gave her a big hug. It made a nice change. "You're far from home," she said to Richard. "What brings you all the way over here?"

"I brought the children to see Grandma and Granddad, didn't I?" he said, ruffling Timmy's head.

"And we had McDonald's," Timmy said excitedly and Emily cheered.