Aaron Tracy

And then, on February 22nd, Variety runs a story with the banner headline, Film Actress Patricia Neal Dies at 39.

Only problem is, she's not dead.

Reporters, fans, and photographers swarm the hospital.

For the 10 days after the surgery, Neil remains in a coma.

Dahl has to just sit and wait to find out what his wife will be like when she wakes up.

But over that week and a half, he makes a decision.

He decides it doesn't matter what her abilities are when she wakes up.

He's gonna will her back to her old self, no matter what.

For all of Dahl's character faults, he's an amazing caretaker in times of crisis.

During her coma, Dahl remains at his wife's bedside all day, every day, leaving only to eat, see the kids, or catch a few hours of sleep.

And when she wakes up, his work begins.

He's determined to get his children their mother back.

It's hard not to imagine that this is what Dahl wishes his mother had done for his father when he was three years old.

If his mother had had Dahl's forceful nature, his stubbornness, his arrogance, might she have forced his dad to beat his pneumonia and depression and live so that Dahl could have grown up with a father?

Neil remains in the hospital for over a month, a few days longer than Theo's stay.

In the beginning, she can barely speak, and she doesn't seem to remember words or names or events.

But Dahl won't permit that to last.

It's his new version of creating Theo's tube.

He's going to fix Neil himself.

As Dennison writes, that Pat should recover and recover fully became Roald's obsessive concern.