Where'd You Go, Bernadette

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22

Report by Dr. Kurtz

PATIENT: Bernadette Fox

BACKGROUND: Per my authorization request dated 12/21, I had arranged to meet Elgin Branch at the Microsoft campus. Since that request, in which I expressed skepticism of Mr. Branch, my opinion of him and his motives has dramatically changed. In an attempt to illuminate this about-face I will go into inordinate detail regarding our meeting.

NOTES ON MEETING: My lecture at the UW had wrapped up sooner than expected. Hoping to catch the 10:05 ferry, I arrived half an hour early. I was directed to Mr. Branch’s administrator’s office. Sitting at the desk was a woman in a raincoat with a foil-covered plate in her lap. I asked for Mr. Branch. This woman explained she was a friend of the administrator’s and had come to surprise her with dinner. She said everyone was in a meeting in the big theater downstairs.

I said I, too, had come on personal business. She noticed the Madrona Hill ID clipped to my briefcase and said something to the effect of “Madrona Hill? Hi-ho, I’ll say that’s personal business!”

The administrator arrived and practically screamed when she saw me talking to her friend with the food plate. She pretended that I was a Microsoft employee. I tried to signal the administrator that I had already identified myself otherwise, but she quickly hustled me into a conference room and pulled down the shades. The administrator handed me a classified FBI file and left. I am unable to divulge its contents other than the salient facts pertaining to Ms. Fox’s mental state:

• she ran over a mother at school

• she had a billboard erected outside this woman’s home to taunt her

• she hoards prescription medicine

• she suffers from extreme anxiety, grandiosity, and suicidal thoughts.

Mr. Branch arrived, appearing agitated, due to the fact that he was keeping everyone late downstairs and they had hit a programming bug just before he came up. I promised I would be quick and handed him a list of some wonderful psychiatrists in the area. Mr. Branch was incredulous. He strongly believed the FBI file contained adequate proof to qualify his wife for inpatient treatment.

I expressed my concern at his determination to put his wife on an involuntary hold. He assured me he merely wanted to get her the best care possible.

Mr. Branch’s administrator knocked and asked if Mr. Branch had reviewed a code fix. Mr. Branch looked at his cell phone and shuddered. Apparently, forty-five emails had come in while we were talking. He said, “If Bernadette doesn’t kill me, Reply All will.” He scrolled through the emails and barked some code talk about submitting a change list, which his administrator furiously copied down before dashing out.

After a spirited back-and-forth in which Mr. Branch accused me of dereliction of duty, I acknowledged that his wife might be suffering from adjustment disorder, which, I explained, is a psychological response brought on by a stressor, and it usually involves anxiety or depression. The stressor in his wife’s case appears to be a planned trip to Antarctica. In extreme cases, a person’s coping mechanisms can be so inadequate that the stressor causes a psychotic break.

Mr. Branch almost collapsed with relief that I had finally confirmed there was something wrong with his wife.

The administrator entered again, this time joined by two men. There was more jargon involving deploying a code fix.

After they left, I told Mr. Branch that the recommended treatment for adjustment disorder is psychotherapy, not a psychiatric hold. I bluntly stated that it is wholly unethical and completely unheard of for a psychiatrist to place a person on an ITA hold without meeting them first. Mr. Branch assured me he was not fixated on having her taken away in a straitjacket, and he asked if there was perhaps an intermediate step.

For the third time, the administrator knocked. Apparently, Mr. Branch’s fix had worked, and the meeting was over. More people entered the conference room, and Mr. Branch went through a priority list for tomorrow.

I was struck by the intensity of it all. I’ve never seen a group of people so self-motivated, working at such a high level. The pressure was palpable, but so was the camaraderie and love for the work. Most striking was the reverence paid to Mr. Branch, and his joking, egalitarian nature, even under extreme stress. At one point, I noticed Mr. Branch was in his stocking feet, and I realized: he was the man in the TEDTalk! The one where you stick a computer chip to your forehead and you never have to move a muscle for the rest of your life. It’s an extreme version of what I find an alarming trend toward reality avoidance.

After everyone left, it was just me, Mr. Branch, and the administrator. I suggested that because Ms. Fox appears to be self-medicating for anxiety, I could refer him to one of my able colleagues who specializes in drug interventions. Mr. Branch was grateful. But because nobody but me could be privy to this FBI file, he asked if I would consider conducting the intervention myself. I said yes.

I emphasized the importance of Mr. Branch getting some sleep. His administrator said she’d booked a hotel room for him, and would drive him there herself.

The next afternoon Dad picked me up at school and we drove to the airport.

“Are you still excited about Choate?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“I’m really, really glad to hear that,” Dad said. Then, “Do you know what a lame-duck president is?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s what it was like for me, right after I got accepted to Exeter. I felt like I was stuck treading water at middle school. I bet that’s how you feel right now.”

“Not really.”

“A lame-duck president is when a president has been voted out of office—”

“I know what it is, Dad. What does it have to do with Choate? All the other kids are leaving Galer Street and going to another school in the fall like me. So it’s like saying the day you start eighth grade, the whole year is a lame-duck year. Or when you turn fourteen, it’s a lame-duck year until you turn fifteen.”

That quieted him down for a few minutes. But he started back up. “I’m happy to hear you’re enjoying Youth Group,” he said. “If you’re drawing strength from your time there, I want you to know I fully support it.”

“Can I spend the night at Kennedy’s?”

“You’ve been spending a lot of time at Kennedy’s,” he said, all concerned.

“Can I?”

“Of course you can.”

We drove past the rail yards on Elliott Bay with the huge orange cranes that look like drinking ostriches standing sentry over thousands of stacked shipping containers. When I was little, I asked Mom what all those containers were. She said ostrich eggs filled with Barbie dolls. Even though I don’t play with Barbies anymore, it still gets me excited to think of that many Barbies.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been around much.” It was Dad again.

“You’re around.”

“I’d like to be around more,” he said. “I am going to be around more. It’s going to start with Antarctica. The two of us are going to have such a good time there.”

“The three of us.” I got out my flute and played the rest of the way to the airport.

Uncle Van was supertan, his face craggy, and he had whitish peeling lips. He wore a Hawaiian shirt, flip-flops, an inflatable sleeping pillow around his neck, and a big straw hat with a bandanna around it that said THE HANGOVER.

“Bro!” Van gave Dad a big hug. “Where’s Bee? Where’s your little girl?”

I waved.

“You’re a big girl. My niece, Bee, is a little girl.”

“I’m Bee,” I said.

“No way!” He held up his hand. “High-five for growing.”

I limply slapped him five.

“I come bearing gifts.” He removed his straw hat and shucked off more straw hats from under it, each with a HANGOVER bandanna. “One for you.” He put one on Dad’s head. “One for you.” He put one on my head. “One for Bernadette.”

I snatched it. “I’ll give it to her.” It was so hideous, I had to give it to Kennedy.

As Van stood there smearing ChapStick across his gross lips, I thought, I hope nobody sees me at the zoo with this guy.