ENISE BANGED THE TILL CLOSED with her hip and handed the receipt over the counter to the customer. "Thanks," she smiled, and her smile quickly faded as soon as the customer turned away from the counter. She sighed loudly, staring at the long queue forming in front of the cash register. She would have to stand here at the till all day and she was just dying for a cigarette break. But there was no way she could slip away, so she grumpily grabbed the item of clothing from the next customer, de-tagged it, scanned it, and wrapped it.

"Excuse me, are you Denise Hennessey?" she heard a deep voice ask and she looked up to see where the sexy voice had come from. She frowned as she saw a police officer before her.

She hesitated while trying to think if she had done anything illegal in the past few days, and when she was satisfied that she was crime-free she smiled. "Yes, I am."

"I'm Officer Ryan and I was wondering if you would accompany me to the station, please."

It was more of a statement than a question, and Denise's mouth dropped open in shock. He was no longer the sexy officer, he was the evil- lock- her- up- forever- in- a- tiny- cell- with- a- luminous- orange- jumpsuit-and- noisy- flip- flops- and- no- hot- water- or- makeup- type officer. Denise gulped and had an image of herself being beaten up by a gang of tough angry women that didn't care about mascara, in the exercise yard at the prison while the prison guards looked on and made bets over who would win. She gulped, "What for?"

"If you just comply with what I've said, everything will be explained to you down at the station." He started to walk around the counter and Denise backed away slowly and looked at the long line of customers helplessly.

Everybody just stared back at her, amused by the scene that was unfolding before them.

"Check his ID, love," one of the customers shouted to her from the end of the queue.

Her voice shook as she demanded to see his ID, which was a completely useless operation, as she had never seen a police ID before nor did she know what a real one would look like. Her hand trembled as she held the ID and studied it closely, but she didn't read a thing. She was too self-conscious of the crowd of customers and staff that had gathered to stare at her with looks of disgust on their faces. They were all thinking the same thing: She was a criminal.

Denise hardened, refusing to go without a fight. "I refuse to go with you until you tell me what this is about."

He walked toward her again. "Ms. Hennessey, if you just work with me here, then there will be no need to use these." He took out a pair of handcuffs from his trousers. "There's no need to make a scene."

"But I didn't do anything!" she protested, starting to panic.

"Well, we can discuss that down at the station, can't we?" He began to get irate.

Denise backed away, she was determined to let her customers and staff know that she hadn't done anything wrong. She would not go with this man to the station until he explained what she had supposedly done wrong.

She stopped backing away and crossed her arms across her chest to show how tough she was.

"I said I will not go with you until you tell me what this is about."

"OK then," he shrugged, walking toward her. "If you insist." He opened his mouth to speak and she yelled as she felt the cold silver handcuffs being slapped around her wrists. It wasn't exactly the first time she had ever worn a pair of handcuffs, so she wasn't surprised at how they felt, but she was in so much shock she couldn't speak; she just watched everyone's surprised expressions as the officer led her by the arm out of the shop.

"Good luck, love," the customer shouted again as she was led by the queue. "If they send you to Mount Joy tell my Orla I said hi and that I'll be there to visit her at Christmas."

Denise's eyes widened and images of her pacing a cell that she shared with a psycho murderer jumped into her mind. Maybe she would find a little bird with a broken wing and nurse it and teach it to fly to pass the years inside . . .

Her face reddened as they stepped out onto Grafton Street, and the crowds immediately scattered as soon as they saw the garda and a hardened criminal. Denise kept her eyes down to the ground, hoping nobody she knew would spot her being arrested. Her heart beat wildly and she briefly thought of escape. She looked around quickly and tried to figure out an escape route, but she was too slow; she was already being led toward a beat-up-looking minibus, the well-known color blue of the police with blackened-out windows. Denise sat in the front row of seats behind the driver, and although she could sense people behind her, she sat rigidly in her seat, too terrified to turn around and meet her future fellow inmates. She leaned her head against the window and said good-bye to freedom.

"Where are we going?" she asked as they drove past the police station. The female police officer driving the car and Officer Ryan ignored her and stared ahead of them.

