GH2025.01 Deathbed Confession By Lucy
"My son. If you were with us today you would be five years old. You would have begun your schooling by now. I would have started teaching you the ancient art of Tai-Chi. I can see you as clearly as if it really happened yesterday, us on the docks, you in your Tai-Chi robes, learning by imitating me as your father. Nikolas would come down from the main house and commend you on your immediate mastery of the moves. Of course I'd be glowing with pride, because you would have been everything to me: my pride and joy. I can see the Cassadine in you, dark hair, tanned skin, with your mother's heart and soul. Her kindness show in your eyes. You and I would walk back to the main house and you would sit at the dinner table telling your mother all you've learned today. You would perhaps go to your room and bring me a paper you had completed for your tutor. And I would praise you on your obvious brilliance, all the while ignoring the misspelled words."
"You may have by now developed my fascination with computers. I would teach you all I know. After dinner I would watch you with your mother, how much she loves you and dotes on you, and I would be so proud myself, proud of my wife, and proud of my beautiful little boy. By now your sister Lulu would be quite fond of you. She might try to assert her seniority over you by bullying you, but you would have none of it. My youngest son, much too strong to let his sister dominate him . . . "
Stefan Cassadine looks away from his computer to stop reading the words he'd written twenty years ago. His eyes fill with pain as he began a new entry for today, the day, the anniversary of the loss of his son, and along with him part of his heart.
"Today you would be twenty-five years old. Twenty-five years have passed since I last laid eyes on you, as my newborn son. What would you be like today? What would you look like? For some strange reason I can no longer see you as clearly. When I look at Nikolas, I see the man that you could have become. Am I finally letting go? I don't know, I know that I don't want to. I'm not sure that your mother and I can live with the faint flickers of hope anymore. I want to let go because it's choking me, choking your mother even though she tries to hide it. She visits the nursery on this day every year, but I simply can't bring myself to go in there. I suppose we just can't give up hope that you, our beloved child, are out there somewhere, somehow. However, I can no longer picture you. Oh my son, if only I could see you, meet you if only once. . . but it isn't so. All these years I've kept a diary about you, what you'd be like, but I feel like I'm losing that too. It's all I have left of you . . . "
Stefan leans back in his chair and covers his face with his hands in pain, looking older than his years.
Laura Cassadine walks down the hallway and looks around making sure nobody is watching her. She pulls a key out of her pocket and unlocks the door to the room she hasn't allowed herself to look into since the last anniversary. For Laura, being in here still has the same effect, growing even more powerful over the years. She opens the door and flicks on the light. Everything looked the same as it did twenty-five years ago when he'd disappeared. The crib in the center of the room that he had never slept in, the rocking chair in the corner where she'd wanted to rock her son to sleep, the baby clothes hanging in the closet. The Cassadine crest necklace on top of the dresser that was to belong to him. Laura walks into the room slowly, the memories
flooding back to her.
Finding out she was pregnant, her husband's joy at the prospect of having another child, his doting on her, their shared hopes and dreams for the child, a Cassadine child born of love, a loved shared openly and freely. Morning sickness that, while making her so ill, brought her happiness because it was part of bringing a child into this world. The thickening of her figure, all the preparations for the child, long painful hours of labor, and Stefan's joyful face when he realized he would have a son. Her face darkens as she remembers the baby's disappearance, her collapsing in pain, the agony that can only come from losing a child. Stefan supported her as she cried, his devastation in his eyes as he tried to be strong for her sake.
Laura runs her hand over the crib, handmade by the best craftsmen in Europe for the new Cassadine baby, and tries to picture her son as he would look today but she can't do it. She goes and sits in the rocking chair, trying to remember the perfect way her child fit into her arms. The incredible sense of loss overwhelms her, and she bows her head and cries softly, sitting there with the ghosts of what might, what should, have been.
Nikolas and Lulu, walking up the staircase in Wyndemere, hear their mother crying quietly in the nursery.
Nikolas: "Poor Mother. How can she torture herself so by going in there? I wish they could let go. It has been twenty-five years after all. "
Lulu: "How do you let go of the loss of a child? Especially when there's not even the finality of death. I have to go to her." Lulu starts to walk toward the nursery but Nikolas takes her arm and stops her.
Nikolas: "Lu, don't. Let her be alone for now. That's what she wants. Let her own her grief. "
On a small, secluded island in the Aegean named Kronos a seaplane circles before landing into the azure harbor. Slowly the boat nears the docks where a slim man in his twenties waits shading his eyes as he watches the approaching floating plane. Finally a door opens and a small woman with golden hair jumps out onto a pontoon and starts to cast the lines to the man on the shore who secures the boat with the ease of long practice. Within moments of turning off the engines, Billy Onassis exits the plane and jumps swiftly to the dock. He embraces the man tightly before pulling back to look at him. Leaving his arm around him, Billy and the man start to walk toward the house he grew up in, with the woman trailing behind them.
Billy: "How is she?"
Patrick: "It's not good. You won't recognize her. I thought you'd never get here...and yet I think that's what she's been waiting for. You to be here so she could die. "
Billy: "I'm so sorry, Patrick, I came as soon as I heard. Georgie and I have been flying around the clock to get here. Of course it would happen when I was a world away. "
Patrick: "Where were you this time?"
Georgie: "Rio. I'm Georgie Jones; I'm very sorry to intrude at such a time. "
Billy: "Damn! I'm sorry, Georgie, this is my brother Patrick. Patrick, this is Georgie as she already said. We're partners on the natural disaster circuit. We should get up to the house."
