Em Gessen

But from what I can gather, he must have been very upset, terrified for his dad.

The officers took him to see Alan wherever it was that he was temporarily held at the airport, and perhaps, I don't know this for sure, he calmed down a bit.

Then the officers took O to a foster family who would look after him until Priscilla could come and get him.

Priscilla didn't have a Canadian visa, so she couldn't just fly to Montreal to pick up O that day.

Instead, she and a friend drove to the border.

It's a drive that normally takes about four hours, but it was snowing, so it took them forever.

They didn't talk at all.

They didn't listen to music.

They just drove.

At the border, Priscilla had to wait for someone to drive O over to the U.S.

side and hand him over, like in one of those movies about a prisoner swap.

Priscilla says O was his chipper and amiable self until they got into the car.

The subtext, of course, was that it was Priscilla who had called the police who arrested Alan.

I'm trying to imagine this.

They're driving away from the Canadian border.

It's snowing.

Priscilla is exhausted.

She's sick with COVID too.

She's spent the last two and a half weeks trying to find her child again because Alan has taken him again.

After all Priscilla went through, first in Russia and then in Zimbabwe.