"Hey!" she shouted. "I thought you said you were taking me to the station!" They continued to stare straight ahead.

"Hey! Where are we going?!"

No answer.

"I haven't done anything wrong!"

Still no answer.

"I'm innocent goddammit! Innocent, I tell you!"

Denise started kicking the chair in front of her, trying to get their attention. Her blood started to boil when the female officer pushed a cassette into the player and turned the music up. Denise's eyes widened at the choice of song.

Officer Ryan turned around in his chair with a big grin on his face. "Denise, you have been a very naughty girl." He stood up and made his way in front of her. She gulped as he started to gyrate his hips to the song

"Hot Stuff."

She was about to give him a great big kick between his legs when she heard whooping and laughing from the back of the bus. She twisted herself around and spotted her sisters, Holly, Sharon and about five other friends picking themselves up from the floor of the minibus. She had been in so much shock she hadn't even noticed them when she got on the bus. She finally figured out what was really happening when her sisters placed a veil on her head while screaming "Happy hen party!" That was the main clue.

"Oh, you bitches!" Denise spat at them, effing and blinding them until she had used every single curse word invented, and even made up a few of her own.

The girls continued to hold their stomachs with laughter.

"Oh, you are so lucky I didn't kick you in the balls!" Denise screamed at the gyrating garda.

"Denise, this is Paul," her sister Fiona giggled, "and he's your stripper for the day."

Denise narrowed her eyes and continued to curse at them. "I almost had a heart attack, I hope you know! I thought I was going to prison. Oh my God, what will my customers think? And my staff! Oh my God, my staff think I'm a criminal." Denise closed her eyes as though she were in pain.

"We told them about it last week," Sharon giggled. "They were all just playing along."

"Oh, the little bitches," Denise repeated. "When I go back to work I'm going to fire the lot of them. But what about the customers?" Denise asked, panicking.

"Don't worry," her sister said. "We told your staff to inform the customers it was your hen party after you left the shop."

Denise rolled her eyes. "Well, knowing them they deliberately won't, and if they don't then there will be complaints, and if there are complaints I will be so fired."

"Denise! Stop worrying! You don't think we would have done this without running it by your boss. It's OK!"

Fiona explained. "They thought it was funny, now relax and enjoy the weekend."

"Weekend? What the hell are you girls going to do to me next?! Where are we going for the weekend?"

Denise looked around at her friends, startled.

"We're going to Galway, and that's all you need to know," Sharon said mysteriously.

"If I wasn't bloody handcuffed I'd slap you all in the face," Denise threatened.

The girls all cheered as Paul stripped out of his uniform and poured baby oil over his body for Denise to massage into his skin. Sharon unlocked the handcuffs of a gobsmacked Denise.

"Men in uniform are so much nicer out of them . . .," Denise mumbled, rubbing her wrists as she watched him flex his muscles before her.

"Lucky she's engaged, Paul, or you would be in big trouble!" the girls teased.

"Big trouble is right," Denise mumbled again, staring in shock as the rest of the clothes came off. "Oh girls!

Thank you so much!" she giggled, her voice a very different tone than before.

"Are you OK, Holly? You've barely said a word since we got into this van," Sharon said, handing her a glass of champagne and keeping a glass of orange juice for herself. Holly turned to look out of the window and stared at the green fields as they flew by. The green hills were dotted with little white specks as the sheep climbed to new heights, oblivious to the wonderful views. Neat stone walls separated each field and you could see the gray lines, jagged like those in jigsaw puzzles, for miles, connecting each piece of land together. Holly had yet to find a few pieces for her own puzzled mind.

"Yeah," she sighed. "I'm OK."

"Oh, I really have to ring Tom!" Denise groaned, collapsing onto the double bed she and Holly were sharing in the hotel room. Sharon was fast asleep on the single bed beside them and had refused to listen to Denise's hilarious idea of Sharon having to sleep in the double bed on her own due to the size of her rapidly growing bump. She had gone to bed much earlier than the other girls after eventually becoming bored of their drunken behavior.

"I'm under strict orders not to let you ring Tom," Holly yawned. "This is a girls-only weekend."