Patrick: (nodding) "Father is already up there. He keeps hoping this is all a mistake and she'll pull through. He's had the experts up here for months."
Georgie: "Your cable didn't say what was wrong?"
Patrick: "It's cancer. Liver cancer."
Georgie(paling): "Oh..."
Patrick(grimly): "Yes, Oh. She's accepted that she is going to die. Father and I are the ones having a problem with all this."
The trio walk silently then toward the house. Thaao Onassis comes to the doorway to greet them.
Thaao(looking relieved): "Billy. I'm so glad you're here."
Billy: "I came as soon as I could. This is my friend, Georgie Jones."
Thaao nods listlessly. "Good to meet you finally, Georgie."
Georgie: "It's nice to meet you. I'm sorry that it is under these circumstances."
Patrick: "I hate to cut the small talk short, but we really should get in to see her."
Billy: "Georgie, you don't have to come in if you don't want to."
Georgie: "You need me now. Let's go. "
They walk up the stairs and into the room where Miranda lies on her deathbed. A lurking odor of death mixes with the antiseptic smell of the sickroom. The liver cancer has taken its toll on Miranda's appearance. Her skin, while deathly pale, has the a yellow cast of jaundice. Her body is covered with sores. Her hair is practically gone from months of chemo, and her torso is bloated while her limbs are bone thin. All her
veins have collapsed except the one that the morphine drip was flowing into. When she breathes, her fluid-filled lungs rattle as she struggles for air pushing off for a moment longer- death.
The doctor speaks quietly to the four of them. "You will want to say your final goodbyes. She won't be with us much longer."
Thaao: "Thank you doctor. Please give us a few minutes alone with her."
The doctor nods and leaves the room. Patrick goes to Miranda, doing his best not to look at her.
Patrick: "Mother? Father said that there's something you want to speak with us about."
Miranda speaks, very quietly, sapping her remaining strength. "I cannot die without making my peace. You deserve to know the truth on your parentage."
Billy whispers to his father "Is she delirious?"
Thaao: (shaking his head) "No, she has something to say. I think we better listen."
Patrick, Billy, and Thaao all gather around Miranda's deathbed, while Georgie lingers in the doorway to give the family some measure of privacy. Miranda begins speaking, her voice audible but barely so, and breathy as she drags for air, speaking quickly because she knows her time is limited.
"Twenty-five years ago today, Patrick, you came into my life. But you didn't come into my life the way most babies come into their mothers' lives. In a town in New York called Port Charles, a woman named Jennifer Smith kidnapped a child out of General Hospital, and brought him here to me. I raised that child, you Patrick, like my own. Your birth parents are Stefan and Laura Cassadine, and your grandmother, Helena Cassadine masterminded this scheme, in which I was a willing participant."
Patrick, Billy, and Thaao all stare at Miranda so shocked they are unable to speak. Nobody notices the look of rage and horror on Georgie's face. Her voice cuts short the piercing silence "YOU BITCH!"
Georgie walks closer to Miranda's deathbed, no longer caring about
intruding on the family's privacy. "You cruel, selfish, heartless BITCH! Do you have any idea how much pain you caused the Cassadines? Do you even care that you've taken twenty-five years away from a family? I hope you burn in hell."
Miranda's panic can be heard even through her weak voice, tears choking her. "Please, don't judge me! It was a mistake! I wanted another child so badly, but I couldn't conceive! And I hated Stefan and Laura Cassadine! They ruined so many lives, mine, my best friend Katherine's! Everything they touch turns to dust! Patrick, my son, say something! I couldn't bear it if I died with you hating me. "
Patrick looks contemptuously at Miranda's tear streaked face, his face blank, showing no emotion. So like a Cassadine. "You kidnapped me away from my real parents twenty-five years ago and never bothered mentioning this to me. For revenge. I don't like being a pawn in your pathetic games. Well, this explains why you always loved Billy more then me. Why you toyed with me, occasionally pretending to love me and then withdrawing again when I began to trust it. I was nothing but a means for revenge to you. Hell, you never loved me at all. I am no son of yours."
Patrick leaves the room, coldly ignoring Miranda's tears and protestations. "No, that's not true Patrick, I've always loved you!"
Billy(incredulous): "You kept me from knowing my real father until I found out by accident and now you do the same thing to my brother? Except this is so much worse. How could you? Georgie is right. You're nothing but a bitch, a vicious, vengeful bitch. My only concern is for Patrick now. You make me sick."
Miranda(sobbing and gasping for breath): "NO Billy, wait-- don't, please don't, I love you! You're my only blood relation left! Please don't hate me! "
Billy: "Ever hear that saying about how you can choose your friends but not your relatives? I didn't choose to be related to you, and in fact I'm ashamed to have the blood of a viper running through my veins. Goodbye, Mother." Billy spat that last word like it was an insult.
Georgie: "Billy, let's go. Your brother needs you."
Billy and Georgie leave the room, leaving Miranda alone with her husband Thaao, who had been watching silently.
Miranda: "Thaao? Say something! Say you forgive me!"
Thaao: "Forgive you? I don't even know you. You're a complete stranger to me. No wife of mine would ever do something like that. People get what they deserve, and you deserve to die here, alone, knowing that nobody loves you. But I'll make sure you receive a decent burial right next to Helena. Rest in peace."
Thaao follows Billy and Georgie out the door, leaving Miranda to die alone.
