Previously…
– Loretta Ragan secretly met with Dr. Longo, the doctor who delivered Molly and Brent’s baby and told them the infant had died during childbirth. Loretta paid the doctor, who was in deep gambling debt, for his assistance with her revenge plot.
– After their wedding, Travis and Rosie announced plans to adopt Gabrielle, whom they have been fostering. Meanwhile, Molly decided that she should be the one to adopt and raise the child.
– Determined to find answers about the night her baby died, Molly confronted Dr. Longo — and was arrested for assault after losing control when he refused to speak with her.
In the nondescript parking lot of a nondescript shopping center on the north side of King’s Bay — the rougher, more industrial part of town — a black SUV idles. Despite the drowsy hum of its engine, its tinted windows give no clue as to the reason for its presence or the activity inside it. Midday traffic comes and goes through the lot, with nary a driver paying much attention to the SUV, which could be awaiting a passenger running a quick errand or housing someone with time to kill before going into one of the plaza’s businesses.
Inside the SUV, a set of fire-engine red fingernails drum against the leather-wrapped steering wheel.
“I don’t like it. Not one bit,” Loretta Ragan says with a thick, tangible annoyance coating every syllable. “I specifically asked you not to draw any further attention to the situation.”
“I’m not the one who drew anything to anything! That woman came in like a banshee and attacked me in front of who knows how many people.”
“And you’re the fool who insisted on calling the police.”
“She caught me off-guard!” Dr. Longo replies from the passenger seat as he swipes a hand over his head of thinning gray hair. “Besides, wouldn’t it have seemed weird if I didn’t call the police?”
Loretta considers this angle for a long moment before a brittle huff escapes her throat.
“Perhaps,” she says. “But I don’t like it. The longer anyone — including Molly Taylor or that self-righteous cop ex-husband of hers — dwells on the day they allegedly lost their child, the more risk we have of being found out. And you wouldn’t want that, would you, Doctor?”
“No. Of course not.” Longo shakes his head frantically. “But that lady — she’s obsessed. She came to the hospital to grill me about that day. She seemed like she was totally off her rocker.”
“I suppose Molly’s public show of instability might be useful to me in other ways,” Loretta admits.
“What other ways? What else are you planning to do to that lady?”
She looks him directly in the eyes and sneers. “That’s for me to know and you not to worry about. The point is, this might not be a complete disaster, provided people take notice of her loosening grip on reality.”
“Right. Good,” Longo says. “Then it’s no big deal.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. But that child can’t be traced, anyway. You’re sure of that?”
“I… I mean, I don’t think so.”
“What do you mean, you don’t think so?”
Dr. Longo’s eyes grow larger with panic as he hesitates in answering.
“Doctor,” Loretta says menacingly. “What are you keeping from me now?”
—–
“You think it went well?” Tim Fisher asks as he places his mug on the coffee table and takes a seat upon the beige sectional sofa in his living room.
“Really well,” Travis Fisher replies from the opposite arm of the deep, U-shaped couch. “The biggest thing now is the waiting.”
“That social worker has to be impressed with what a stable home you’ve given Gabrielle,” Claire Fisher says as she stands over the coffee table, a steaming cup of tea in her hands. “I see enough at the hospital to know that isn’t always the case — even though there are some incredible foster parents out there.”
Travis’s wife, perched next to him, leans forward, elbows on her knees. “I think they’re pleased. I hope they are. But there’s still a lot of red tape to clear before we can officially adopt her.”
“Are they going to push to find her biological family?” Claire asks.
“Her biological family left her outside a police station when she was only a few weeks old,” Tim says. “Doesn’t that mean they gave up their rights?”
Rosie shrugs. “The social worker still thinks everyone needs to do their due diligence — so we can avoid someone coming out of the woodwork later on and trying to void the adoption.”
“We’re excited for you guys,” Tim tells his son and new daughter-in-law, “and I have no doubt everything’s going to work out.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Travis says with a lopsided grin.
