The night before the opening of Brad's health club, Will pretended to go out for some tobacco and told Naomi he might drop by the health club. When some plumbing trouble detained Brad as they were about to leave, Will offered to see Jenny home. Stopping by a park on the way, he told Jenny life was just a game to his son and he was sure Jenny would eventually fall in love with someone else, adding he envied the man it would be. He kissed Jenny and when she got up from the bench they were sitting on, Will asked her if she loved him. Jenny ran home alone and Jim Craig noticed that she was greatly disturbed when she got in.
The following day, Will told Jenny he was not going to apologize for the previous night, and was insisting she tell him how she felt about him when Dorian arrived for an appointment. After Dorian left, Will again pressured Jenny for an answer. Jenny told Will she wanted to be reassigned, but Will insisted to her he loved her and knew she loved him. He told her that he hadn't been happy with Naomi for years and wanted to spend the rest of his life with Jenny.
Jenny asked Jim to transfer her to Pediatrics because she wanted to get back to nursing and finally she began working as Peter Janssen's assistant. When Brad insisted that something was making her unhappy and he wanted to know what it was, she ran away. Carla talked a reluctant Jenny into attending Brad's opening party but Jenny used Lana's tipsy condition as an excuse to take her home and did not attend the celebration afterward planned with the Vernon family. When Brad went after her, she got rid of him by promising to tell him the following day what was bothering her but then only told him that she was never going to marry him. Brad was determined not to take no for an answer and to find out what had changed Jenny, and he told Naomi so.
Naomi called a friend, Dr. Clyde Hoover in Montana and pleaded with him to ask Will to come back to work there, saying that Will was very unhappy but would never admit to wanting to move back. When Dr. Hoover arrived in Llanview on his way back from a conference in New York, he offered Will the position of head of Psychiatry in the Montana Hospital, saying the man in the position had suffered a stroke and they were unable to keep the position open any longer. Will promised to think about the considerable promotion but Clyde was puzzled that his impression of Will's emotional state and Naomi's differed.
Dorian had twice had to reprimand Marco for his behavior with Samantha Vernon while he was on duty. She accused him of lying to her about the coincidence of his meeting Samantha at the library and taking her to Llanfair to show her the grounds. After seeing Marco kissing Samantha at the health club, Dorian told him that his behavior while in her employ reflected on her as a member of the community. Marco said they both understood each other and he had never worked for an employer he had gotten to know so well in such a short period of time. Before Dorian could insist he elaborated, Joe walked in to attend a function at Llanfair without Viki, who had declined because it was the baby's dinner time. Dorian, as usual, lit up and became totally absorbed in the pleasure of Joe's presence and Marco was dismissed only to linger out of Dorian's sight to gaze for some moments at the two of them before going through the door. Within a few moments, Joe, who had been keeping recurring periods of dizziness and loss of vision from both Dorian and Viki, was taken by another severe seizure.
After she was told by Naomi of Will's job offer, Jenny went to see him, telling him that if he didn’t leave Llanview, she would. When Dorian came in for a session, Jenny was obviously upset and left hurriedly. Dorian remarked that she seemed always to be bursting in at the wrong time where he and Jenny were concerned. Stung, Will told Dorian she was wasting both their time if she would not be completely honest with herself and with him about the man she was in love with. Dorian lashed back, saying she had seen Will in action right here "in his little glass house." She added it was perfectly obvious to her that he was in love with Jenny Siegel and hadn't faced the fact that it was hopeless.
Dorian was still agitated when she saw Peter Janssen, and when she said she pointed out some basic truths to the great Dr. Vernon, Peter tried to tell her she was projecting her anger and guilt onto Will. Dorian smiled ruefully, telling Peter he was off base, but it was not his fault because he didn’t know all the circumstances.
Peter lunched with Jenny and at first believed that she was unhappy because Brad had seen Jenny before he came and was still at the bar. He put it down to a dog-in-the-manger attitude from Brad but when Brad left, he suddenly said he got the feeling that Brad was not the problem. Jenny - believing Will planned to leave Llanview - said there was no problem, anymore.
Dorian had arranged to take Joe to New York to have a complete brain scan done, under the pretense of financial matters to explain the trip and her presence to Joe's staff and his wife, Viki. As she was waiting in Joe's office, Brad wandered by after having belted down a few. When she learned Jenny was the cause, she laughed at the idea that Jenny seemed to the cynosure of every eye lately. Brad demanded to know what she seemed to be implying and refused to let her back down, threatening her with a scene in front of Joe unless he learned what she knew. She said she would offer the suggestion that he ask his father, and when Brad shook her, she told him: "He's in love with your precious Jenny."
