The Fountain...

The problem with travelling the world with someone you loved, she realized, was that when you lose them, everywhere you go had something that reminded you of them.

With a rose in her hand, she sat at the edge of the huge fountain, watching the illuminated waters of its vast pool lap in the gentle night breeze. There was a local superstition that said if you threw three coins in the fountain you would someday return to the city married to your true love.

She knew this wasn't true; his absence was living proof of that.

Looking over the water, she closed her eyes and remembered...

We were in Rome for a friend's wedding, though neither of us knew we were both on the guest list until we had run into each other at the airport. After that moment, we were inseparable the rest of our time here.

After the reception, we wandered the city, still in our formal wear and my baby girl asleep in my arms. The champagne and the excitement of the occasion probably kept us from realizing it was more practical to head back to the hotel for a good night's sleep instead.

We ended up here by the fountain that night and it looked exactly like how it does right now, with the lights illuminating the quietly lapping water and the sculpted works of the Renaissance masters. All we did was sit and talk about nothing, about everything, as we stared out over the pool of glowing water together. The world couldn't have been more perfect in that moment.

And I wanted that moment again someday.

I didn't tell him the myth about the coins, or that I had slipped three of them into the waters when he wasn't looking before we left...

She felt the tears welling up again, when she opened her eyes to stare out over the pool of glowing water alone.

She wore the same black dress she had worn that night years ago, and she could still see him in her mind, his dress shirt half tucked in and as ruffled as his perpetually ruffled hair, his tie dangling loose around his neck and his jacket slung over his shoulder. Appropriate post-party attire.

And he was smiling at her, like he always did, a lop-sided grin that mirrored a spark of mischief and a love for life in his eyes.

She hated knowing those same eyes were now six-feet under, dead in his grave.

Wiping her eyes, she slipped the rose she held into the pool.

She sat there watching the flower float away until it was swallowed by the cascading water falling from one of the sculpted statutes on the far side of the fountain.