“I haven’t seen Ean running with you for a few days now.” Ms. Helen settled into the chair across the table. “When are you two going to settle this foolishness and make up?”
Megan dropped her gaze. “I wish I knew, Ms. Helen.”
Ms. Helen grunted. “I was young and stupid once. But I didn’t know it at the time. Well, I knew I was young. Didn’t know I was stupid.”
Megan smiled. “How did you come to find out you were stupid?”
“I fell in love.” Ms. Helen laughed at Megan’s expression. “You’d never imagined that I’d had a torrid love affair, did you? Actually, I’ve had more than one.”
“Why didn’t you ever marry?” Megan looked with new eyes at her elderly neighbor.
Ms. Helen blew into her mug of hot tea. “I came close to marriage during my first love affair. I met him while I was teaching at the college. Well, it was a college then. It’s a university now.”
“Was he a professor, too?” Megan recalled Ms. Helen had taught physics at what was then Trinity Falls College. She’d been Dr. Helen Gaston in those days, decades before the town’s children began calling her “Ms. Helen.”
Ms. Helen nodded. “He taught political science.”
“What happened?” Megan prompted. Ms. Helen wasn’t telling the story fast enough.
Ms. Helen’s gaze became distant as though she was reviewing the events from her past. “He was a fine man. Tall, lean, broad shoulders. He had a great butt. Far too sexy to teach political science. And I told him so.”
Remarkable. Megan had known Ms. Helen her entire life but had never heard the story of her lost love. Had anyone?
“What happened?” She prompted again.
Ms. Helen’s gaze came back into focus. “He wasn’t from Trinity Falls and didn’t want to stay. But I didn’t want to leave. I was born here. I grew up here. I’d attended universities in big cities, but Trinity Falls was my home.” She arched an eyebrow. “Sound familiar?”
Megan nodded. Ms. Helen’s story was her own. “So he left.”
“He left. He became a campaign advisor to a political candidate in Chicago.” Ms. Helen sipped her tea. “I was devastated for a long time. A very long time.”
“I’m so sorry.” Megan could only imagine the older woman’s heartache. She was experiencing a smaller version of it now.
Ms. Helen seemed to shake off the memories. “I heard he married a stunning young woman with excellent political connections.”
“Oh no.”
“A few years later, he went to prison.”
Megan blinked. “What?”
“He was caught embezzling from that Chicago politician’s reelection campaign fund.” Ms. Helen propped her chin on her fist and lowered her voice. “I’d always wondered if he stole the money to please his wife. She looked to be used to the finer things.”
“Oh.” What else could she say?
“‘Oh,’ indeed.” Ms. Helen lowered her arm to the table. “Do you know the difference between my lover and yours?”
“Besides the fact that Ean would never embezzle money?”
Ms. Helen chuckled. “Yes, besides that.”
“What is it?” Am I really having this conversation with Ms. Helen?
“My lover left Trinity Falls. Yours came back. Your fear of losing him became a self-fulfilling prophesy. He didn’t leave Trinity Falls, but he did leave you.”
The words were hard to hear. “I shouldn’t have given in to my fear.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.”