Dylan, who has just begun second grade, tests in the upper-90th percentile. Contrary to recent reports in the press, she has, according to family members, never been in therapy for an inability to distinguish fantasy from reality. She has been in therapy for separation anxiety (she didn’t want to be left by her parents at nursery school) and for her shyness. Indeed, people wondered how she could cope with so much doting attention from her father—behavior that many people frankly didn’t know what to make of. “When she just wanted to giggle and run away and play, he’d be right behind her. And I just looked at it, and I’d shake my head and think, I hope this is a great thing,” says Pascal. “It was to the point that when we would go over there I wouldn’t run over and talk to her or anything. I’d talk to Satchel, but it’s like you don’t even dare talk to Dylan when he’s around.” And was Pascal aware of the rule that Woody was never to be left alone with Dylan?
“It was a really good rule,” she says. “There was no other way she could get away and get out.”
Several times last summer, while Woody was visiting in Connecticut, Dylan locked herself in the bathroom, refusing to come out for hours. Once, one of the baby-sitters had to use a coat hanger to pick the lock. Dylan often complained of stomachaches and headaches when Woody visited: she would have to lie down. When he left, the symptoms would disappear. At times Dylan became so withdrawn when her father was around that she would not speak normally, but would pretend to be an animal.
Vanity Fair Profile - November 1992
