Leftover Baggage from Llanview

5

Dorian:

As we sit down to eat, I notice Addie look heavenward for a few seconds as almost everyone around us is talking.

Then she makes the sign of the cross and I realize that she has just said a prayer, a quiet one.

I never knew her to be religious. I myself have never been religious myself, but Addie's quiet prayer reminds me of a time back in late December 1995.

Desperate for peace and clarity, I had visited Llanview's Saint James church that New Year's Eve.

I had just been cleared of all murder charges a few weeks before, but much of my family was in turmoil.

Blair's then-husband Todd was missing in Ireland and presumed to be dead, Blair was pregnant with Starr and wondering how she was going to support the two of them.

Cassie and Andrew's marriage was coming apart at that time too.

Viki had also mentally broken down and was in and out of a mental hospital and her kids were struggling to cope with it.

I know I didn't often handle things with Viki or her family well.

Her son Joe, who had been in university at the time and I had a romantic fling, partially in retaliation for Viki's extramarital affair with Sloan and her framing me.

It became a real romance, but Viki caught wind of it after she barged in on us.

I don't blush easily, but I'll never forget turning red when Viki screamed at us in a rage, calling me "immoral" among other things and talking down to her son as if he were still a child.

She bullied us into breaking up shortly afterwards, but Joe and I still sometimes saw each other on the sly.

Viki's daughter Jessica was growing up dealing with Viki's DID and Viki often not being there for her, so Jessica was growing increasingly unstable.

So...that New Year's Eve, I sat down at the church alter and just prayed for strength...strength to do the right things, strength for my family, strength for me to be there for my family.

I hope God answered that prayer...perhaps he did because I'm sitting here with family with my sanity intact and Llanview behind me...sometimes it's hard to believe I came through it.

But I don't think I'll ever figure God out because I don't even know if God's name is a first name, a last name, a pseudonym or an acronym.

We do lots of catching up over a great dinner of roasted garlic chicken and a rice and vegetable pilaf.

It's especially good to see Starr and Hope smiling again. Hope does grow tired during our dessert of maple cheesecake and bids us all goodnight and goes to bed early.

"I don't think Todd is leaving Port Charles any time soon," Blair tells us. "His nightclub is starting to take off."

"Doesn't he co-own a newspaper as well?" Addie asks.

"I think so," Starr says, finishing off a second piece of cheesecake.

Our conversation drifts into various directions for the next hour or so.

I'm very happy to hear from Blair and Starr that Sarah Roberts has settled in Annapolis, Maryland and recording and producing albums.

Sarah is quite different from her parents from what I've seen...so is her brother CJ.

"Tina complains on instachat and facemedia that her kids never visit or contact her, " Blair chuckles and Addie and I can't help smiling.

"I can hardly blame them," I put in. "I wonder how long Tina and Cord will last this time."