"Oh please," Denise whimpered.

"No. I am confiscating your phone." She grabbed the mobile from Denise's hand and hid it in the press beside the bed.

Denise looked like she was going to cry. She watched as Holly lay back on the bed and closed her eyes, and she began to formulate a plan. She would wait until Holly was asleep and then she would call Tom. Holly had been so quiet all day it was really starting to irritate Denise. Every time Denise had asked her a question she got nothing but yes or no answers back, and every attempt to strike up a conversation failed. It was obvious that Holly wasn't enjoying herself, but what really annoyed Denise was to see that Holly wasn't even trying to enjoy herself, or even pretending to be enjoying herself. Denise could understand that Holly was upset and that she had a lot to deal with in her life, but it was her hen party and she couldn't help feeling that Holly was bringing the atmosphere down a bit.

The room was still spinning. Having closed her eyes, Holly was now unable to sleep. It was five o'clock in the morning, which meant that she had been drinking for almost twelve hours, and her head was pounding. Sharon had given in long ago and had done the sensible thing by going to bed early. Her stomach became queasy as the walls spun around and around and around . . . She sat up on the bed and tried to keep her eyes open so she could avoid the feeling of seasickness.

She turned to face Denise on the bed so that they could talk, but the sound of her friend's snores ended all thought of communication between them. Holly sighed and looked around the room. She wanted nothing more than to go home and sleep in her own bed, where she could be surrounded by familiar smells and noises. She felt her way across the bedcovers in the dark for the remote control and flicked on the television. Commercial presentations adorned the screen. Holly watched as they demonstrated a new knife to slice oranges without spraying yourself in the face with the juice. She saw the amazing socks that never got lost in the wash and stayed together at all times.

Denise snored loudly beside her and she kicked Holly in the shins as she changed position. Holly winced and rubbed her leg as she watched with sympathy Sharon's extremely frustrated struggle to lie on her stomach.

Eventually she settled on her side and Holly rushed to the toilet and hung her head over the toilet seat, prepared for whatever might come. She wished she hadn't drunk so much, but with all the talk of weddings and husbands and happiness she had needed all the wine in the bar to prevent her from screaming at everyone to shut up. She dreaded to think what the next two days would be like. Denise's friends were twice as bad as Denise. They were loud and hyper and acted exactly the way girls should on a hen weekend, but Holly just didn't have the energy to keep up with them. At least Sharon had the excuse of being pregnant; she could pretend she wasn't feeling well or that she was tired. Holly had no excuse apart from the fact that she had turned into a complete bore, and she was saving that excuse for a time when she really needed it.

It felt like only yesterday that Holly had had her own hen party, but in fact it was more than seven years ago.

She had flown over to London with a group of ten girls for the weekend to party hard, but she ended up missing Gerry so much she had to speak to him on the phone every hour. Back then she had been so excited about what was to come and the future had looked so bright.

She was to marry the man of her dreams and live and grow with him for the rest of their lives. For the entire weekend she was away she counted the hours until she could return home. She was so excited on the flight back to Dublin. Although they had been apart for only a few days, it had felt like an eternity. He had been waiting for her at arrivals with a huge board in his hand saying MY FUTURE WIFE. She had dropped her bags when she saw him and run into his arms and hugged him so tight. She had never wanted to let go; what a luxury it was for people to be able to hold their loved ones whenever they wanted. The scene at the airport seemed like a scene from a movie now, but it had been real: real feelings, real emotions and real love, because it was real life. Real life had become a nightmare for her.

Yes, she had finally managed to drag herself out of bed every morning, yes, she even managed to get dressed most of the time. Yes, she had succeeded in finding a new job where she had met new people, and yes, she had finally started buying food again and feeding herself. But no, she didn't feel ecstatic about any of these things.

They were just formalities, something else to check off on the "things that normal people do" list. None of these things filled the hole in her heart; it was as if her body had become one great jigsaw, just like the green fields with their pretty gray stone walls connecting the whole of Ireland. She had started working on the corners and the edges of her jigsaw because they were the easy bits, and now that they were all in place she needed to do all the bits in between, the hard parts. But nothing she had done so far had managed to fill that hole in her heart; that piece of the jigsaw had yet to be found.

