All My Children, May 1976

MAY 1976

 

All My Children

 

Written by : Agnes Nixon

Produced by : Bud Kloss

 

Nurse Ruth Martin had fallen in love with hospital aide David Thornton, a former physician who gave up the practice of surgery when he couldn't save the life of his younger brother under combat conditions in Vietnam - Ruth alone, in Pine Valley, knew of David's past life and he had told her that with her help he could resume his dedication to surgery. - David had asked Ruth to marry him but sent her a letter offering to leave Pine Valley if she believed that such a move would be the best thing for them. When Ruth told him that such a solution might help her marriage to Dr. Joe Martin, she was unable to say that she was sure that she and Joe could make a go of their marriage even if David were to leave and give up the cabin he had just completed. She told David, in answer to his questions, that she and Joe had had separate bedrooms for the last few months and he told her "there's your answer." He urged her to go back to her husband's bed and see if there was still anything left to be salvaged from her marriage. "If there is," David promised, "I'll keep my part of the bargain and leave town."

When Joe asked Ruth if she had considered his suggestion that they seek marriage counseling, she replied that they had to work out their problems themselves. When Joe insisted that the next step might have to be a trial separation because he would "rather have nothing than to go on living this lie"; Ruth told him that she had been very unfair; that it had been only her pride that had been keeping them apart - The Martins' estrangement began with Joe's rejection of his wife and feelings of anger towards her when he blamed Ruth for the breakup of his daughter Tara's marriage to Dr. Charles Tyler, Jr. and Tara's plans to resume her life with Ruth's son Philip Brent. 

In the morning, Joe asked Ruth why she left him in the night to return to her own room and was told that she couldn't sleep; that she was used to sleeping alone and Joe angrily told her that she didn't give their reconciliation much of a chance. "I'm not a fool Ruth, don't play me for one." When she told him that she thought she was ready he told her: "No more lies." He left for the hospital.

Erica Kane Brent, having failed in an attempt to put pressure on Kitty to give her a job at the Boutique, had sought and obtained a position as a volunteer at Pine Valley's hospital in order to ingratiate herself with Chuck Tyler, but after a few days she stayed at home pretending illness and tried to get her old job back at the radio station, when she learned that Chuck was flying out to see Tara and little Philip in Arizona. Erica was humiliated when the production manager turned down her offer to freelance at WRCW. He told her that she did not give sufficient notice when she left to take the "Lacey Girl" promotional job and left her to break in her replacement. Erica, herself, had turned down an offer by Nick Davis that she work as a hostess at the Chateau, telling him she wouldn't stoop to being a "shill" and that there was "not enough money in this world for me to come to work for you."

Philip Brent had worked out an agreement with Erica to make the mortgage payments and take care of the utility bills on their house during their separation - Erica had cancelled her plans to divorce Phil when she lost her modeling job with Lacey's causing Tara and Philip to postpone their plans to marry and make a home for their son little Philip. The boy's asthmatic attacks seemed to be due to his distress over the breakup of Tara and Chuck's marriage and feelings that he had caused their separation and was being punished. Philip was mistakenly reported killed in Vietnam and Tara, pregnant with Phil's son accepted Chuck's offer to marry her. He had raised little Philip as his son.- However, Philip had told Nick that his job as manager of a local car wash was finished. The company was bankrupt and severance pay was out of the question. When Nick again offered Philip his old job at the Chateau, Phil again refused because of the hours but was so upset he appeared to be considering Nick's suggestion that he get away for a time using the money Nick owed him for his last few weeks on the job at the Chateau and take a vacation. Though that was not Nick's idea of "getting away from it all" Philip saw this as an opportunity to fly out to Arizona to see Tara and little Philip.

