M. Gessen

And then there's all that force and desire and charm that Alan will bring to winning him back.

I kept thinking about how to respond to the email I got from Alan on my dad's birthday.

I didn't want to ask him about prison life.

I didn't want to send a report on the birthday celebration on Cape Cod.

I certainly no longer felt like telling Alan anything about his kids.

After Priscilla told me about Lana's behavior, I felt sick to my stomach every time I imagined what will happen when Alan is released.

Finally, I decided to do what I hadn't done in the months I'd spent working on this podcast.

Tell Alan what I really think.

Or, more to the point, what I think I should do.

Hi, Alyosha.

It took me a while to decide to write this note.

But since you're going to hear this on the podcast, should you decide to listen to it, I thought I should.

I didn't pass on your birthday wishes to my father.

Because when I interviewed him this time on Cape Cod for the closing episode, he made it clear that he doesn't want to hear from you.

I think you should know this, and should know why.

He said that unless you admit what you did and try to make amends, no contact is possible.

It seems that your strategy has been to keep denying that you hired someone you thought was going to kill Priscilla.

I understand that you have hoped that your kids and our family would believe that you were framed, entrapped, misinterpreted, whatever, and you would be able to repair relationships when you were out.

This strategy has clearly failed.

Instead of coming across as innocent, you come across as someone who continues to lie and to foreclose the possibility of actual repair.