The Daddy Salute. Maureen Child

behavior, Tina had never made a big deal out of it.

      Moving to Bayside two years ago was the best thing Kathy had ever done. At least she had one stable person in her life. Tina was madly in love with her husband and constantly trying to convince Kathy that marriage was a good thing.

      But Kathy had made up her mind years ago. With her mother, Spring, as a shining example of how not to live your life, Kathy had decided to stay single. Better to live alone than to go from one broken marriage to another.

      Not that that had ever bothered her mother.

      Oh, boy. Wasn’t the rule of families that children were supposed to embarrass parents? No doubt, across the country, middle-aged parents were going about their perfectly normal, rut-filled lives, lamenting their offspring’s loony life-styles. But not in the Tate family. No sirree.

      Nope. Here in never-never land, Kathy was the adult, and her mother was the forty-eight-year-old teenager. Not that she didn’t love her mom, but honestly, was it too much to hope for that Spring Hastings-Watts-Tate-Grimaldi-Grimaldi-Hennesey-Butler-soon-to-be would grow up? That she would settle down into the kind of everyday, ordinary mom Kathy had always wanted?

      A voice inside whispered, Yes. She’s never going to change, so just learn how to deal with it.

      “Kathy?” Tina spoke up, and Kathy shook her head to clear it.

      After taking a quick gulp of coffee, she answered, “Technically, this is marriage number six. But Mom says five. Because she married number three twice, she only counts him as one husband.”

      Tina smiled, noticed Kathy’s disgusted expression and said, “I’m sorry, hon. I know it’s not funny, but you’ve got to admit, your mom is really something.”

      “Oh, she’s something, all right.” Kathy shook her head and stood up.

      “I swear, her life is like a soap opera.”

      “Well, I wish she’d hire some new writers.”

      No matter how kind or understanding Tina was, she’d never really be able to know what it was like growing up with a mother like Spring. Kathy had had to learn early on that she was the responsible one in the household. She’d grown up fast in order to make up for her mom’s not growing up at all.

      But even as those thoughts rattled around inside her mind, Kathy felt disloyal. After all, her mom had done the best she could. At least she had stuck around, which was more than Kathy’s father had ever done.

      “So when’s the wedding?”

      Kathy started wandering around the cozy, cluttered kitchen. Her gaze drifted from the crayon artwork proudly displayed on the refrigerator to the dog bowl on the floor to the child-size fingerprints on the windows. This is what a kid’s world should be like, she told herself. And that’s why she’d never have children of her own. A bubble of emptiness rose up inside her, then settled down into the pit she usually kept it in. As much as she would love to have the kind of family Tina had, she knew it wasn’t in her cards. She refused to be a single mother. She’d seen firsthand just how difficult that was. And she would never get married, so that left kids out entirely.

      Thank heaven she at least had Tina’s kids to pour all of her maternal feelings into.

      “Kath?” Tina’s voice prompted her. “The wedding? When is it?”

      The wedding. “Three weeks,” she said, and leaned against the counter.

      “She’s been single so long,” Tina mused, “I wonder what made her decide to get married again.”

      “Who knows?” Kathy said, throwing her hands high. It had been six years since her mom’s last divorce. Kathy had actually begun to hope that Spring was slowing down. Oh, well.

      “Where is it?”

      This time Kathy had to chuckle. Really, what else could she do with a mom like Spring. “Where else? Vegas.”

      “Well,” Tina said, and reached over to lift Michael out of his high chair, “maybe this time it will work out. Maybe this time she’s really in love.”

      Spring had sounded different when she’d called to give Kathy the news about the impending wedding. There’d actually been a little tremor in her voice. As if she was nervous. Though any woman who’d recited the wedding vows as often as Spring had surely shouldn’t have anything to be nervous about. No, it was probably just her imagination working overtime. This was simply another wedding for Spring.

      “And maybe our little résumé service will put us both on the Fortune Five Hundred list,” she said, and winced slightly. She didn’t mean to sound bitter, for heaven’s sake.

      “Stranger things have happened.”

      “Anything you say, partner,” Kathy said, then changed the subject by asking, “Have you got the new ad ready for the newspaper?”

      “Yeah, it’s in the other room. Hold the baby for a minute?”

      “Sure,” Kathy said, always eager to get a little baby hugging in. She stepped forward to pluck little Michael out of his mother’s arms. Fifteen pounds of warm, cuddly love squirmed against her, and Kathy’s heart melted. She ran her palm gently over the top of his head, smoothing down the wispy, fine, blond hair.

      Regret roared through her with a vengeance as she realized again that by denying herself marriage, she was denying herself this. A child of her own to love. And the closer she came to thirty, the harder that truth hit her. The phrase biological clock had become pretty much a cliché these days, and darned if she couldn’t hear hers ticking.

      Michael cooed and batted at her shoulders with two small-fisted hands. She caught one of them and rubbed his little fingers with her thumb. “You’re a sweetheart, you know it?” she asked, and grinned when he giggled from deep in his throat.

      Tina stepped into the kitchen and paused, watching them. “You’re good at that, Kath.”

      Kathy glanced at her. “It’s not hard to love a baby.”

      “Or a man,” Tina said.

      “Don’t start,” Kathy told her, shaking her head. Tina’s one major flaw was that she insisted on playing matchmaker.

      “There’s a guy in Ted’s office who—”

      “Stop right there,” Kathy warned her.

      “Come on, Kath. There’s no reason for you to live like a nun.”

      “I don’t.”

      “Really?” Tina laid the manila envelope she was carrying down on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “And when was the last time you actually spoke to a real, live man?”

      Think fast. “Three days ago,” she blurted.

      “Who?” Tina asked.

      “My neighbor.”

      “The marine?” Tina’s blue eyes widened in anticipation.

      Oh, man, she shouldn’t have started this. Perching Michael on her hip, she bounced him up and down.

      “Details, Kath. Details.”

      “He fixed my car for me,” she said with a shrug. “Then he helped me with my groceries.” And she’d managed to avoid him ever since.

      “And…”

      “There is no and,” Kathy told her, and walked across the room to hand over the baby. Then she snatched up the ad copy and tried to make her escape.

      “There could be an and,” Tina said hurriedly.

      “I don’t want any and.” She picked up her purse from the table and headed for the back door. Tina’s voice stopped her cold in the doorway.

      “You’re not your mother, Kathy.”

      She