Jason couldn't stop crying. He didn't even try to restrain himself.

"Did you recognize her?" Eva asked.

Eva was an older lady, in her late sixties. She was wearing a long flowery blouse. Her cats eye glasses perfectly fit her round face. The scarf she had  loosely wrapped around her neck gave her just a bit of a hippy look as did her grey hair that had so obviously never been coloured. She spoke in an Eastern European accent, perhaps from Bulgaria.

Jason kept crying as he breathed heavily on the verge of hyperventilation.  He dropped his head between his hands that were now resting on his knees.

"Breath in through your nose and hold your breath for three seconds, like we've practiced" she said softly to Jason.

"I can't. I just can't." Jason's breathing became quicker still.

"Listen to my voice Jason. You're safe. Try to tell me what colour your shirt is."

Jason started to calm down. "Blue," he said.

"Very good, now let's try our breathing exercise again." Jason did as he was told until he began to feel a little more normal.

"Did you recognize the girl?" She asked again.

"No. I don't think so. Maybe. It's so hard to remember. Why can't I remember?"

"That would be my fault. I felt your pain so I and asked you to forget what you saw, but you and I both know how this works." Eva watched as Jason wiped the tears from his eyes. "All I did was blunt your emotions, but I don't believe it worked very well. You should still remember enough to know if you've seen her before. Close your eyes and try to remember."

Jason did as he was told. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the woman he had just seen. "Is she your wife Julia?"

"I can't tell you for sure. Maybe."

"Ok Jason. I'll take a maybe, for now. Was there anyone else who might be in your present life?"

Jason closed his eyes again and focused on his inner thoughts. "There was a man who looked a lot like my step-father."

"That's so strange," Eva replied. "You can picture one of the men but not the woman you were so in love with?"

"Maybe we should listen to the recording?" Jason asked knowing that everything he told her was taped.

"You're not ready yet. Your mind won't be able to accept what it hears. Trust me."

Jason sat up further on the large leather recliner. He stared at the analogue clock on the wall and focused his thoughts on the second hand as it went around one tick at a time. It was a trick he'd learned from Eva. Focusing on a single point allowed him to empty his mind so that the bad thoughts wouldn't re-enter.

"Are all of these sessions really going to help me?" Jason asked. He desperately needed those painful thoughts to go away. He'd tried psychotherapy, medications, ketamine treatments, yoga, meditation. Absolutely nothing worked.

Ketamine treatments however were the worst. He had never done hallucinogenics before. Ketamine therapy involved having a guided "trip" with the help of a psychotherapist. Supposedly it worked well on ninety-three percent of patients. Jason definitely fell in the other seven percent. After his first and only session it took an entire day until he stopped "tripping" and then another two weeks until he felt he had control of his mind again.

"I've always been completely honest with you," Eva reminded Jason. "While it may not make you feel better immediately, what we're doing here will help get to the root cause of your disturbing thoughts."

* * * * *

Annie was lying on the sofa when the sound of keys jiggling echoed outside.

"Daddy's home," Wes, the youngest of three children proudly announced. He ran to the door and gave his father a hug.

"Hi dad, how was work?" asked Carolina, the middle child.

"Boring as all hell, but I'm still doing all the extra hours I can. Someone has to keep this family in the black." He hung up his jacket.  "So how's your mother?"

"She's still on the sofa. I don't think she's moved in a couple of hours," she answered with a slight hint of annoyance at her mom's behaviour.

Carolina was a sweet girl. She was into horseback riding in the summer and hockey in the winter. She loved her sports. The oldest daughter was all about the theatre, a very talented aspiring actress. With her oldest daughter Jessica away at university it was up to Carolina to keep the place in shape when her mother acted this way. It wasn't her mother's fault, they realized. People go through difficult periods in their life, although no one knew what exactly what was troubling Annie.

Their life was the type that most people envied and wished for. They lived in a beautiful new development outside the big city. They had the largest home on the street. Their father had a good job. He treated everyone well. They also had great friends. However, they hardly ever saw them anymore while their mother spent these past few months attempting to work through her unknown troubles.