The baby monitor on the coffee table emits an errant crackle of static, and Rosie picks it up. The small black-and-white display shows baby Gabrielle sleeping soundly in her playpen.
“I don’t know what they’re going to find that the KBPD didn’t already find,” Rosie says, a note of bitterness in her voice.
Travis picks up the thread for her: “Despite what Aunt Molly might think… Rosie did everything she could to find whoever left Gabrielle at the station.”
“We know that,” Tim says reassuringly.
“Do you think Molly will be okay when she finds out we’re going ahead with the adoption?” Rosie asks her in-laws.
Claire and Tim exchange a wary look.
“What’s wrong?” Travis asks, scooting forward on the sofa.
Claire hesitates before saying, “I guess you haven’t heard.”
—–
In the wooded area behind King’s Bay Academy, Caleb Taylor takes a hit from a sloppily rolled joint. He holds the smoke in his mouth for a long moment, as long as he can stand, before expelling a cloud back out into the chilly autumn air.
“This is sort of badass,” Jasmine Knight says as she reads something on her phone. The two teenagers sit beneath a large tree, shrouded from what little sunlight is coming through the clouds and from the eyes of anyone who might be walking through the back area of the campus.
“It’s not badass when it’s your mom,” Caleb replies with a roll of his eyes. He passes Jasmine the joint, and she places her phone down on her leg.
“Do you think she had a reason to attack that doctor?”
Caleb shakes his head. “I think the reason is that she’s losing it. And I don’t blame her — that baby died while she was having it — but she’s been off for a long time now.”
“That baby was your little brother.”
He takes that in cautiously, as if even allowing the fact to pierce his consciousness might invite in a horde of other thoughts that he wants to avoid at all costs.
“My mom needs a better therapist or something,” Caleb says as he watches Jasmine take a hit from the joint. “Now she’s out there getting arrested for assault.”
Jasmine exhales a plume of smoke. “The article said she went on trial for murder before, too?”
“My family’s a fucking mess. Which you knew already.”
“Still. Is she, like, weird with you now?”
“Not weird. She’s always been this, like, Super-Mom. She’s keeping up the act well. But I can tell. Like she’s…” He trails off, looking at the green leaves above them. “Like she’s half-there all the time. Something’s different.”
Jasmine watches him intently for several seconds, unsure how to respond or what might be helpful. Finally she hands him the joint.
“That’s why you have me,” she finally says.
“Thank god,” Caleb responds before bringing the joint to his lips once more.
“Close the door behind you, please,” Molly Taylor tells her niece as Tori Gray enters the inner sanctum of Molly’s large, tastefully decorated office.
Tori does as instructed, though Molly notices how she carefully holds her phone upright, as if trying to preserve whatever is on its screen. Instantly, she knows what Tori has come to show her.
“I’ve already seen. Don’t worry,” Molly says wearily from behind her desk.
“You have?”
“The Chronicle? Yeah. I suppose when you’ve been on trial for killing the most notorious murderer in your town’s history, the local media gets excited when you get yourself arrested again.”
Tori locks the phone’s screen and lowers the device to her side as she approaches the desk. “How are you doing?”
“My best,” Molly says. “That’s all I can do. Especially when I know there are vultures like Gia all over this building, practically salivating at the thought of me being unfit to do my job.”
“No one thinks that.”
“That’s sweet of you to say, but some people absolutely do.”
Tori stands at the opposite edge of the desk and folds her hands in front of herself. “But are you okay? Really?”
Molly draws in a deep breath. Tori carefully watches her aunt and boss, whose normally flawless makeup seems a little less precise today; her physical and emotional exhaustion show in the lines that seem etched a little deeper into her face, in the hints of dark circles beneath her eyes.