Holly cleared her throat loudly and pretended to have a coughing fit just so the girls would wake up and talk to her. She needed to talk, she needed to cry and she needed to vent all her frustrations and disappointments about her life. But what more could she say to Sharon and Denise that she hadn't said before? What more advice could they give her that they hadn't given her before? She repeated the same old worries over and over.

Sometimes her friends would succeed in getting through to her and she would feel positive and confident, only to find herself thrown back into despair days later.

After a while Holly tired of staring at the four walls, threw on a tracksuit and made her way back downstairs to the hotel bar.

Charlie groaned with frustration as the table down the back of the bar began to roar with laughter again. He wiped down the bar counter and glanced at his watch. Five-thirty and he was still here working and he couldn't wait to go home. He had thought he was so lucky when the girls from the hen party had eventually gone to bed earlier than expected, and he was about to tidy up and go home when another gang arrived at the hotel after a nightclub had finished in Galway city. And they were still here. In fact, he would have preferred if the girls had stayed up instead of the arrogant crowd sitting down the back. They weren't even residents of the hotel, but he had to serve them because the group included the daughter of the owner of the hotel, who had brought all her friends back to the bar. She and her arrogant boyfriend, and he couldn't stand them.

"Don't tell me you're back for more!" the barman laughed as one of the women from the hen party walked into the room. She walked toward the bar, bumping into the wall many times as she tried to make her way to the high stool. Charlie tried not to laugh. "I just came down for a glass of water," she hiccuped. "Oh my God," she wailed, catching sight of herself in the mirror over the bar. Charlie had to admit that she did look a bit shocking; a bit like the scarecrow in his dad's farm. Her hair looked like straw and was sticking out in all directions, her eyes had black circles around them from smudging her mascara, and her teeth were stained from the red wine.

"There you go," Charlie said, placing a glass of water on a beer mat in front of her.

"Thanks." She dipped her finger into her glass and wiped the mascara from her eyes and rubbed the wine stains from her lips.

Charlie began to laugh and she squinted at his name tag.

"What are you laughing at, Charlie?"

"I thought you were thirsty, but I would have given you a facecloth if you'd asked for one," he chuckled.

The woman laughed and her features softened. "I find the ice and lemon helps my skin."

"Well, that's a new one." Charlie laughed and continued to wipe down the counter. "Did you girls have fun tonight?"

Holly sighed, "I suppose." Fun wasn't a word she often used anymore. She had laughed along with the jokes all night, she had felt excited for Denise, but she didn't feel like she was completely there. She felt like the shy girl at school who was always just there but never spoke and was never spoken to. She didn't recognize the person she had become; she wanted to be able to stop staring at the clock whenever she went out, hoping the night would soon be over so she could go home and crawl into bed. She wanted to stop wishing time would pass and instead enjoy the moment. She was finding it hard to enjoy moments.

"Are you OK?" Charlie stopped wiping the counter and watched her. He had a horrible feeling she was going to cry, but he was used to it at this stage. A lot of people became emotional when they drank.

"I miss my husband," she whispered, and her shoulders trembled.

The corners of Charlie's lips turned into a smile.

"What's so funny?" She looked at him angrily.

"How long are you here for?" he asked.

"The weekend," she told him, twisting a worn tissue around her finger.

He laughed. "Have you never gone the weekend without seeing him?"

He watched the woman frown. "Only once before," she finally replied, "and that was at my own hen party."

"How long ago was that?"

"Seven years ago." A tear spilled down the woman's face.

Charlie shook his head. "That's a long time ago. Well, if you did it once, you can do it again," he smiled.

"Seven years lucky, isn't that what they say?"

Holly snorted into her drink. Lucky her arse.

"Don't worry," Charlie said gently. "Your husband's probably miserable without you."

"Oh God, I hope not." Holly's eyes widened.

"Well then, see?" he replied. "I'm sure he hopes you're not miserable without him either. You're supposed to be enjoying your life."

