Intensive Therapy Part 31

"How long ago was that?"

"Two years."

"So the Paxil numbed your feelings?"

"The relief was so welcome-I didn't care much about anything. It kept me together enough so I could work."

"Psychic anesthesia we call it," Jonas said. "Why did you stop taking it?"

"Because I couldn't have s.e.x. I was trying to reconcile with Sandra. They tried me on Wellbutrin and Effexor, but nothing worked like the Paxil."

"You work where?"

"Duane Capital. I manage their high-yield corporate bond fund."

"Lots of late nights?"

Mr. Collier nodded wearily.

"Traveling, too?"

"Sometimes. I told Sandra that we'd only have to put up with it for a few more years. Then, we'd have enough, so I could quit and spend more time at home."

"How much is enough?" Jonas asked.

Mr. Collier looked at the family pictures on Jonas's desk. "No one ever asked me that question before."

"No one?" Jonas wrote the word "enough" in the margin of his note pad.

"After she served the papers, I agreed to go into couples therapy. Sandra told the therapist she felt she was living in an emotional vacuum. By then, my primary doctor had me on Paxil, but the therapist said Paxil could blunt emotions and cause s.e.xual side effects."

"That's true," Jonas said.

"So the couples therapist referred me to a psychopharmacologist she knew. He said I would do better on Wellbutrin. But the depression got worse, so he added Effexor. Every few months, he would try me on something different or add something else."

"How often do you see the psychopharmacologist?"

"Once a month in the beginning. Then, they stretched it out to two, then every three-sometimes even a different doctor."

"How long are your visits?"

"Ten minutes or so. The doctor would ask about my symptoms. Then they'd type into the laptop."

"Ten minutes! How did he know how you were feeling?"

"I filled out a symptom checklist before each session. The nurse put it in the chart. Then, the doctor would go over it with me and decide about my medicine. I was supposed to call the nurse if had any questions. They must have a lot of doctors in the practice. The waiting room was always packed."

"Can you remember the last time you felt well?" Jonas asked.

Mr. Collier sighed. "n.o.body who does what I do for a living feels well. Get up in time to catch the five twenty-five AM from New Canaan. Be at your desk by 7:00 AM to catch up on Europe. Wolf down lunch. Work until eight, nine, sometimes ten o'clock, depending on what happens."

"So why do you do it?"

"We need the money. Our youngest boy has Down syndrome. Between Thomas's therapeutic school and our daughter's college tuition, it costs a fortune."

"Do you have therapy?"

"We went to a local person for marriage counseling. I needed someone who could see us on Sat.u.r.days. Sandra stopped after six months. She said it was pointless, that nothing had changed. Mrs. Blackwell said I should come alone, so I began seeing her once a week in the beginning, then once every other week. Now I call her whenever I want to."

"So, what happens in therapy?"

"We talk about how I'm feeling. About work. About the children. I like talking with Mrs. Blackwell. She says she's preparing me for the next step. She thinks I'm stuck on Sandra and need to move on."

"What's happening in the marriage now?"

"I'm living in a one-bedroom in Stuyvesant town. Sandra's still in the house in New Canaan. I really don't want to be divorced."

"Do you have a sense of where Sandra is at emotionally?"

"We see each other. It's not exactly dating; I don't know what to call it."

"She's still looking for something from you," Jonas observed.

"I feel like she's toying with me. Every time I think there's hope, something happens. Once, I got a call from the divorce attorney. Another time, I said I'd like to meet her for dinner, but she balked like she had a date. I was down for weeks after that."

"Is it possible that that's why you felt your medication stopped working? Because your hopes were crushed?"

Mr. Collier removed his suit jacket and uncrossed his legs. "I never looked at it that way. You're probably right. My depression got a lot worse when Sandra's lawyer called in a forensic accountant."

"They think you're hiding money?" Jonas said. Mr. Collier smiled nervously. "Are you?"

"What I say is confidential, isn't it?"

"As long as no one's life is in danger."

"I keep a couple hundred thousand in an offsh.o.r.e account. I thought I hid it well. But now I'm not so sure."

"So you're hoping to get back together, but at the same time you're deceiving her."

"I thought I was here to get medication," Mr. Collier said harshly.

Jonas wrote down the words "nasty streak." "I don't just prescribe medicines, Mr. Collier," he said. "I treat patients with psychiatric disorders. To do that I have to get to know someone. Does Mrs. Blackwell know about the money?"

"No one knows about the money."

"It's only a matter of time until the accountant tracks it down. I see it all the time."

"I think Sandra's having an affair. But then again, my thoughts are so screwed up I don't know what to believe. Thomas is twelve. Neither of us wants to uproot him. When I come home, he throws his arms around me like he's afraid I'll disappear. He misses me."

