HAT SUNDAY RICHARD CALLED OUT to visit Holly with the kids. She had told him he was welcome to bring them by whenever it was his day with them. They played outside in the garden while Richard and Holly finished off their dinner and watched them through the patio doors.

"They seem really happy, Richard," Holly said, watching them playing.

"Yes they do, don't they?" He smiled as he watched them chasing each other around. "I want things to be as normal for them as possible. They don't quite understand what's going on, and it's difficult to explain."

"What have you told them?"

"Oh, that Mummy and Daddy don't love each other anymore and that I moved away so that we can be happier.

Something along those lines."

"And they're OK with that?"

Her brother nodded slowly. "Timothy is OK but Emily is worried that we might stop loving her and that she will have to move away." He glanced up at Holly, his eyes sad.

Poor Emily, Holly thought, watching her dancing around with her scary-looking doll. She couldn't believe that she was having this conversation with Richard. He seemed like a totally different person these days. Or perhaps it was Holly who had changed; she seemed to have a higher tolerance for him now, she found it easier to ignore his annoying little comments, and there were still many of them. But then again, they now had something in common. They both understood what it was like to feel lonely and unsure of themselves.

"How's everything going at Mum and Dad's house?"

Richard swallowed a forkful of potato and nodded, "Good. They're being extremely generous."

"Ciara bothering you at all?" She felt like she was questioning her child after he returned home from his first day of school, wanting to know if the other kids had bullied him or treated him well. But lately she felt so protective of Richard. It helped her to help him; it gave her strength.

"Ciara is . . . Ciara," he smiled. "We don't see eye to eye on a lot of things."

"Well, I wouldn't worry about that," Holly said, trying to stab a piece of pork with her fork. "The majority of the world wouldn't see eye to eye with her either." Her fork finally made contact with the pork and she sent it flying off her plate and through the air, where it landed on the kitchen counter at the far side of the room.

"And they say pigs don't fly," Richard remarked as Holly crossed the room to retrieve the piece of meat.

Holly giggled, "Hey Richard you made a funny!"

He looked pleased with himself. "I have my moments too, I suppose," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Although I'm sure you think I don't have many of them."

Holly sat back down in her seat slowly, trying to decide how to phrase what she was going to say. "We're all different, Richard. Ciara is slightly eccentric, Declan is a dreamer, Jack is a joker, I'm . . . well, I don't know what I am. But you were always very controlled. Straight and serious. It's not necessarily a bad thing, we're all just different."

"You're very thoughtful," Richard said after a long silence.

"Pardon?" Holly asked, feeling confused. To cover her embarrassment she stuffed her face with another mouthful of food.

"I've always thought you were very thoughtful," he repeated.

"When?" Holly asked incredulously, through her mouthful.

"Well, I wouldn't be sitting here eating dinner with the kids running around having fun outside if you weren't thoughtful now, but I was actually referring to when we were children."

"I don't think so, Richard," Holly said, shaking her head. "Jack and I were always so awful to you," she said softly.

"You weren't always awful, Holly." He gave her an amused smile. "Anyway, that's what brothers and sisters are for, to make each other's lives as difficult as possible for each other as they grow up. It forms a great basis for life, toughens you up. Anyway, I was the bossy older brother."

"So how does that make me thoughtful?" Holly asked, feeling she had completely missed the point.

"You idolized Jack. You used to follow him around all the time and you would do exactly what he told you to do." He started laughing. "I used to hear him telling you to say things to me and you would run into my room terrified and blurt them out and run away again."

Holly looked at her plate feeling embarrassed. She and Jack used to play terrible tricks on him.

"But you always came back," Richard continued. "You would always creep back into my room silently and watch me working at my desk, and I knew that was your way of saying sorry." He smiled at her. "So that makes you thoughtful. None of our siblings had a conscience in that house of ours. Not even me. You were the only one, always the sensitive one."

He continued eating his dinner and Holly sat in silence, trying to absorb all the information he had given her.

She didn't remember idolizing Jack, but when she thought about it she supposed Richard was right. Jack was her funny, cool, good-looking big brother who had loads of friends, and Holly used to beg him to let her play with them. She supposed she still felt that way about him; if he called her right now and asked her to go out she would drop everything and go, and she had never even realized that before. However, she was spending far more time with Richard than with Jack these days. Jack had always been her favorite brother; Gerry had always gotten along with Jack the best. It was Jack who Gerry would choose to go out for drinks with during the week, not Richard; it was Jack who Gerry would insist on sitting beside at a family dinner. However Gerry was gone, and although Jack rang her every now and then, he wasn't around as much as he used to be. Had Holly held Jack up on too much of a pedestal? She realized then that she had been making excuses for him every time he didn't call around or phone her when he said he would. In fact, she had been making excuses for him ever since Gerry had died.

Richard had, lately, managed to give Holly a regular intake of food for thought. She watched him remove his serviette from his collar and was interested as he folded it into a neat little square with perfect right angles. He obsessively straightened whatever was on the table so that everything was facing the right way in an orderly fashion. For all Richard's good qualities, which she recognized now, Holly could not live with a man like that at all.

They both jumped as they heard a thump from outside and saw little Emily lying on the ground in floods of tears while a shocked-looking Timmy watched. Richard leapt out of his chair and hurried outside.

"But she just fell, Daddy, I didn't do anything!" she heard Timmy plead with his father. Poor Timmy. She rolled her eyes as she watched Richard dragging him by the arm and ordering him to stand in the corner to think about what he had done. Some people would never really change, she thought wryly.

The next day Holly jumped around the house ecstatically as she replayed the message on the answering machine for the third time.

"Hi Holly," came the gruff voice. "This is Chris Feeney here from magazine X. I'm just calling to say that I was very impressed with your interview. Em . . ." He stalled a bit. "Well, I wouldn't normally say this on an answering machine, but no doubt you'll be delighted to know that I've decided to welcome you as a new member of the team. I would love you to start as soon as possible, so call me on the usual number when you get a chance and we'll discuss it further. Em . . . Good-bye."

Holly rolled around her bed in terrified delight and pressed the PLAY button again. She had aimed for the moon . . . and she had now landed!