For six months, I lived in a haze of hospital routines, waiting by my daughter Hannah’s side after a drunk driver ran a red light and left her in a coma. Each day at three o’clock, a man named Mike, a stranger to me, would quietly visit her, read to her, and sometimes share his struggles. I didn’t ask who he was at first, but over time, I realized he wasn’t just a kind soul—he was the driver who had caused the crash. He told me he had served his time and was trying to make amends by showing up, despite knowing I might never forgive him.
I told him to stay away, but when I saw how empty the room felt without him, I realized that Hannah deserved the truth, even if I couldn’t forgive him. Slowly, he returned, reading to her and keeping her calm, and one day, she squeezed my hand—a sign that she was waking up.
Months later, Hannah didn’t forgive him, but she didn’t want him to disappear either. As she recovered, Mike stayed in the background, always showing up without pushing. A year after the crash, she walked out of the hospital, angry but alive.
Now, every year on the anniversary of the crash, the three of us meet for coffee at three o’clock, talking about nothing. It’s not forgiveness or forgetting, but a way to live with the aftermath of something terrible, without letting it define us.