"You're right," Holly said, perking up. "He wouldn't want me to be unhappy."

"That's the spirit." Charlie smiled and jumped as he saw his boss's daughter coming toward the bar with one of those looks on her face.

"Hey Charlie," she yelled. "I've been trying to get your attention for ages. Maybe if you stopped chatting to the customers at the bar and did a bit of work, me and my friends wouldn't be so thirsty," she said bitchily.

Holly's mouth dropped open with shock. That woman had a nerve speaking to Charlie like that, and her perfume was so strong it made Holly start to cough lightly.

"I'm sorry, do you have a problem?" The woman's head darted toward Holly, and she looked her up and down.

"Yes, actually," Holly slurred, taking a sip of her water. "Your perfume is disgusting and it's making me want to throw up."

Charlie dropped to his knees behind the counter to pretend to look for a lemon to slice and started laughing.

He tried to block out the sounds of the two women snapping at each other so he would stop laughing.

"What's the delay here?" a deep voice inquired. Charlie shot to his feet at the sound of her boyfriend's voice.

He was even worse. "Why don't you sit down, honey, and I'll bring the drinks over," he said.

"Fine, at least someone is polite around here," she snapped, looking Holly up and down once more before storming off to her table. Holly watched her hips go boom-boom-boom as they went from side to side. She must be a model or something, Holly decided. That would explain the tantrums.

"So how are you?" the man beside Holly asked, staring at her chest.

Charlie had to bite his tongue to stop himself from saying anything as he poured a pint of Guinness from the tap and then allowed it to sit on the counter for a while. He had a feeling the woman at the bar wouldn't succumb to Stevie's charms anyway, especially as she seemed to be so head over heels about her husband.

Charlie was looking forward to seeing Stevie being ceremoniously dumped.

"I'm fine," Holly replied shortly, staring straight ahead, deliberately avoiding eye contact.

"I'm Stevie," he said, holding out his hand to her.

"I'm Holly," she mumbled and took his hand lightly, not wanting to be overly rude.

"Holly, that's a lovely name." He held her hand for much too long and Holly was forced to look up into his eyes. He had big blue sparkly eyes.

"Eh . . . thanks," she said, embarrassed by his compliment, and her face flushed.

Charlie sighed to himself. Even she had fallen for it, his only hope of satisfaction for the night gone.

"Can I buy you a drink, Holly?" Steve asked smoothly.

"No thanks, I have one here." She sipped on her water again.

"OK, well, I'm just going to bring these drinks down to my table and then I'll be back to buy the lovely Holly a drink." He smiled at her creepily as he walked away. Charlie rolled his eyes as soon as he turned his back.

"Who the hell is that eejit?" Holly asked, looking bewildered, and Charlie laughed, delighted that she hadn't fallen for him. She was a lady with sense even if she was crying because she missed her husband after only one day of separation.

Charlie lowered his voice, "That's Stevie, boyfriend of that blond bitch who was here a minute ago. Her dad owns this hotel, which means I can't exactly tell her where to go, although I would love to. Not worth losing my job over."

"Definitely worth losing your job over, I should think," Holly said, staring at the beautiful woman and thinking nasty thoughts. "Anyway, good night, Charlie."

"You off to bed?"

She nodded. "It's about time; it's after six," she tapped on her watch. "I hope you get home soon," she smiled.

"I wouldn't bet on it," he replied and watched her leave the bar. Stevie followed after her and Charlie, thinking this was suspicious, made his way closer to the door just to make sure she was OK. The blonde, noticing her boyfriend's sudden departure, left her table and arrived at the door with Charlie at the same time. They both stared down the corridor in the direction Holly and Stevie had headed.

The blonde gasped and her hand flew to her mouth.

"Hey!" Charlie called out angrily as he witnessed a distressed Holly pushing a drunken Stevie away from her.

Holly angrily wiped her mouth, disgusted with his attempts to kiss her. She backed away from him. "I think you've got the wrong idea here, Stevie. Go back to the bar to your girlfriend."

Stevie wobbled slightly on his feet and slowly turned to face his girlfriend and an angry Charlie, who was charging toward them.

