A/N: I'm setting up a little bit of a challenge for you all: What do you think Jaclyn looks like? I don't think I've given too many clues, because I don't want this story to turn into one that has paragraphs of description of the main character's looks. (Even though I like doing that, it's a perfect target for flames.)

"Married," muttered Mother during breakfast. "How could you be married without telling us? You're turning into the perfect replica of my sister Gloria."

"Is there a reason you're talking to your oatmeal?" Elliot asked.

"What did you say, Elliot?"

"Nothing," he replied.

"Excuse me," I said as I got out of my chair, "but I have some letters to write."

I almost ran into Dad as I walked into the den. He walked into the kitchen and walked right back out.

"Your mother and Elliot are really going at it," he told me.

"I had a feeling." I looked out the window. "Great, more snow. Doesn't the manager of the weather around here know it's March?"

"I'll have to shovel," he said. "I'm going to need the car later today."

"Oh, Dad, I will." My father had been in the hospital for a heart attack a few years back and I didn't want to take any chances.

This was the beginning of one of the tradtitions in our household. Dad would say he had to do something, Elliot, Mother, or I would say we would, and it would go on...and on...and on. Finally, one of us would win and go out to do whatever it was.

That was what had happened today, and I went out to shovel.

Stockton was in its glory--white, gleaming, and Mr. Miler having a fight with Mrs. Miler.

As soon as I'd cleared off a foot of our sidewalk, Elliot opened the door and hollered, "There's a call from Korea for you!"

I dropped the shovel, ran into the house (almost knocking Elliot over), tracked snow on the carpet, and grabbed the phone.

"Hello?" I asked excitedly.

"Jaclyn!" exclaimed none other than Hawkeye Pierce.

"Hawkeye!"

"I've tried calling once before but the lines were really staticky," he said.

"That was courtesy of a blizzard," I said. "So how are you over there?"

"Just wonderful--land mines, bombs, enemy snipers."

"Jaclyn, who are you talking to?" asked Mother.

"South Korea," I answered.

Her eyes widened and she grabbed the phone away from me. "Who is this?"

I covered my face with my hands and waited for the explosion.

"So YOU'RE the man who stole my daughter away from her fiancee," Mother began."Young man, I do not care for people like you at all. Jaclyn andClark were...what did you just say to me?"

In spite of myself, I let a smile spread across my face. Hawkeye is the sort of person that Mother would hate.

"I shall never understand how people like you are bred...That is thoroughly repulsive. However my daughter thinks you have a bit of humanity in you, I'll never know." She slammed the phone down.

"MOTHER!" I shouted.

"That man is a disgrace to the U.S. Army."

"Do you know how hard it is to reach Korea?" I began, deathly quiet. "How the lines have to be transferred, how long you have to wait? You just cut off the one person I have wanted to talk to for two and a half months."

"God only knows why." She turned to go back to the kitchen.

I closed my eyes, gritted my teeth, and counted to ten.

When that didn't work, I threw a dinner plate against the wall.