M. Gessen

What is this going to do to the kids emotionally?

As long as they're not witness to violence.

That's the word he used.

Violence.

The undercover agent is methodical.

He keeps coming closer to saying she will be killed, and he keeps pushing Alan to consider the hypothetical stakes.

The children will lose their mother forever.

Alan blithely keeps incriminating himself.

As long as the kids wouldn't see the murder happen, he didn't have other concerns.

They wrap up their meeting.

Alan has a plane to catch.

The undercover agent has a lot to work with.

Normally, after hearing someone testify for hours, especially if the testimony was colorful, which this certainly had been, I try to chat with the other reporters in the courtroom.

But this time, I didn't feel like doing that.

Because I didn't feel like explaining why I'd come all the way from New York to cover this case.

I didn't feel like telling anyone that the defendant was my first cousin.

The one person in the audience that I really wanted to talk to about all of this wouldn't talk to me.

My Aunt Leila, Alan's mother, was there dressed as she usually was in elegant and hip all black.

I saw Alan smile warmly at her when he was brought into the courtroom.

But she generally sat out of my line of sight.