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Deborah Hayes and Lila Hayes

Deborah Hayes and Lila Marie Hayes are paternal grandmother and granddaughter but have never met or spoken. Evan ended contact with Deborah during Pattie Matsuda’s pregnancy and permanently excluded her from Lila’s life. Their biological connection never became a personal relationship.

Origin of the Boundary

Pattie and Evan conceived Lila in spring 1998, when both were fifteen. Pattie discovered the pregnancy that summer, after Evan’s sixteenth birthday. Deborah blamed Pattie, saying, “She trapped him,” and asked Evan, “How do you even know it’s yours?” She cited Pattie’s ADHD and school history as evidence that she was unfit to be a mother: “That girl has problems. ADHD, behavioral issues, gets in fights at school—” Deborah pressed the teenagers to “get rid of it,” referring to the pregnancy and the child who would become Lila with demeaning language. She repeated the trapping accusation within her social circle, where it spread with rumors about the teenagers and the party at which Lila was conceived.

Evan rejected Deborah’s claims and accepted equal responsibility. He told her, “It takes two people, Mom. I’m just as responsible,” and made his boundary explicit: “I trust her. If you can’t respect her, you can’t be part of this.” When Deborah called Pattie “that girl,” Evan answered, “Her name is Pattie. And she’s the mother of my child.” Deborah did not stop attacking Pattie, and Evan ended contact.

The boundary also reflected Deborah’s earlier conduct. Evan had heard her call Cody Matsuda “a waste” and “attention-seeking” after his 1995 suicide attempt, saying the family should have “just let him” die. He had watched her dismiss Tommy Hayes’s migraine symptoms throughout their marriage. Evan would not expose Pattie or Lila to the same contempt for vulnerability.

Deborah came from a family with generational wealth and placed high value on status and respectable appearances. Evan’s choice to become a teenage father with Pattie challenged the future she expected for him. She used class standing and social approval to judge Pattie and her family. There is no documented attempt by Deborah to repair the break after Evan set the boundary.

Pregnancy, Birth, and Infancy

Main article: Lila Hayes Birth and NICU Stay (October 1998) - Event

Deborah had no role in Pattie’s pregnancy or medical care. Severe preeclampsia and pulmonary edema led to an emergency cesarean section at thirty-one weeks on October 28, 1998. Lila was born at 8:47 p.m., weighed three pounds, one ounce, and cried loudly. Evan met her in the NICU at 9:23 p.m. and gave staff the name he and Pattie had chosen. Deborah was not part of the birth or hospital support network. She did not visit during Lila’s neonatal intensive care stay or after her discharge in early December.

Lila’s family support came from Evan, Pattie, Tommy, and the Matsuda household. Pattie held her daughter skin to skin the morning after the birth; Lila settled when nurses placed her against Pattie’s bare chest. Ellen Matsuda and Greg Matsuda provided daily care, medical-system knowledge, advocacy, and household structure. Tommy supplied practical, emotional, and financial help and remained present as Lila’s paternal grandfather. Lila grew up with her Japanese American and White family heritage through the relatives who participated in her life. Pattie’s friends Morgan, Tracy, and Cassidy Harris were already calling themselves Lila’s aunties and received updates during the hospitalization.

On November 1, Pattie stopped pumping and began giving Lila formula through her temporary feeding tube. Ellen helped Pattie regard the change as an accommodation for her ADHD rather than a failure of motherhood. Deborah, who had already used Pattie’s diagnosis to question her fitness as a mother, remained outside the family’s decisions about Lila’s care. After Lila came home in early December, Evan and Pattie cared for her through prolonged periods of colic with help from the same family network.

Permanent No Contact

Evan maintained the estrangement after Lila’s birth. Deborah had no access to Lila through family gatherings, grandparent events, or indirect co-parenting contact. Her later residence in the Los Angeles area and her second marriage remained separate from Lila’s life.

Their lack of contact was an enforced family boundary, not a relationship that faded over time. By maintaining it, Evan kept Deborah’s established pattern of ableism, medical dismissal, and contempt away from Lila.

Relationships Family Relationships Grandparent-Grandchild Relationships Deborah Hayes Lila Hayes Hayes Family