The road home

“I’m here because he loves you.”

Megan laughed a little, as tears of desperation streamed down her face.  “I used to think that, too,” she said.  “Star-crossed lovers, like Romeo and Juliet, kept apart by warring families.  But you know what?  It’s bull shit.  If he’d really loved me—I mean, really, really loved me—he wouldn’t have left.  And he did.  The only person he ever really loved was his dad.”

Alturis waved his knife in a dismissive sort of way. “You don’t know how men work.  We leave what we love.  It makes us feel powerful.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“And so you say because you’re a woman.”

“You mean sane.”

“The truth is crazy sometimes,” Alturis said.  He chewed thoughtfully on his salad.  “Or maybe he didn’t want you to see him bald.  A man wants to be remembered with hair.”

“He didn’t know he was going to be bald, did he?”

“Well, look at his father.  Bald as a pig’s bottom."  Alturis gave her a wise look.  “Sometimes, the fear alone is enough.”