Phoebe English Tyler had asked Kate Martin to tell her what she knew of Kitty's parentage, her mother in particular, telling Kate that she was touched by Kitty's very real devotion to the mother who abandoned her and wished to get to know more of Kitty. Kate told her what she knew believing that Phoebe might be ready to accept the relationship between Kitty and her son Lincoln because "even Phoebe is capable of giving in with some grace when it's inevitable." Phoebe went to a woman's shelter in Center City and after a distressing incident in which a drunken inmate accused her of wanting to take her bed, returned to find a Mrs. Lum who was with the carnival, "barker to snake lady" and who "learned to read and write and count money." Phoebe asked her if she would be interested in a "humanitarian project" whereby she would move to another town and pretend to be somebody else. She assured Mrs. Lum that it would not be against the law to "help someone searching all life long for a long lost mother." She urged Mrs. Lum "to sleep on it," and told her that she would be in touch.

When Erica was visiting, Phoebe got a call from Mrs. Lum and when Erica left, Phoebe asked how Mrs. Lum was able to contact her. Told that she obtained her number from the director of the shelter and that Mrs. Lum had thought about Phoebe's proposition, "The more I thought about it the more I liked it. Ain't likely I'll get a better offer than that." Phoebe insisted that in the future Mrs. Lum had to never call her at her home and that their relationship had to be kept strictly confidential.

On her day off, Ruth agreed to go to David's cabin to help with some planting and told David that she still loved Joe and that she couldn’t shut the door on their marriage. David asked how long and she said "for the foreseeable future anyway." David told her that he would accept that and they go for a walk. When they returned they heard Joe call out to David. Dan Kennicott, Mary’s younger brother who was staying at the Martins’ to attend University, had left some tools David borrowed at the cabin, and Tad had asked Joe, who was unexpectedly home for a half day to drive out to the cabin so that he might finish working on a clubhouse.

Rather than have Tad witness a confrontation between himself and Ruth, Joe Martin dropped him off at the Martin house and continued the drive back from David's cabin with his wife. However, he left the car with Ruth at a street corner and went to his office alone after telling her that he found her statement that she had never been unfaithful to him with David hard to believe. When Ruth learned from Paul Martin that Joe had had a letter from his son Jeff saying that due to the death of Dr. Garrand he had decided to stay on for an indefinite time in Wisconsin, she decided to take Kate Martin's advice that she try to comfort him and went to Joe's office.

Joe speculated that Ruth might have come to keep up the appearance in Kate's eyes that she was "the perfect image of the perfect wife." He told her that their marriage was over when she left his bed the night before and said, "I will not share my wife with any man; not emotionally or any other way. As much as I love you and as much as I want you I can live without you if I must—And Ruth, unless you can make a total commitment, I prefer to live without you."

Before he left to join Tara and little Philip in Arizona, Chuck Tyler was told by Dr. Frank Grant that he was becoming too emotionally involved with Donna Beck and Frank had been moved to say the same thing to Caroline Murray when Caroline was upset at Donna's receiving a visit from one of her "sisters of the street", Estelle. Frank characterized Estelle and Ty as a "bunch of ruthless parasites."

In Donna’s room, Estelle tried to convince Donna that she should go back to work for Ty. When Donna asked if Estelle and the other "girls" had been beaten because they had not been able to meet their quota with no replacement, Estelle said "Not yet, but He's buildin' up to it. If I don't tell him tonight you're comin' back I know damn well it's gonna happen." When Donna showed Estelle that her leg had atrophied and insisted that it would take a lot of therapy before it was back to the way it used to be, Estelle told her that she thought that was a cop-out. As Estelle left, Donna insisted that she would do her own talking to Ty.

Nancy Grant had called Frank and insisted that he fly to Chicago and discuss their situation in person. At first Frank insisted that the trip would be a waste of time and money, since he had been offered only a junior residency in Chicago so far, but he told Caroline that when he spoke to Joe Martin he was inclined to maintain his position that he should wait a few more months in Pine Valley but something Dr. Martin said had given him pause. When Caroline asked what it was, Frank told her that Joe told him there was "only one way to run a marriage and that's together, no matter what the sacrifices involved."

Anne Martin was running a slight fever and was worried that Joe Martin had postponed a scheduled examination in order that another doctor could be present. Paul tried to calm her by saying that Joe was only being sensible but he had confided to his brother that he had been depressed lately by a premonition of trouble for the baby that Anne was carrying.