Free No Time to Wave Goodbye by Jacquelyn Mitchard

dare the one thing she was always too frightened to try to be—a mother—and about how Eliza had been just the kid to prove Candy was right to take the dare.
    She asked Beth now if she remembered the little speech.
    “Sheesh,” Beth finally said. “Guilt much? I want her to have a reception. I just hate it when I’m responsible for people being comfortable.”
    Candy said, “How nurturing.” She paused. “Okay. I’ll host it. Or maybe George Karras will have it at his house. He has a big house.”
    “Shut up! You’re so bad! It’s a burr under Pat’s saddle that we even invite George to these things,” Beth said. “I actually like having him. I’m used to him.”
    “Okay. I’ll pay for everything. Even the cucumber sandwiches. On a civil servant’s salary.”
    “You don’t have cucumber sandwiches in January,” Beth said. “You have meatballs and hot bread. Stuff people can spill on clothes they have to take to the dry cleaners.” She got up to fetch Candy more of Rosie’s almond cookies. Candy had probably already eaten a dozen, easy. Though she never gained a pound, to Beth’s knowledge, Candy had never done a day’s exercise in her life that didn’t entail the fitness minimals of the job. Season to season, Beth never knew if she’d have to belt her jeans or use a pliers to zip them, and Candy remained as lean and absent of topography as the flawless skinny skirts and wide-legged slacks she wore, summer and winter. At a moment’s challenge, she could drop and do thirty guy push-ups.
    Katharine Hepburn genes, Beth thought. What a waste not to have passed them on—although if she had given birth to a child, there would have been no Eliza. What a waste for someone like this woman not to have someone she adored to warm up her bed each night.Candy’s life had been an arrow pointed at sheltering children from the kind of people who would make beds cold and terrifying places, where no rest would come.
    “Don’t be a snot,” Beth went on, handing Candy the cookie plate. “Gold Hat will do it. You don’t have to pay full price. You’re family. And fine! I give up! We’ll have it here and we’ll pay. Happy now?”
    “Why, yes I am,” said Candy in her best Southern belle voice. She had, after all, grown up in Atlanta. She placidly completed her tenth invitation and held it up to show Beth that she’d already written Beth and Pat’s address as the party location. Beth rolled her eyes.
    “You take me for granted.”
    “Ditto,” Candy said. “You know what? I once thought … I would be writing
Vincent
and Eliza Cappadora.”
    Beth set her pen down hard. “Get out! Vincent? You thought Eliza would marry
Vincent?
How could you wish that on your child? He’s not exactly husband material.”
    “Don’t go telling me what husband material is, Beth. Vincent’s … an amazing human being. He’s entirely heart.”
    “Not to me. Well, a little better now. Maybe.”
    “We’ve talked about this for twenty years, Beth. Vincent worships you.”
    “Not enough to tell me what his movie was about.”
    “Exactly.”
    Beth said, “Why did you think she’d marry either of my sons?”
    “She’s too good for anyone else.”
    “I’ll be damned,” Beth said. “Do you really think this?”
    “I don’t say things I don’t mean,” Candy said pleasantly. “But back to the reception. What I’ll do is have people to pass the trays around and put the gifts on a table.”
    “Off-duty cops you’ll force to do it,” Beth went on. “Wait! You’re changing the subject …”
    “That’s what off-duty cops are for,” Candy answered. “That and house-painting. I pay them well.”
    They finally agreed that the priest from Beth’s old parish, Father Cleary, would perform Stella’s baptism, before Mass on the secondSunday in January, but he would come to the Catholic church in Harrington, which the Cappadoras sort of attended. It was called St. Lawrence the Grail, although Ben—who thought