Chapter 10: The Question Only Dana Could Answer
I didn't respond to Gavin that night.
I needed to think clearly, and I couldn't do that while he was pushing.
I understood his urgency — two years is a long time to be kept from someone you loved.
But urgency wasn't the same as right, and I wasn't going to let his timeline override Dana's.
I called Patricia the next morning.
"I need to ask you something directly," I said.
"And I need you to answer as Dana's advocate, not as someone trying to protect the current arrangement."
"Go ahead."
"If Dana were told, gently and carefully, that there was someone from her life before the accident who wanted to see her — someone she doesn't currently remember — would that be appropriate?
Would it be safe?"
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"It would depend entirely on how it was done and by whom.
And it would need to be Dana's choice, made without pressure from anyone." A pause.
"Is this about the man who's been calling?"
"You know about Gavin?"
"He's called the facility four times in the last year.
We've had to follow Richard's standing instructions each time.
But I've kept a record of his calls." She paused.
"I want to be honest with you.
I've thought about this.
The nursing staff notes about him are real, and they concerned me at the time.
But Dana is not the same person she was twenty-two months ago.
Her circumstances are different.
Her vulnerabilities are different.
And she has more support around her now than she did then." Another pause.
"I don't think it's my place to keep making this decision on her behalf indefinitely."
"Would you support a conversation with her?
A neutral one — not from Richard, not from Gavin, not from me.
From you."
"If her treatment team agreed, yes.
I would."
I thanked her and hung up.
Then I called Richard.
"I need you to do something difficult," I said.
He listened as I laid it out.
A conversation, led by Patricia, in which Dana would be told — simply, without pressure — that someone from her life before the accident had been hoping to reconnect.
No name at first.
No details.
Just the question: would she want to know?
Richard was quiet for a long time.
"And if she says yes?" he asked.
"Then we figure out the next step together.
Carefully.
With Patricia involved the whole way."
"And if she says no?"
"Then Gavin gets his answer.
And it came from her."
Another silence.
"What if she says yes and then he hurts her again?"
"Richard." I kept my voice steady.
"You cannot protect her from every possible future.
You can only make sure she has the information to protect herself."
He exhaled slowly.
"Okay," he said.
"Okay.
Talk to Patricia.
Set it up."
The conversation happened four days later.
Patricia told us afterward that she'd kept it very simple.
She'd told Dana that sometimes people from before an accident tried to reconnect, and that it was always Dana's choice whether she wanted to explore that or not.
She'd asked if Dana had any feelings about that in general.
Dana had thought about it for a moment.
Then she'd said: "Is it someone who was important to me?"
Patricia had said she believed so, yes.
Dana had said: "Then I think I'd want to know.
Even if I don't remember.
I'd want to have the choice."
Patricia called me that evening.
"She said yes," she told me.
"She wants the choice."
I sat with that for a moment.
"How do we do this?" I asked.
"Slowly," Patricia said.
"His name first.
Over a few visits, just his name, in context.
See if anything surfaces.
No visits until the team agrees she's ready."
"And Richard?"
"Richard has agreed to step back from the visitor restriction.
It took him about an hour to get there, but he got there."
I thought about what Mom had said to him at the front door.
*No more deciding things alone.
That ends now.*
"Thank you, Patricia," I said.
"Thank her," Patricia said.
"She's the one who said yes."
That weekend, Richard came for Sunday dinner.
He stayed past 7:30.
He stayed until almost nine, and he helped clear the table, and he ate two pieces of chocolate pie, and when Mom teased him about it he didn't deny a thing.
Chloe watched him from across the table with the careful eyes of a fifteen-year-old who has decided, provisionally, to revise her opinion of someone.
After he left, she looked at Mom.
"Are you happy?" Chloe asked.
May you like
Mom considered the question seriously, the way she considered everything.
"I think I'm getting there," she said.
