Katie suddenly stops and I am jerked to a halt. The mall traffic flows around us, a wool-wrapped, shopping bag-carting sea of busy shoppers. I turn back to Katie.

“Look, Rick!” she beams, pointing through the mass of people. “A fountain! Come on!”

She grips my hand tightly in both of hers as she fights through the crowd to a smallish fountain. Heavily-chlorinated water gurgles over a faux rock waterfall into a tiled basin that is littered with change.

“Do you have a penny?” she asks brightly, smiling cheekily at me.

I dig in my pockets and pull out two dimes. I give one to Katie. With a delighted chuckle she tosses it into the water. With a sigh I flick my own in.

“What’d you wish for?” Katie asks.

I wished we’d never gone to that party. I wished Maggie’d never introduced you to him. I wished I didn’t work so late. I wished you weren’t so lonely. I wished you’d forget about him. I wished he had a horrible, flesh-eating virus. I wished, I wished, I wished.

“A million dollars,” I sigh.