M. Gessen

They all looked like models.

Alan was bald as a billiard ball and had a giant protruding belly.

He claimed that he had matched with all of those women.

After a while, Alan was eager to talk about why he had taken O.

He claimed that Priscilla was a bad mother.

She partied all the time.

She did drugs.

She cheated on Alan.

To me, these sounded like good reasons to get a divorce, not to take your child from his mother.

Lena had her own complaints.

She said Priscilla didn't read to her child, and perhaps even worse, didn't read books herself.

The only book she kept in the house, Lena claimed, was the Bible.

I thought, wait, this was why Lena and Alan took Priscilla's son away?

There are few things that I think justify separating a kid from his parent, but Lena and Alan didn't seem to think that much justification was required.

I couldn't stop thinking about what Priscilla must be going through.

Without telling anyone in the family, I decided to reach out to her.

I had met her only a couple of times and barely had a sense of her.

I knew that she worked in fashion.

I knew from Lena that Priscilla's father owned a huge farm in Zimbabwe, and I knew that she would have no reason to trust me.

I wasn't sure she'd respond.