“I get if you don’t want to talk about it,” Tori says, “but I just wanted you to know that I’m on your side — and I know what it’s like to lose a baby–“
“I know you do,” Molly says, her tone softer, “and I’m sorry that we have that in common. It’s so… overwhelming. Inescapable.”
“Anything can set you off. Even a random thought while you’re falling asleep.”
“And then the entire night of sleep is shot.” Molly nods gravely. “You want to know the craziest part?”
“What?”
“I’m more convinced than ever that I’m right,” Molly tells her. “There’s something that doctor isn’t telling me.”
Tori furrows her brow. “What would he be hiding?”
“I wish I knew. But he was trying to avoid me — and he was so eager to call the police, like he wanted me away from him for good. That’s not how you act toward a patient who went through what I went through.”
“So what are you going to do now?” Tori asks.
Molly’s gaze lingers on the black keys of her computer’s keyboard. “I don’t know yet. But I’m going to find out what Dr. Longo is hiding — if it’s the last thing I do.”
—–
Loretta glares intimidatingly across the front seats of the SUV, at the middle-aged man in a blue Oxford shirt. Dr. Longo swallows the lump that has formed in his throat.
“You’re keeping something from me,” Loretta says. “Tell me what it is.”
“It’s nothing. Everything is fine.”
“The only thing I hate more than incompetence is dishonesty. Need I remind you that I could go to the hospital board… or the medical board… or the police… and let them know that you accepted money to tell a woman that her baby had died during childbirth?”
“You’d be implicating yourself, too,” he replies.
“You’d be surprised at how I could avoid that part of things.” She lifts her dramatically penciled eyebrows at him for emphasis. “Now tell me what you’ve been withholding.”
“It isn’t anything major,” Longo says. “There was just — well, I had trouble getting the baby as far away from the hospital as you might’ve liked.”
Loretta draws in a sharp breath through her nose. “What?”
“I had to drop the baby off in King’s Bay. I just– I panicked. I wanted to get rid of it.”
“And where did you leave the child?” she demands.
“There was too much activity outside the fire station,” he says, his voice quavering. “So I went to the police station.”
“The police station?! That baby’s father is the head of the entire police force!”
“No one saw. I made sure there were no cameras at this side entrance, so I just…” Longo stares out the passenger-side window, as if dreaming of an escape. “I left the baby and got away. No one saw me. And clearly no one put the pieces together, or Mrs. Taylor wouldn’t be cracking up the way she is.”
Loretta sighs and allows her eyelids to slide downward, shielding her eyes like they might be able to block out the reality of what she has just been told.
“I can’t believe I trusted you to handle this,” she says at last. “To tempt fate this way — it could be disastrous.”
“It won’t be,” Longo insists. “Because even if someone had made the connection — which they haven’t, and if they haven’t so far, they won’t — no one would have any reason to think that the baby who was left outside the police station was Molly Taylor’s child. Because she thinks that she gave birth to a boy…”
“Because I wanted her to think that,” Loretta says. “I wanted her to feel the pain of having a son ripped away from her too soon, the way my son was ripped away from me.”
“…so there’s no way she’ll ever know what really happened that day,” Longo says, his voice glittering with optimism as if he is hoping that it might be contagious. “She’ll never know that she actually gave birth to a little girl.”
—–
“Arrested. Wow,” Travis says as he flops back against the sofa. “That’s crazy.”
“I hadn’t even heard,” Rosie adds, “but I’m sure Brent didn’t want this to get out.”
Tim places his phone, from which he has been reading the King’s Bay Chronicle article on Molly’s arrest, down on the coffee table.
“I hope this is the wake-up call Molly needs to get real help,” he says with a sigh.
“I was there,” Claire says. “I pulled her off Dr. Longo. And she was– she’s not well. I can only imagine the pain she’s going through.”
With a frown, Rosie again stares at the baby monitor.
“I have sympathy for what your aunt is going through, too,” she says, looking to Travis, “but what she said at our wedding was unacceptable. We are not unfit parents.”
