It’s been more than a year since Georgia was admitted to a facility in San Diego, a squat, sprawling, red-roofed affair perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Pacific. Unlike most such places in the past, this one opened as a hybrid hospital/long-term care facility, a place dedicated to improving the neurologic functioning of AAROD patients. There’s a patient care wing and a research wing, and it’s federally funded with a lottery for patients so it’s not weighted toward the affluent. It’s got million-dollar views, according to Hannah, who visits regularly along with another local friend of Georgia’s, an orthopedic surgeon named Camille who is married to Mark’s boss. Georgia may or may not appreciate the vista from the big windows in her room, but she does seem to enjoy walking the sandy paths in back of the building, turning her face toward the sun, and holding up her arms to catch the wind. Hannah and Jonah and Mark take turns bringing Joanie Ruth, who toddles between the adults on the steep path down to the beach, where they sit and sift the sand between their fingers, venturing every now and again to the shore break to feel the surf splattering against their feet. Both Joanie Ruth and Georgia shriek with joy at the cool kiss of the ocean, Hannah says, their glimmering coppery heads cocked back at the same angle, their teeth all showing in an identical gorgeous grin.

I love this: Georgia still smiles at the beach.

Thinking of Georgia at the shore, I smile too, but mine is a wistful half smile, laced through with the same sharp zip of pain I get every time she crosses my mind. She’s made great strides—literally—with her physical and occupational therapists, but the thought of her caged alone in her mind is unbearable.

I wish the girls could have brought her on this trip, especially on this ferry, but the logistics were a nightmare. I’m comforted—as we all are—by the thought of Jonah, who visits her every evening, and Mark, who visits every day if he’s in California. The two men, along with Jonah’s husband, Edwin, have become close friends as they’ve taken turns reading to her and selecting music playlists and participating in the intense cognitive therapy her doctors have prescribed to try to retrain her brain while we wait for a cure. Since she began a new experimental treatment regimen, there have been glimmers of hope: a few weeks ago, according to Jonah, she spoke.

Silence when he told us, then the same question from everyone simultaneously. “What did she say?”

“She said ‘Jonah,’ ” said Jonah, and then he had the grace to blush. “Or more likely, she was trying to say ‘Joanie Ruth.’ ”