The fairy tale goes like this: they are high-school sweethearts from a small town, Metamora, Illinois, in the American Midwest. He graduates from high school, becomes a US marine and is sent to Iraq. When he returns, they get engaged. He proposes before he leaves for his second tour. She is 18; he is 21. She can’t wait for him to come home.

The tour is cut short. A suicide bomber blows up near his truck and he suffers horrific, life-changing injuries.

A day later he is in San Antonio, Texas, at the Brooke Army Medical Center. She leaves her home town for the first time to fly there with his mother so they can be by his side. She is there for him. His injuries are severe. He will have numerous operations and she will stand by him throughout. It will be a year and a half before they all go home. In the meantime, she will move in with his mother. The homecoming is a triumph. He is a hero and she is his heroine. Their commitment to each other is inspiring and rock-solid. They get married. She is now 21 and he is 24. The wedding takes place on October 7, 2006, and that date is declared a state holiday. Renee and Tyler Ziegel Day. Their romance is covered by The Sunday Times Magazine. They plan to have a family. Love conquers all.

When I tell people that I am going to Illinois to do a follow-up story on Ty and Renee, they are curious. How are they doing?

A little over a year had passed. In January, they got divorced, I tell them. They react with shock and disbelief. What happened? There is more than curiosity in their voice, there is disappointment too. As though it’s personal.

As though they had been promised a happy ending and they were ripped off. It turns out love doesn’t conquer all. It’s a myth.

) ) ) ) )

Metamora, Illinois, is a two-hour drive from Chicago. The kind of small town people don’t leave. Ty’s mum, Becky, was working as a waitress at the Family Fountain, the local diner on the square, when in 1979 she met Ty’s father, Jeff, who works in construction, and raised two sons – Tyler and Zach.

The late-afternoon sunlight is fading. It is a frigid winter’s day. Ty, now 25, is standing in his kitchen, eight miles outside Metamora, in the house he used to share with Renee before she moved out.

That was six months ago; they’d been married for less than a year. They are still good friends. In January, soon after signing the divorce papers, she was over for his Super Bowl party and they still socialise – even though Ty believes that she’s in a new relationship now and living with “some guy”. He doesn’t know much about it, he says.

There is no animosity when he speaks of her. There are still several framed photographs of the two of them laughing and being affectionate, taken before the bombing. There are also wedding photos, and although it’s clearly the home of a single 25-year-old male who isn’t inclined to doing dishes, Renee’s presence has not been extinguished.

The white fridge is covered with colourful snapshots. Friends, babies of friends, and several group shots of Ty with his platoon before he was injured. There is one in particular that stands out. It is striking – Ty on his own, relaxing in the desert between deployments. His boyish face is handsome and innocent, his body is strong, lean and rugged, his blond hair is cropped short and he is lying down on the sand, hands clasped behind his neck, smiling as he looks into the camera. Confident and self-assured.

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