Homecoming

Megan shook her head. ‘Lord, no. I’m not a chiropodist. Can’t stand feet.’

‘I had someone massage my feet a few times,’ Connie said thoughtfully. Her eyes glazed over and Megan could swear she saw tears appearing.

Thinking of Keith massaging her feet always made Connie think of pregnant women. ‘Put your feet up, love,’ the prospective daddy would say, gently massaging his pregnant partner’s feet. The idea always made her cry. She even hated looking at foot spas.

‘Goodness, that old flu makes you weepy at the oddest things,’ Connie said brightly.

But Megan, who never normally noticed other people’s pain, had the strangest sense of seeing through the fake chirpiness. Suddenly, she felt a sense of kinship with this woman. She’d been hurt too. The man who’d massaged her feet was in the past, there was no doubt about it. Megan wasn’t foolish to have had her heart broken: it happened to other women too.

In her old life, Megan would have ignored the glint of tears on another woman. In her experience, other women generally ignored her tears. But that was the old life. The old Megan.

Impulsively, she reached out a hand. ‘I’m Megan Flynn,’ she said.

‘Connie O’Callaghan,’ said the woman. ‘I don’t know what came over me. Must be the flu,’ she said, dabbing her eyes with her napkin. ‘It was years ago. The feet-massaging thing.’

‘I’m not sure that time matters much when your heart is broken,’ Megan reflected.

‘Yes!’ said Connie. ‘You’re right. Nobody else agrees with me. They all think there’s a statute of limitations on love, but there isn’t.’