GH GUT PUNCH: Ethan Lovett Stood on the Pier, Burned a Photo of Phoebe’s Mother, and Walked Away From His Own Daughter

ETHAN LOVETT IS WALKING AWAY FROM HIS OWN DAUGHTER AND BURNING THE EVIDENCE

TL;DR: Ethan Lovett confirmed his worst fear at the Quartermaine mansion on General Hospital. The partner he came to Port Charles to meet, Delilah, died in childbirth. The baby Brook Lynn Quartermaine and Harrison Chase are trying to adopt is his daughter. Ethan stood on the pier afterward, sobbed to a photo of Delilah, said he should have been there to keep her safe, told her he saw the baby and no one will ever have to know, and burned the picture. He is walking away.

The Conversation in the Quartermaine Living Room

Ethan Lovett sat in the Quartermaine mansion and listened to the worst sentence of his life delivered by two of the kindest people in Port Charles. Brook Lynn Quartermaine told him about a woman named Delilah who died giving birth. Harrison Chase added the details that broke him. No ID. No phone. No money. Fingerprints that did not come back. No online presence. High-end clothes. A woman who was covering her tracks.

Brook Lynn told Ethan it broke her heart that Delilah never knew she had a baby. Chase admitted he could not shake the feeling she was hiding something. Ethan kept his face still and his voice level. He admired them for taking care of her daughter. He understood why they would want to keep her. He told them the baby was perfect. He told them she was lucky. He left.

Inside that conversation, Ethan put the math together in real time. The voicemails he had been leaving on a phone that no longer rings. The partner who never showed at their meeting point. The woman who was covering her tracks because they were running together from something. The baby with no biological family being raised by Quartermaines. The math is brutal. The math is final. Phoebe is his daughter. Delilah is gone. He is the only parent she has left, and he is walking away from her.

Tell us what you would do in Ethan Lovett’s shoes. Email your wildest fan fiction endings to [email protected] and we may publish your version of how this storyline plays out!

The Pier and the Burning Photo

The hardest scene of the week was the one nobody at Forrester or Wyndemere or the PCPD got to witness. Ethan stood at the pier, sobbing, holding a photograph of Delilah in his hand. He told her photo he should have been there to keep her safe. He told her he saw the baby. He told her no one would ever have to know. Then he burned the picture.

The burning was not an accident. The burning was a decision. Ethan made the call to walk away from his daughter so Brook Lynn and Chase could adopt her in peace. He made the call to bury Delilah’s identity so the woman they buried as a Jane Doe stays buried that way. He made the call to leave Phoebe with the people who can give her a life he cannot.

This is not abandonment. This is the hardest love a man can offer. Ethan Lovett looked at a baby being raised by a Quartermaine and a former cop who already love her, and he chose to give her the family Delilah died trying to give her. The man who came to Port Charles to start a new life with the woman he loved is now leaving Port Charles having buried her name with his own hands.

What Brook Lynn Quartermaine and Harrison Chase Do Not Know

Brook Lynn and Chase do not know they were sitting across from Phoebe’s father. They do not know the man admiring their foster placement was the one person who could fight them for her in court and win. They do not know the polite smile and the kind words were the sound of a man choosing them over himself in real time.

They believe they are foster parents trying to adopt a baby with no surviving family. They are right about the no surviving family part because Ethan made the choice to be no one. The adoption application is going to sail through. The background check is going to be the only obstacle. The biological father who could have detonated the entire process walked away from the pier with ash on his hands and a heart in pieces.

The cruelty of it is that Ethan now has to live in the same town as a daughter he can never claim. He has to watch her grow up from a distance. He has to see Brook Lynn carry her at the Quartermaine estate and Chase teach her to walk and somebody else’s last name go on her birth certificate. He chose this. He keeps choosing this. Every day for the rest of her life is going to be him choosing it again.

The Truth That Cannot Stay Buried Forever

Reader, this is General Hospital. Secrets like this do not stay secret. The fact that Delilah was running from something, the high-end clothes, the wiped fingerprints, the missing partner who came back to a city full of mob bosses and WSB agents and Spencers, all of it points to a story that is going to come out. Tracy Quartermaine is going to find a thread. Sonny Corinthos is going to ask why his new operative is sobbing on the pier. Britt Westbourne is going to run a DNA test for her own reasons. The Faison shadow is going to fall on Phoebe somehow.

When the truth comes out, and it will, the woman who is going to be the most destroyed is Brook Lynn Quartermaine. The woman who has been telling herself this baby is hers is going to look across a courtroom at a man she had in her own living room and realize he was the father of the daughter she has been trying to claim. The relationship between Ethan Lovett and Brook Lynn is going to be the relationship that defines the next year of General Hospital, and the only person who knows the storm is coming is the man currently watching it form on the horizon while the rest of the city sleeps.

The photo is ash. The choice is made. The countdown has started.

Did Ethan Lovett make the right call walking away from Phoebe, or is he going to regret this for the rest of his life? Sound off below because the comment section is going to be a war zone!

WATCH THIS: Well, at least we can call him daddy now.

@soapoperamag Wait… Is #EthanLovett Baby Phoebe's DADDY?! Ethan came back for Delilah. Phoebe's mom WAS Delilah. The math is MATHING. Hit play because if he is her father, will he claim her or walk away to let the adoption happen?! #GH #GeneralHospital ♬ original sound – Soap Opera Magazine