To Love a Way of Life by Natalie Hart

daughter only saw her father a few times a year it would be so tough on her.
    She felt herself retreat. She couldn’t let her care for Patrick stand in the way of his love for his daughter.
    “Anyway, I’m glad Patrick is here. I think it’s the right time for me to start picking his brain.”
    “Absolutely, and I’ll help too,” Emma said. “We can schedule another visit for a time that suits and go over some of the trickier stuff.”
    “Thank you so much my dear, and please, call me Helen.”
    ––––––––
    E mma dragged herself out to her car and sat into the driver’s seat. She didn’t want to move, she wanted to sit and collect her thoughts, just for a few minutes but she realised it would look weird if she stayed parked up in Mrs. Reidy’s driveway. She made herself look busy in her notes for a minute or two just so she could catch her breathe. She summoned the strength to drive away, and was only two minutes down the road when she pulled into a little entranceway to a field.
    She rested her hands and the wheel and her head on her hands. She shouldn’t have expected Patrick to tell her anything about a daughter. Why would he? They were business partners and just starting a relationship. If it didn’t work out there’d be no need to tell her anything, there’d be no strife and they’d go their separate ways. If things did look good for the two of them then she was sure he’d let her know when the time was right.
    It still hurt that he hadn’t told her. It hurt her daydreams of starting a family, and it hurt her to think she might upset a little girl. Emma stopped her thoughts. She didn’t want to use his daughter’s relationship as a crutch for her own worries. She deserved a father, she didn’t deserve her father having a girlfriend who was worried about her. That wasn’t her place, she wasn’t her mother, that was another woman, a woman now in Patrick’s past. At least as far as intimate relationships go.
    Emma didn’t want to intrude, she wanted Patrick to be happy with his child, he wanted her to love his child the way she already knew he did, and she didn’t want to get in the way.
    Despite all that Emma couldn’t help but feel let down, like she was taking second place. Since the moment she had seen Patrick she’d been thinking of him as a father; as the father she would have wanted for herself as a child and as the kind of father she would want for her own children. It was his care and tenderness, his openness with his feelings and his fears that had made Emma accept she wanted kids of her own.
    Now she couldn’t help but feel betrayed. It made so much sense that Patrick would arouse those feelings in her. He already was a father, and he already had a little girl to love. A dark thought rose in Emma’s mind. If she did make it work with him, if she did come to accept that he had loved another woman and they had a daughter together would he want another child with her. He was older than her, he might have passed his days of crying babies and nappy changes, of feeding a child through the night and sitting with a bawling baby when they were sick.
    Sandra said to keep the question at the back of her mind, ‘Would he make a good father?’ Now it was all her mind could think about. And it seemed she had her answer, he had already made a good father. Mrs. Reidy spoke wonders about the little girl, Maia. She was gentle and polite, and she cared for animals and she got up to all the fun things children should get up to in the countryside.
    Emma pulled out of the ditch and started to drive back to Patrick’s. She didn’t know what she’d do. She did know she’d keep quiet, she wouldn’t say anything to him. This was his story to tell her. It wasn’t for her to bring up her worries with a man who wasn’t ready for that at such an early stage of their relationship.
    She drove up to the house and saw a note pinned to the barrel. She got out of her car and read it, Patrick had