“Do you think this looks okay?” Marie asked as she glued popsicle sticks together, trying unsuccessfully to get them to stand on their own.
“No. That look nothing like the Eiffel Tower.” Francesca answered while attempting to stack pebbles in a shape that somewhat resembled an oval. “And this looks nothing like the Colosseum. Let’s hope your mom’s almost croaked by the time she sees these . . . things, or else she will never believe she’s in Europe.”
Marie sighed. “That’s not the point Frankie. I’m just hoping to put her in a good mood before she passes. She always spoke about Europe, but never had the opportunity to visit; she married Dad so young and had Andrew and me soon after.”
“God that sounds awful, never having the chance to live. She had known Philip since she was born right? And married him when she was nineteen?” Marie nodded and Francesa continued. “Anyway did Lydia ever say why she wanted to go to Europe? Or where exactly she wanted to go?”
Marie stopped working and glanced into her mother’s room before replying, “Honestly, I can’t remember. She spoke about it so often, I stopped listening to her years ago.” She glued one last wooden stick on to support her sculpture and marveled and the mess she managed to get to stand up by itself. “I think this is fine. You were right Frankie, she will probably be too out of it to even notice how bad these are. Grab the Big Ben, the Pantheon, and the Colosseum. I’ll get the Sistine Chapel, the canal boat, and the Eiffel Tower and we can put them in her room.”

Before Lydia could even open her eyes, she knew exactly where she was. An odd combination of smells at once overwhelmed her - roses, freshly picked, baguettes, still warm from the oven, along with a multitude of other delicious bakery treats - a combination she had only experienced in one place before. A glance out of her left eye confirmed what she already knew. The tall metal structure of the Eiffel Tower loomed over her. She shielded her eyes from the sunlight to admire the design of the framework that dominated the Paris skyline. Seeing it in person gave Lydia a new appreciation for the structure. She wondered how it had stood for so many years with such poor architecture; there seemed to pieces of metal laid haphazardly at the base. Lydia brushed off the incongruence  between her expectations and reality and decided to wander the streets and explore. After all, she did not expect to ever have the chance to visit again.
All day was spent discovering new things and places. Green trees and small bakeries lined each street, and every time the sun caught one of the falling leaves, she remembered how lucky she was to visit this wonderful town before she died. She passed small cheese shops emitting strange smells from strange cheeses she would never find back home. She passed countless chocolate stores filled with unrecognizable bonbons, each begging Lydia to enter and try their delights. She passed flower markets, every time with a “Rose for young lady?” comment from the owner. Little children ran all around her followed by mothers who struggled to keep up. In that instant, Lydia pledged to never let herself turn into one of those people, although she was sure Philip would have a different opinion about that.
It was not long before Lydia was lost in the maze of winding roads that all seemed to look the same. In an effort to find herself, she turned down an alleyway she did not recognize, and was shocked at what she saw. There were no boutiques or screaming children; instead the narrow alleyway had only a few people loitering about and was, inexplicably, lined with candles. The candles were everywhere, on the ground and in the every nook and cranny of the old brick walls. Each had its own fire that burned so bright it seemed to be shouting “Look at me! Notice me!” in its effort to try and outshine the sun, whose light had not wavered for hours, making the day feel longer than any Lydia had ever experienced before.
Across the passageway, Lydia locked eyes with a dark figure who, at that instant, began to make his way over to her. His entire face, bar his deep emerald eyes that drew Lydia to him, was a dark haze that never cleared even as he approached her. His blurry face did not seem odd to Lydia in the slightest; it was as if she knew all she needed to from his eyes. He pulled a rose out of his pocket and offered it to her. It looked similar to the roses Lydia saw being sold at a market earlier, but at the same time somehow carried so much more weight. Lydia accepted the flower and the man introduced himself as George. No more words were needed.
Over the next few weeks, Lydia and George traveled all over Europe. They toured around London and pretended they were in Ancient Greece while in Athens. They sailed down the canals of both Amsterdam and Venice, and even marveled at Michelangelo’s work in the Vatican City. Lydia had always dreamed of exploring the world, and those past few weeks fulfilled those dreams.
Eventually Lydia found herself sitting next to a roaring fireplace while gazing at the light of the Colosseum through a nearby window. It was the first time she had had a chance to relax in all of these weeks, and was also the first time she could remember the sun setting.
“You have a ring on your finger. How have I not noticed that before?” George asked while sitting across from her. Over the past couple weeks, the two had grown closer, but this was the first they had sat down and had a conversation that went deeper than the weather (which had always, without fail, been constant sun).
“His name is Philip.” Lydia answered curtly. She looked down at her engagement ring that for weeks had gone unnoticed by the both of them. Suddenly she could not her eyes off of the large diamond; it had felt so natural to have it on her hand the past few weeks.
“So you want to get married then? Settle down and have children?” George asked.
“No.” Lydia’s mind darted straight to the children she had seen running around the streets of Paris. She expected to be completely put off, but instead a different emotion came to her mind. Could it be endearment? Love?
“Then don’t do any of that.” George replied simply. “Leave Philip and go travel the world. The past few weeks could be your entire life. Doesn’t that sound incredible? You’re sitting next to a fire; that’s an excellent place to get rid of your ring.”
Lydia glanced at the fire, now dying from burning all night. She had always assumed she would never want children, or any sort of normal life. If George had asked her to do this weeks ago, Lydia had no doubt that she would have said yes. However, after seeing the alternative, a life prancing around the world, unattached to anyone and without love, she realized she now knew the correct answer to George’s question.
“Absolutely not. A life without love is not one worth living.”
Lydia stood up and left the restaurant, left Rome, and left George. As she left the restaurant, she glanced behind her to see that the fire had completely burned out.

Marie’s eyes welled up as she listened to the last breath leave her mother. Francesca patted her on the back in an effort to comfort her, but did not succeed at all.
“Who is George? Your mother said his name a few times before she passed.” Francesca asked. “At least, I think that’s what she said. She wasn’t completely lucid towards the end . . .” she trailed off.
“I have no idea, I never heard her mention a George before.” Marie wiped her eyes and stood up from the chair placed next to Lydia’s bed. “It was probably just a name she made up. She did that a lot in the past few weeks.”
The two girls were just about to leave the room when Francesca noticed a small fireplace on the other side of Lydia’s bed.
“Hey do you want to light that? Perhaps give Lydia some comfort wherever she’s on her way to?” Francesca asked.
“No, don’t bother.” Marie answered. “Nobody has been able to get that fireplace to light for fifty years.”
“Well, what’s the harm in trying?” Francesca asked.
Francesca found a box of matches on Lydia’s bedside table, lit one, and brought it down to the fireplace. Instantly the flames leapt to life, dancing around the fireplace that had previously been empty for so long. The fire burned longer and brighter than Marie had ever seen before.