Travis nods. “Agreed. Not cool at all.”
“Well, I don’t think you have anything to worry about there,” Tim says. “If Molly had any designs on going after custody of Gabrielle — I’d say this arrest squashes those.”
Across from him, Travis reaches over and takes Rosie’s hand.
“Let’s hope Aunt Molly gets the help she needs,” he says, “and let’s hope nothing is found that throws a wrench into this adoption.”
END OF EPISODE 1095
Will Molly discover what Longo and Loretta have done?
Should Travis and Rosie be the ones to raise Gabrielle?
What will it take for Caleb to reconnect with his family?
Talk about all this and more in the comments below!
Fuck, Loretta is such a LorDevil. Despite her being evil, I have to say that I love this twisted plot. Growing up watching soaps, I always love a good villainess, and LorDevil is perfect. The thing I love most is how FAMILY is adopting Molly’s baby. It’s just going to rip the Fishers apart when this comes to light and that’s half the fun as a viewer/reader. I loved the connection that Molly and Tori have since they both lost kids; it felt natural and a normal way for them to bond. I have no idea how this will unfold but I am here for it as it really is a huge umbrella story.
And Caleb is getting stoned with Jasmine, which can never lead to good things. I’ve said it before but I continue to love the difference between the twins. I’m curious to what Caleb’s “rock bottom” will be to reconnect with the family or if he will always be a wild child.
Congrats on the anniversary, you’ve been such a huge inspiration and I think you for all the quality content over the years! I’m looking forward to the dailies.
Thank you, Dallas! You know how much I appreciate you sticking around as a reader for so long — plus your constant output motivates me to keep producing Footprints.
“LorDevil” has managed to be this wicked without getting the occult involved! She’s one twisted woman. Her actions are really rooted in the two big, irreversible losses in her life: James and then Philip. She’s laser-focused on avenging their deaths however possible. And I really love planning these big umbrella stories that you slowly realize encompass groups of characters who might not otherwise do much interacting. Even little pieces like having Molly and Tori be able to connect over the babies they’ve lost, while not super-significant to the plot movement, enrich the story for me — and this feels like a fun balance of character drama and outsized good vs evil craziness.
Caleb and Jasmine have actually developed a genuine connection, however strangely, but he’s definitely pulling away from his family and turning to her more and more. It does seem like it’s going to take something extreme to wake him up, but it remains to be seen at what cost that will come. The teens will FINALLY get more of the spotlight once a few of the stories crescendoing now have fully played out, but I like keeping these “developmental” threads running in the background.
Thanks again for all your support!
I love how this episode deals with the fallout of Molly’s actions, including her attacking Dr. Longo as well as her insisting Travis and Rosie didn’t look hard enough for Gabrielle’s real parents. I figured Loretta is the one behind this as she always has been resourceful from outside in society to being behind bars. She is still hellbent on exacting revenge from Phillip’s death. I also like Molly having an ally in Tori who knows what it is like to lose a baby as well. Whenever this truth eventually comes out, this will definitely test the bonds of The Fisher’s for sure.
It’s obvious Jasmine is quite a negative influence on Caleb. Though he is obviously rebelling since deep down he believes he is to blame since he had that big blow out with Molly before she collapsed. It’s obvious Caleb needs more of a positive influence in his life, though with his parents consumed with work and their grief he seems that he thinks he is truly alone.
Congratulations on 24 years of Footprints!!! You have served as one of my biggest inspirations of myself starting Town and Country. Can’t wait to see what you have in store for the world of King’s Bay.
Bre
Thank you, Bre! I’m so thankful that you discovered Footprints, took the time to catch up, and established a series of your own as a result — and you know I always look forward to your thoughtful and humorous commentary.
