M. Gessen

Please do not tell them I have written to you.

If you are unable to help me, then just ignore my message.

My father can be quite literal.

So what did you think was going on then?

Did you think she was lying?

Like I said, my family is elastic.

To keep it that way, my father preferred not to know too much.

And it wasn't just him.

My three younger brothers, their partners, my own grown son, assorted friends of my father's, everyone acted like, hey, sometimes men and their mothers just change continents with a five-year-old in tow.

And here was the thing.

They were fun.

My father loves having family around.

The whole reason he lives in a big house on Cape Cod is so that his four kids and five grandkids gather around him.

But the house has seen better days, and all the kids and some of the grandkids have busy lives.

Alan and Lena and O's arrival on the scene breathed new life into the house and the family.

Lena would come up with ridiculous activities like, let's write the guests and family anthem, and was always taking black and white pictures that made us all look like more stylish versions of ourselves.

Alan was always driving up in his Tesla with new gadgets and tales of new business ventures.

I found him ridiculous.

But my youngest brothers and my oldest son hung on every word.

Alan would sit on the couch with these very young men and scroll through pictures of women on Tinder.