Em Gessen

And now her businesses were being forced out.

A neighbor told her the property was recently put up for sale.

Soon, Priscilla says, she was struggling to get access to money.

Later, in federal court, Alan confirmed he and his business colleagues had Priscilla removed from their company and that he had canceled her debit card.

I had thought that this was all about O, about who had control of the schools he went to and the books he read.

But now that I was talking to Priscilla, it sounded like Alan was really going after her, punishing her.

Priscilla says she knew why.

Because she had chosen to end the marriage.

In one of their fights, Alan had told her that it wasn't fair, that if they broke up, her life would get better and his would get worse.

Priscilla didn't disagree exactly.

Her calculations showed the same thing.

From the moment she landed in Moscow and got the barrage of WhatsApp messages from Alan, Priscilla had a single goal, to get O back.

She found herself in an adventure horror movie, or just in a nightmare.

The kind where you're trying to get somewhere, but things keep getting in the way, and these things get weirder and bigger as you try to whack your way through them, and it just goes on and on and on.

First, she had to get out of Russia.

For that, she needed to get Elle's documents.

That took five months.

Now she could leave, but she couldn't go straight to the United States.

She and Elle both needed visas, and for that, Priscilla needed to go to Zimbabwe to apply at the U.S.

Embassy there.