Semi-Sweet by Roisin Meaney Page B

first of your family to check me out.”
    “That’s right.”
    The surprise trip had been more awkward to arrange than last year’s. Getting time off for Hannah had been easy—a phone call
     to Joseph Finnegan at the bakery, and it had been sorted. With Leah he’d had to plan his strategy more carefully.
    The reason for his brother’s imaginary visit home from London became a cousin’s imaginary fortieth-birthday celebration in
     County Offaly the following day, Saturday, to which he and Leah had also been invited. “They want us there by lunchtime,”
     Patrick had told her, “so you’ll have to take the whole day off. I’ve booked us into the local hotel for the Saturday night.”
    “And what about Valentine’s Day?” she’d demanded. “Am I spending that in Offaly too?”
    He’d assured her that he’d made plans for Sunday. What she didn’t know was that his plans were due to begin that very evening.
     He was assuming that the discovery that they were headed to Paris as opposed to Offaly would cancel out any annoyance Leah
     might feel at having been duped into thinking she was going to meet some of Patrick’s family. She’d met none of them so far,
     since Patrick’s father had left for his Greek Islands cruise just before Patrick and Leah had become an official couple, and
     now she wasn’t meeting his brother either.
    He hoped she’d be pleased with the hotel he’d found for them on the Internet, which had better live up to its impressive description.
     No way could he risk ending up in a dump like last year’s—Hannah might overlook faulty plumbing and erratic heating, but Leah
     liked her comforts. Patrick had paid considerably more this time around, and he expected to be well rewarded.
    “What time did you say his plane is in?”
    “Ten to eight.”
    Interesting how easily both women believed his lies. Hannah, of course, had had no reason to doubt him—until Leah, he’d covered
     his tracks well, been discreet on the few occasions he’d wandered. But Leah, who’d been party to his deceiving Hannah, who
     had seen him covering his tracks and telling his half-truths, still happily trusted him. Interesting how easy it was.
    Interesting, too, how intoxicating deceit could be. Until Leah had managed to get pregnant and Patrick’s cover had been forcibly
     blown, the excitement of having both women, each so different from the other, had been wonderful. Sex, regardless of whom
     he was with, had been amazing.
    And if Leah hadn’t gotten pregnant, who knew how long the situation might have gone on, despite her constant urging him to
     tell Hannah, to leave Hannah? Soon, he’d said, when the time is right, knowing, even as he spoke, that he was repeating the mantra of so many men—and indeed women—before him. Knowing that he would
     happily have lived with the situation long-term. What man wouldn’t, for Christ’s sake? And was it really so bad, trying to
     keep them both happy for as long as he could?
    He couldn’t believe it when Leah had dropped her bombshell. I’m sorry, darling, she’d whispered, clinging to him. Don’t be angry, it was nobody’s fault. Naturally, after that everything had changed, and Hannah, unfortunately, had suffered in the fallout—something Patrick had
     never intended to happen.
    He couldn’t imagine being a father. He’d never envied friends with children, never wondered when his turn would come. Hannah
     had hinted gently now and again—inevitable, maybe, when they were living together, and she’d been in her thirties by the time
     they’d become a couple—but Patrick had managed each time to postpone what he’d regarded as the inevitable. Someday, he’d said, when we’re both ready. When the time is right.
    He pulled in by the arrivals building. “Why don’t you go in,” he said, “and I’ll find a parking space. Won’t be long.” Ignoring,
     as he spoke, the faint echo of his identical words a year ago.
    He watched Leah walk toward