Annalise Razik

I told my daughter to make a wish.

We were sitting together in our tiny ramshackle kitchen, staring at the seven birthday candles on her cake.

She closed her Cindy Lou Who eyes for just a second, and then she blew out these candles with great determination, and she said, Mommy, do you want to know what I wish for?

And I said, oh no, honey, that's something precious for you to hold close to yourself.

But the truth is, I was afraid of this wish, because...

Her father and I had been separated for the last four years, but we had only recently become officially divorced.

And I knew that Kaylee was at the age now where a lot of kids started saying, how come you're not together anymore?

And they started making wishes that their parents would get back together.

And this wish was especially problematic because my daughter was born with a special talent.

She had the ability to materialize what she envisioned.

So, okay, here's just one example.

So a couple years before, my mom was taking us on a trip to Disney World and we had to get to the airport at the height of rush hour.

And I was freaking out about this because in our crappy neighborhood, cabs were notoriously unreliable.

And so I had called this limo company and I had negotiated this deal where we could get a town car for only $5 more than I'd pay for a cab.

So Kaylee heard me on the phone with them when I hung up.

She's like, oh, are we going to get to ride in one of those really long cars?

And I was like, oh, no, honey, we're just getting a regular car.

And she just looked at me, and she's like, OK.

So the morning that we're supposed to leave, she's at the living room window and she's like, mommy, mommy, look.

And I go look out the window and pulling up in front of our house is the longest black stretch limo I have ever seen.