Page 139 of The Problem with Dating

“This is the spot,” Teresa affirmed, undeterred by my skepticism. “Ever since you promised me a restaurant when you were just a boy, I’ve envisioned it here.”

“That promise can be fulfilled in Chicago.”

“You said I can pick the location. I pick this one, Alejandro Luis Ramírez.”

She used my full name.

A sign of her finalization.

Exasperated, I leaned back against the bench. “Why here? I was willing to open a restaurant anywhere, even in Madrid. Wouldn’t you want it in your homeland?”

“Home isn’t a place, Alejandro. Home is a person, and that person was from here.”

“Your person was from the middle of nowhere town in Illinois?” I asked, utterly bemused.

“Yes.”

“And this person is…?”

“Was,” she corrected gently. “Peter,” she said, a soft whisper of remembrance.

“Who’s Peter?”

“Peter Parker.”

I cocked an eyebrow and turned to face her straight on. “Spider-Man?”

“What on earth is a Spider-Man?”

I laughed. “The superhero. Peter Parker.”

Her eyes widened. “You know my Peter Parker?”

“I have a feeling we aren’t talking about the same Peter. Tell me about yours.”

With a sigh and a wistful smile, Teresa embarked on her tale. As she spun the threads of her history, I was struck by a realization. Beneath my great-aunt’s well-curated image of a perennial playgirl was a woman who had experienced, then lost a profound love.

Teresa in love?

It was an odd concept to wrap my brain around.

Ever since I was a child, she’d have a different guy doting on her every want and need. Even her flat in Madrid was paid in full by a man she’d hardly liked and would only date on Saturdays because he’d always bring her the best wine, and she’d get drunk enough to dance with him until the sun came up. Miguel, I believed his name had been. Or Cristian. Heck if I remembered.

But that was the thing—each man was a passing fancy of hers. While these men worshipped her as if she were royalty, she hardly recalled their last names.

“Peter was my everything,” she confessed. “After you, of course.”

“Why haven’t you mentioned him before?” I asked, startled by her casual revelation.

A somber silence fell over us before she finally spoke, her voice laced with memories and regret. “Sometimes the greatest joys in life are the hardest to speak of.” She glanced over her shoulder toward the café behind us, then back toward the abandoned movie theater. “When I was sixteen, my father moved us to America for a few years. To this very town. I met a young man named Peter. He was studying at a café that I was at, too. I was reading out loud as I was trying to learn English, and I kept saying a word wrong. Peter overheard me and came over to help. It turned out he was trying to learn Spanish, too, so each week, we met at the café and would teach one another. Peter’s family founded this town. Hence, the café being called Peter’s Café. The café even has a sandwich called the Teresa.”

“What happened with Peter?” I questioned. “Where did that go?”

“Oh, we spent the next few years falling in love in this dang small town. He gave me my set of firsts.”

“Set of firsts?”

“Yes. My first romantic butterflies. First set of tearful laughing. First meaningful kiss.” She pointed across toward the movie theater. “And last meaningful kiss right inside that building.” Her smile somewhat faltered, and I saw the shift in her personality. “Our story was a tale as old as time.” She shared her history with Peter, a love story that began in Honey Creek. Their romance was a whirlwind affair tainted with a family’s disapproval and life circumstances tearing them apart.

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