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Monica revisits the home of Elizabeth Jessup, a retired reporter who
she once helped cope with alcoholism. Tess insists that Monica is
there as the answer to someone’s prayer. Monica hurries up the steps
to offer Elizabeth whatever help she may need, only to discover that
her help is not only unwanted, but resented. Elizabeth wants nothing
to do with the angel that once helped her out. Monica shows up at an
Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, where Elizabeth is celebrating seven
years of sobriety. In the midst of her speech, she begins to slur her
words, insisting that she hasn’t been drinking, it’s just a headache.
After the meeting, Monica meets up with her and her daughter, Sydney
and granddaughter, Beth. Monica expresses her concern and Elizabeth
says that she’s developed a tendency for transient cognitive episodes
of undetermined origin. Sydney explains that the doctors suspect a
brain tumor. Later on, Monica reads Elizabeth’s memoirs, and asks why
there is no mention of the fire Elizabeth started at the peak of her
problem, or why she doesn’t say anything about angels. Elizabeth
tells Monica she’d be laughed out of the news business if she wrote
about meeting an angel. That evening, Elizabeth passes out and is
taken to the hospital. Once she comes to, she is eager to get out,
but Sydney won’t let her, and neither will Monica, nor Tess who is
working as a nurse. As the night goes by and Elizabeth waits for the
results of her test, Monica tells her of some of her favorite and most
challenging assignments. Finally, Andrew enters with the news, it’s a
brain tumor. She schedules the surgery and sits down with Gloria to
finish her memoirs, “before it’s too late.” The next day, while
Elizabeth is in surgery, Monica reads the last chapter to Sydney and
Beth. This time Elizabeth tells the truth about the fire, and of how
she beat alcoholism. When the story ends, so does the surgery, and
Elizabeth is going to be all right.
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