I had originally planned for other stories to be woven into this episode, but it just felt right to center it all on the news of Molly’s arrest spreading and to give the story room to breathe. Loretta has actually created MORE chaos for the Fishers than she even intended, because now Travis and Rosie are wound up in this, too, which will affect Tim and Claire — talk about a full-service revenge scheme! Jasmine is absolutely a negative influence on Caleb, but right now, he sees her as a safe space away from the turmoil at home. It’s telling that Molly and Brent are so consumed that they don’t really recognize how lost their son is. It’s going to take a lot to bring him back into the fold, and as you point out, he’s holding onto some guilt about Molly’s collapse that is probably fueling this whole thing.
Thanks again!
I love the fact that you really know how to plan story out. There have been so many times where I think I know which path a story is going down and then out of nowhere we turn right into some new territory and then I’m just thinking to myself, of course! I should’ve known we were going there! I love it. It keeps me on my toes.
I really like this struggle for Molly. We don’t often get to see her from this point of view and so full of raw emotion like this. (Other than the whole almost dying thing and the murder trial). I think the last time she’s been focal in such a vulnerable moment like this was decades ago during the Sarah-Brent-Molly triangle. Her bonding with Tori is such a pivotal moment for both women that I am almost okay with Molly never finding out that Travis and Rosie have her daughter. 😬 I can’t believe I said that! But truly, they have such a close bond now because of both their respective losses.
I think we all knew that Loretta was involved here and that the gender was switched to throw everyone off but she’s really sinking her teeth back into her antics and I am loving this new fleshing of Loretta so much! Obviously, yeah, I hate how much pain she’s causing but you can really see that the stakes are rising now that Loretta is in the game. I don’t think Dr. Longo is going to be around for long….oh, dear that was a bad pun! But watch out! The claws are back out.
Jasmine is back! Although, truthfully from this scene you can see that she clearly never left Caleb’s side after they reconnected. Look, I do like their relationship and how he’s sharing more and more about himself with her. But will we ever get to know Jasmine more? Either way, I think Caleb is finding ground on his own to be the perfect rebel without a cause. We haven’t had a true black sheep since Ryan, right? So it’s only a matter of time.
Once again Congratulations Michael! Such an amazing milestone. You should be so proud of this accomplishment. These characters give me so much life.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment! I’m so flattered that you’ve stuck with Footprints for all these years.
I really take pride in planning out long-term story and finding surprising ways to weave different characters together. Sometimes I get frustrated at how long it can take to get to certain points in the stories, because my posting schedule is obviously slower than daytime, but it’s so rewarding when the different parts of a larger story begin to collide. Loretta is really the catalyst for a lot of more human, character-based drama here — she’s an over-the-top villain, but she’s set some very real and hurtful things in motion. I felt like it was definitely time to reveal the full truth about what she and Longo pulled off, because it’s been reasonably obvious and the point of the story is how this affects the main characters, not some shock-and-awe reveal (for the audience) about Gabrielle really being Molly and Brent’s child. And you’re so right about Molly. We seldom see her this vulnerable and stripped-down. What’s ironic is that she’s spinning out and acting crazy, but she’s also closer to the truth than anyone else!
I have always loved the idea of Sarah’s daughter bonding with Molly. It just keeps the tension going into the next generation. And although I knew I wanted Tori to work at Objection, it wasn’t necessarily planned that she and Molly would share the common pain of losing a child — but it’s such a visceral connection that it’ll only bring them closer.
Caleb and Jasmine have been hanging out a lot offscreen. 😉 I wish I had more space to show the teens regularly, but I’m trying to keep their character threads alive in the background as “bigger” stuff plays out. This is all foundational for their adult lives and stories. Jasmine will definitely be a part of them becoming more front-burner in the next few years! She’s really useful as a wild card and a bit of an outsider. And the Caleb/Ryan comparison is very apt. The only other corollary I can really think of is Spencer, but he hasn’t really ever been on the “inside” of the family in the way that Ryan got to be and that Caleb has been since birth.
Thanks again! I really appreciate it.