Everyone was surprised when Annie began to withdraw inside of herself. Her confident joyful manner left, replaced by quietness and solitude. Her hours at the gym keeping her body strong had suddenly changed to hours sitting by the window in the living room, sometimes reading a book, other times listening to music on her headphones.

Instead of weekend mornings taking her daughter to hockey practice she slept in, though no matter how much she slept Annie never seemed rested. Annie had changed. The change was sudden and alarming for everyone that knew her.

Her husband, Thomas, went to the sofa where Annie was resting. He kneeled down beside her. "How are you feeling?" he asked with concern.

"I feel fine," she replied matter-of-factly. "I heard you tell the kids that work was boring. And now your doing all these extra hours," she continued. "I'm sorry. I'll be back at work soon so the entire burden won't be solely on you anymore."

"Don't even think about that. I just want you to get better." Her husband gently kissed her forehead. "Have you figured out what's going on yet...why you've been so down lately?"

"It's hard to explain. I just feel a constant sadness. I know I should be happy. I know I have an amazing family. My life has been blessed. Today I was even thinking about how we left the east coast, started a new life on the west coast and then settled down here in the mountains. It truly has been wonderful."

"It absolutely has and there's nobody I would have rather done this with than you." He began to stroke her hair the way she liked. Annie instinctively moved her head back. "Did I do something wrong?" he asked worried that he wouldn't like the answer.

"Nothing wrong at all. You're perfect."

* * * * *

Eva asked Jason one last time if he recognized anybody else. He replied the same as before..no.

After the session Jason went home where his wife and son were waiting for him. She had prepared an elaborate supper. Her homemade manicotti was Jason's favourite dish. She even made the pasta from scratch. It took her three hours to prepare dinner. She even went to the store to buy Jason's favourite California Zinfandel. Julia preferred a deeper Cabernet Sauvignon burn Julia felt she needed to make everything perfect so that Jason could have some semblance of happiness, something to look forward to.

"How was the session dear?" she asked.

"The same as most of the others except this time I cried a lot more than usual." Jason had stopped being embarrassed about his troubles over a month ago after his trip to the emergency room.

Julia appreciated his honesty. She believed his morning in the ER was the beginning of his recovery, although he was still obviously severely depressed. The new medications weren't really helping but at least he stopped saying that he didn't want to be alive anymore. She was terrified that one day she would come home and find her husband dead from a pill overdose. She thanked God that Jason wasn't a gun guy. He loathed fire arms, but she knew that if he would've had access to one, her husband would have left her long ago.

Julia saw Jason's pain and felt horrible for him, but what could she do? She wasn't the type to sit idly by when there was a problem. She needed to fix it, but this problem was unfixable, at least by her anyways.

"I don't trust Eva," Julia told him as her body tensed up in frustration. "You've been seeing her for weeks with no results. We don't even know what the point of all this is. And she still doesn't allow you to listen to the tapes from your sessions. Do you even believe in this nonsense? Tell me you don't Jason. Please tell me you aren't taking this Gypsy seriously." Julia knew that she was rambling but she didn't care. For the for the first time in weeks she was expressing her true feelings without fear that it might make Jason worse.

"I trust her. I feel that she's helping me. I know we can't see it now but I have full confidence that it's just a matter of time until I'm back to my old self."

"Well I can't watch this. You've been nothing but a walking zombie for the past four months. You don't talk to us. You don't smile. We aren't even intimidate anymore. A girl has needs. I'm not threatening to leave you or have an affair; I'm just telling you that you need to do something else to help yourself." Then she paused as she looked at her husband. "I bet you wouldn't even care if I left you. It's probably what you want. Maybe that's why you're going through all of this. It's your subconscious's way of telling you that you no longer love me."

Jason started to cry as he had done so often these past few months. He hugged his wife tightly. "Never ever think that I've stopped loving you. You're my everything. You're actually the only reason why I'm still here. I know I should also want to be around for the kids but it's you that I first fell in love with. It's you that I wanted to spend my life with. Kids leave after twenty years. Your spouse stays with you forever."

Julia kissed Jason firmly. Now she was also crying.