Em Gessen

Priscilla was gone for just four days.

When she landed back in Moscow and turned on her phone, it pinged with a bunch of WhatsApp messages.

The messages informed Priscilla that Alan had left the country with O, and that L was with her nanny.

After she composed herself, Priscilla rushed to their apartment.

Everything is gone.

Alan had cleaned out the entire place.

All the furniture.

The walls were bare.

Closets empty.

These details were new to me.

I knew that he took O, of course.

But I didn't realize that Alan had gone scorched earth on Priscilla herself.

So he actually took all your clothes?

Or some of your clothes?

Here's what Alan had determined Priscilla would need.

Some casual clothes and two pairs of sneakers.

His plan was that Priscilla and the baby would move out of their apartment in Moscow and move into our grandmother's dacha, a summer cottage, by which I mean half of a summer cottage, by which I mean two small rooms and a kitchen, outside the city, where no one speaks English.

Priscilla scrambled to find a place to live in Moscow.

And then, according to lawsuits, police reports, and court testimony, Priscilla became aware of odd things happening with the business that she and Alan shared in Zimbabwe.

She learned that she had been removed as director of a company that owned a property there, the property where she and Alan had a house and their businesses.