Footprints: An Online Soap -- Episode #230

Back to the main page
Jump into the current episode
Past episodes and summaries
The people of King's Bay
The latest scoops
Catch up quickly on the story
Message board, polls, mailing list, staff bios
Important events, dates, places
Other sites you might enjoy

SARAH TAYLOR'S APARTMENT

Paula knocks quickly on the unfamiliar door and then drops her hands as she waits for an answer. She glances to her sides, up and down the corridor. She's only been here a handful of times, she realizes, since Brent and Sarah moved in here two years ago. She is far less comfortable here than she is over at Tim and Claire's -- or rather, Claire's -- apartment.

Maybe that's what Sarah was talking about, she thinks with a frustrated sigh. She knocks on the door again, her need to see her daughter suddenly even greater.

"Mom," Sarah says, sounding rather surprised, when she finally does open the door. "What are you doing here?"

"Hi, dear," Paula smiles, though her face feels a bit too wooden all of a sudden. "I, um, I picked up a gift for Victoria earlier in the week and I've been meaning to drop it off."

Sarah glances down and for the first time sees the pink gift bag in her mother's hand. "Oh, thanks. I'll grab her so she can dig right in."

Paula stands in the doorway as Sarah heads back to the bedroom to grab Victoria. She isn't sure if she should move further into the apartment. After what happened during her last conversation with Sarah ... There are some very heavy things hanging in the air, and right now, it is rather overwhelming to Paula. How can she even begin to deal with the accusations Sarah tossed out the other day?

"Hey, sweetie," Sarah is saying as she carries Victoria into the room. "Grandma brought you something ..."

"Here you go, darling." Paula hands Sarah the bag and kisses her granddaughter on the cheek. The little girl's face lights up.

"Oh, wow! Look at this!" Sarah narrates to Victoria. She removes the tissue paper from the gift bag and extracts a stuffed puppy. "It's cute, huh?"

Almost immediately Victoria reaches for the puppy and, with a giggle, holds it up in the air.

"I think it's a hit," Sarah says. She looks up only briefly at Paula.

"I'm glad. I thought she'd like it." Paula finds herself at a loss now; she had expected Sarah to come flying out of the gates with her usual emotional bang. This calmer behavior is even more unsettling. "Sarah--" she begins suddenly, feeling a sudden need to cut to the chase.

"This is about the other day, isn't it? What I said about you and Dad and Molly?"

Paula nods solemnly. "Yes. Hearing what you had to say -- it hurt. Not just because it made me feel, well, awful, but ... it broke my heart, too. Hearing you say things that I've never been able to say, never even been able to think outright -- that really pushed me to thinking."

She can see Sarah becoming more and more receptive to what she is saying, as though she has been trapped inside a giant block of ice and it now thawing around her, letting her touch the outside world again.

"I don't want things to go on like this," Paula continues. "I want to close this--this distance between us."

Sarah purses her lips. "I appreciate that, Mom, I really do. But it's not possible now. Not while I'm still living in Molly's shadow."

Next scene
One . Two . Three . Four . Five . Six


Main Page . Current Episode . Episode Archives . Story Recap . Characters . Making Prints . Interact . Around King's Bay . Links