Samantha read aloud a letter from Dr. Clyde Hoover's daughter and Will overheard a telling phrase, giving away the fact that Naomi caused Clyde to initiate the job offer. Will suggested to Naomi later, in private, that she move back to Montana on her own and they separate for a time and "see what develops." Naomi said they were married and she intended to live up to her vows; she would not leave and if he tried to leave her, he would regret it the rest of his life. As Will was writing a note to Naomi, saying a stable, fulfilling marriage was out of reach for them, Brad came in. Will told him something had happened he thought Brad should know about, and Brad told his father: "I know more than you think." He asked Will if he was in love with Jenny and, after a time, Will admitted it. Will urged Brad to say what was on his mind, telling him it would be a lot healthier for Brad to face this. Brad angrily told him he would like to break him in half. He was astonished when Will said he could not help himself, but that Jenny did not respond. Brad asked if he was supposed to feel sorry for his father because he lost out twice. After reviling his father as a despicable liar and a hypocrite, Brad added he was not going to let his life be ruined by him or anybody else, “I'll kill you first." He turned away, then turned back and asked if Will wasn’t afraid, considering what happened the last time he fell in love with another woman - Naomi's suicide attempt. -. He told Will he knew what his - Will's - next move should be, adding “what your next move better be," and walked out.
Samantha came in and Will told her he was in love with Jenny. Seeing his daughter's shock and disbelief, Will told her she had always been there to support him with her love before and begged her to try to understand then. Samantha, still in shock, ran out of the room.
When Naomi returned, she told Will that she had a long talk with Jim Craig and informed Will he would have to resign from Llanview Hospital. Will said she had no right to broadcast their private lives and that any pain she was feeling was self-inflicted. He warned her not to meddle in his private affairs again. Naomi insisted she would do anything she had to in order to protect her family.
Peter Janssen had dined with Viki in Joe's absence and Viki invited him to dinner when Joe returned, unable to resist a little matchmaking. Peter told her he already knew a perfect lady for him —Viki. Peter's dinner companion turned out to be an Army Sergeant, relentlessly hale, hearty and opinionated. In the meanwhile, Dorian had taken Marco Dane up on his offer – “I take care of your car, your garden; why not you?" - but told him there would not be a repeat performance, insisting that he get it straight that he was not important to her life.
At Llanfair one evening, Peter and Viki saw Joe sway and Dorian distracted Viki with an invitation to see the changes she had made in the gardens. Peter took Joe's word that he was only overworked and went on with his conversation. Dorian told Joe in a moment alone that she had observed him drawing out Peter and sizing him up. She said it was obvious to her that Joe was worrying to the extent of hand-picking his successor. Joe conceded that he believed when he returned to the hospital that it was very likely he would be told he had had it.
Naomi Vernon had lost her life in an attempt to shock Will into returning home, an attempt which backfired tragically. Her last days were spent alternating between bitterly denouncing Will, saying that she and his children would be better without him, and begging Samantha to ask Will to come back, pretending to herself that Will couldn’t mean to leave permanently though he had taken up residence in a hotel. But after Will called to blame her pressuring for Sam's having walked out of his office to seek out Marco - telling her father she got his message: "look out for Number One and to hell with everyone else"-. Naomi told Brad she would not be discarded for her husband's vanity.
Naomi’s desperate try at a solution was to set up a situation whereby Brad would find her in time to save her life after a massive overdose of barbiturates - as he had when he was a child ten years before when his father was having an affair with another office nurse -. Brad was with Lana and did not make it home at the promised time and when he tried to phone, the line was busy as Naomi, realizing that something had gone wrong, tried to get help but was too far gone to call for it. Brad arrived to find Naomi dead, the phone on the floor and a medical hook nearby. Ed Hall was called in and read Naomi's letter telling Will she knows he wished that Brad had never found her in time ten years ago so that he wouldn't have had to wait so long for his freedom and that he was free of her then.
The shock waves of Naomi Vernon's death were felt all over Llanview. Jenny Siegel was on her way back from a retreat house where she had gone to try to sort out her feelings and was unaware of what had happened. At first, out of his own need, Brad told Jim that he was going to drive up to tell Jenny what had happened, but when he thought it over, he went drinking and ended up at Lana's apartment, sleeping on her couch. He wouldn’t return home as Will had then moved back in at Sam’s request and was seeing to the funeral arrangements.
Karen Wolek’s callous attitude shocked and alienated first Lana and then Larry, each, in turn, telling her that unless something affected her personally, she didn’t give a damn. When Jenny came in to learn about Naomi’s death from Dr. Jim Craig, Karen was present and, learning that Will and Brad, father and son, were both in love with Jenny, she blurted out that all this time she thought Jenny was leading a boring life.
Peter Janssen had told Dorian that she judged people on the basis of her own behavior when Dorian gossiped about Will carrying on a "flagrant affair" with Jenny. When Jim told Dorian that he had refused to accept Will's proffered resignation, she told him that two members of the Hospital Board had called to complain about Will's behavior and would have to be dealt with. Jim told her he was too busy and would worry about that at the time of the next board meeting.
Naomi Vernon, wife of Dr. Will and mother of Brad and Samantha, inadvertantly committed suicide, unable to forgive her husband for a past affair, and believing that he was currently carrying on with his daughter-in-law Jenny. She’d taken an overdose of drugs, hoping to scare Will back into her arms, but her plan failed when she died in the process. Naomi’s death tore the Vernon family apart.
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