"Stevie!" she shrieked. "How could you?!" She ran from the hotel with tears streaming down her face. She was closely followed by a protesting Stevie.

"Uggghh!" Holly said with disgust to Charlie. "I did not want to do that at all!"

"Don't worry, I believe you," Charlie said, placing his hand comfortingly on her shoulder. "I saw what happened through the door."

"Ah well, thanks very much for coming to my rescue!" Holly complained.

"Got here too late, sorry. But I must admit, I did enjoy her witnessing that," he laughed, referring to the blonde, and bit his lip feeling guilty.

Holly smiled as she stared down the corridor at Stevie and his frantic girlfriend screaming and fighting with each other.

"Oops," she said, smiling at Charlie.

Holly knocked into everything in the bedroom as she tried to make her way back to her bed in the darkness.

"Ouch!" she yelped, stubbing her toe on the bedpost.

"Sshhh!" Sharon said sleepily and Holly grumbled all the way to her bed.

She tapped Denise on the shoulder continuously until she woke up.

"What? What?" Denise moaned sleepily.

"Here." Holly forced a mobile phone in Denise's face. "Phone your future husband, tell him you love him and don't let the girls know."

The next day Holly and Sharon went for a long walk on the beach just outside Galway city. Although it was October, the air had warmth in it and Holly didn't need her coat. She stood in a long-sleeved top and listened to the water gently lapping. The rest of the girls had decided to go for a liquid lunch and Holly's stomach wasn't quite ready for that today.

"Are you OK, Holly?" Sharon approached her from behind and wrapped her arm around her friend's shoulders.

Holly sighed. "Every time someone asks me that question, Sharon, I say, 'I'm fine, thank you,' but to be honest, I'm not. Do people really want to know how you feel when they ask how are you? Or are they just trying to be polite?" Holly smiled. "The next time the woman across the road from my house says to me, 'How are you?'

I'm going to say to her, 'Well, actually I'm not very well at all, thank you. I'm feeling a bit depressed and lonely. Pissed off at the world. Envious of you and your perfect little family but not particularly envious of your husband for having to live with you.' And then I'll tell her about how I started a new job and met lots of new people and how I'm trying hard to pick myself up but that I'm now at a loss about what else to do. Then I'll tell her how it pisses me off when everyone says time is a healer when at the same time they also say absence makes the heart grow fonder, which really confuses me, because that means that the longer he's gone the more I want him. I'll tell her that nothing is healing at all and that every morning I wake up in my empty bed it feels like salt is being rubbed into those unhealing wounds." Holly took a deep breath. "And then I'll tell her about how much I miss my husband and about how worthless my life seems without him. How uninterested I am in getting on with things without him, and I'll explain how I feel like I'm just waiting for my world to end so that I can join him. She'll probably just say, 'Oh that's good,' like she always does, kiss her husband good-bye, hop into her car and drop her kids at school, go to work, make the dinner and eat the dinner, and go to bed with her husband and she'll have it all done while I'm still trying to decide what color shirt to wear to work. What do you think?" Holly finally finished and turned to Sharon.

"Oooh!" Sharon jumped and her arm flew away from Holly's shoulders.

"Oooh?" Holly frowned. "I say all that and all you can say is 'Oooh'?"

Sharon placed her hand over her bump and laughed. "No, you silly, the baby kicked!"

Holly's mouth dropped open.

"Feel it!" Sharon giggled.

Holly placed her hand over Sharon's swollen belly and felt the tiny little kick. Both their eyes filled with tears.

"Oh Sharon, if only every minute of my life were filled with perfect little moments like this I would never moan again."

"But Holly, nobody's life is filled with perfect little moments. And if it were, they wouldn't be perfect little moments. They would just be normal. How would you ever know happiness if you never experienced downs?"

"Oooh!" they both shrieked again as the baby kicked for a third time.

"I think this little boy is going to be a footballer like his daddy!" Sharon laughed.

"Boy?" Holly gasped. "You're having a boy?"

Sharon nodded happily and her eyes glistened. "Holly, meet baby Gerry. Gerry, meet your godmother Holly."