GUIDING LIGHT SYNOPSIS FOR FEBRUARY 22-26, 2010

Via http://twitter.com/MelindaSueLewis

Billy promised Mindy he would do anything he could to help her track down information about her mother... even if it meant Mindy finding her biological father.

"If it's what you need to be happy... If he's what you need to be happy," Billy swore. "I'll do whatever it takes to get that for you. Same as always."

He told Mindy that her mother's name was Sue Eugene, and that she wasn't originally from California. He didn't think she was from the south, either, because she asked Billy lots of questions about life in Oklahoma and the civil rights movement. She was very interested in politics.

Mindy wondered if maybe Sue wasn't a student at a local university. Billy admitted that possibility never crossed his mind.

"Goes to show what an over-privileged fool I was,"he sighed. "Saw a girl with a baby, working as a waitress... Never occurred to me there might be more to her than that. I went to local bars, checking if anyone knew her. Didn't think to check schools. I hope you find what you're looking for, darlin', I really do. But I have to ask, I need to know, where does this all leave... us?"

Mindy told him, "Do you remember when you found out that I'd slept with Roger? You tried to kill him. Hamp broke it up. I tried to apologize. Not so much for the affair, but for lying to you. Do you remember what you said to me that night?"

He nodded. "I said, I have no daughter."

"I knew you didn't mean it then. And even now, after everything you told me, I still know you didn't mean it. You're my father."

Billy's whole body sagged. Like his legs can barely support him. Like he'd been holding his breath... for forty years. "When I said what I said, I wasn't thinking then... not for one minute. It's hard to believe, I know - I find it hard to believe sometimes - but all these years... Part of me was drowning, marinating, in guilt. Other part, it sort of... forgot... you weren't my flesh and blood. That make any sense?"

Mindy assured him that it made perfect sense, and that he would always be her father.

She headed home, where Rick told her they were scheduled to meet with a potential birth mother in Bay City on Monday. (To learn more about Allie Fowler and what secret she's hiding from Rick and Mindy, go to: http://www.anotherworldtoday.com/2009/2009_34p2.html)

Rick mentioned that she would probably ask them about their families - "Kevin says to think of it as a combination job interview and first date," - prompting Mindy to panic on Twitter, "Let's see, where should we start? Do I jump right in with what I just found out about Daddy, or do I ease her into the Lewis clan by telling Allie how my father, my uncle, my granddaddy and my other uncle all slept with the Slut of Springfield? Maybe she'd prefer to hear about the Bauers? Hmmm, what to open with: Grandpa Bill's alcoholism, Ed's alcoholism or Rick's pill addiction? I could tell her about how Rick's mom left his dad for his uncle Mike. It might make us Lewises seem not so oddly incestuous by comparison. I could pretend that, when she asks about family, I think she means us. Should I tell her that Rick and I have 10 bad marriages between us? That we've both killed people, if inadvertently? That Rick has an illegitimate son with his best friend's then-wife, that I once burned my own house down?"

She told Rick, "Allie's never going to give us her baby. If I were her, I wouldn't even let us live in the same town as my kid. We're doomed."

Help Guide the Light! Tweet Mindy your advice on what she should do next at http://twitter.com/MelindaSueLewis