"Do you have thoughts about death, dying, or killing yourself?"

"I would never do that to the children."

"That's not what I asked."

Mr. Collier reached for a tissue. "A lot of nights, I wish I would go to sleep and never wake up. Then everyone would be happy."

"No. It would tear your son to pieces."

"Please. Just give me something to get me through," he cried. "Anything. I read about a new antidepressant with no s.e.xual side effects. Maybe that'll get me and Sandra back on track. You're supposed to be good with medicines. Just tell me what I need."

Jonas took off his gla.s.ses and faced his patient eye to eye. "Mr. Collier, you need a lot more than a pill. Sure; there are other medicines we can try. No one should have to put up with intolerable side effects from their medication. But what you really need is a different att.i.tude. Deception has a nasty way of inveigling itself into every aspect of a relationship."

Mr. Collier nodded. "She's probably just as suspicious about me and the money as I am about her cheating, although I give her everything she wants."

"If she says she's living in an emotional vacuum, then what she wants is not a thing. What with you and your son, the stakes are high. Are you serious about working it out with Sandra?"

"Yes."

"Then that means coming clean about the money. And confronting how your work-life affects your family. You have to put everything on the line. Monetarily and emotionally."

Jonas and Mr. Collier discussed his mixed feelings about Sandra, whom he pressed to have the second child even though she was in her forties-a known risk factor for Down syndrome. After Thomas was born he more-than-partly blamed her for Thomas's condition.

"We can work with the medicine, Mr. Collier," Jonas said, summing up. "But to really stop the bleeding you need to see the world through your family's eyes. Not that you have to agree with it. But you do have to see it. What they feel. What they need."

"Do you understand what it's like living with a child with Down syndrome? They're so full of love. It's more than love; it's adoration. It's so hard to live up to."

"It has to be that way for Sandra, too. I wouldn't be surprised if that's at the crux of her feelings. Working all hours is a good excuse for avoiding your feelings. If you get working on that in therapy, you and Sandra might be able to talk it out. I can work with you on you as long as you, me, and Mrs. Blackwell are on the same page."

When Mr. Collier left the office, Jonas reflected on the session and what was awaiting him at home that evening. He thought about Gil and Gracie. Every child has special needs, he realized. Including his.

58.

When Jonas entered Grade's room after dinner, she was lying on her stomach reading Teen People. Grace Speller had the lithe build of a jockey and the face of a budding country-music star. She had just begun wearing makeup. Gracie had covered her walls with large nature scenes, mounted and matted in color-coordinated tones.

She looked up at her father and said in a distant voice, "Oh. h.e.l.lo there. Do you want something?"

Instead of responding immediately, Jonas stopped to look around his daughter's room. A picture he had never paid attention to caught his eye: a just-before-dusk rendering of an abandoned barn camouflaged by unmown gra.s.s and leaves. In the upper left, a patch of sky glowed faintly with an orange tint.

"Is this a photograph or a painting?" he said. "It looks like something I saw at MOMA."

"What does?"

"Here. This is awesome."

"It's my favorite," said Gracie, rolling onto her back.

"The color jumps out like it's alive. Where did you get it?"

"My chemistry teacher is also a photographer."

"This is better than any photograph I've ever seen. It looks like an impressionist painting. How he did do it?"

"He uses digital imaging."

"Is this the teacher we met on back-to-school night?"

Gracie nodded. "Mr. Flynn. He said that professional cameras have more memory. They can record images more clearly, because there are more pixels. It's the same principle as high-definition TV."

"I knew you were interested in art, but I didn't realize you had gone digital."

"There's a lot of other things you don't know about me, Dad," Gracie j.a.ped, her tone uncannily like Jennie's.

"Touche," Jonas rejoined in kind.

Gracie stood up and, flicking away several strands of hair from her face, went over to the wall. "Have a look." She carefully removed the picture and placed it under her desk lamp. "Mr. Flynn takes pictures like these with a high-resolution camera mounted on a tripod so it won't move. He programs the camera to take six pictures per second, one right after the other. Then, he uses a computer to superimpose the images. This is the finished product."

"You mean that this is really six different photos, one on top of the other?"

"That's right. That's why it looks so alive. I like Mr. Flynn; he's a good teacher."

"What makes him so good?"

She hesitated thoughtfully. "He cares about us," she said. "Why are you interested in my teachers all of a sudden?"

"I'm interested in what you like."

"Oh."

"What are you working on in chemistry?"

"The first part of the year was about atoms, and now we're covering molecules and the kinds of bonds that keep them together."

"Mom said you were studying at Jillian's yesterday afternoon."

Gracie frowned. "That was awful."

"Is that why you were in such a bad mood when you got home?"

Gracie examined Jonas's face intently. He hoped she would open up to him.