I let her ramble, let her pour her memories into Mighty Chair’s taping system. The portrait she painted of her son did not resemble the typical terrorist profile. If he had been radicalized, she swore, it was to be against killing innocent people. The Boston Marathon bombing had enraged him. “He screamed at the stupid people who had done it. They make it…”—she fumbled for the right word, easy or nice, remembering his fury—“nice for people to hate us.” He would get angry when others called the bombers martyrs. She lowered her voice and almost whispered, “One time he heard about people planning something and he made a phone call without telling no one his name to stop it.”

She certainly sounded convincing. But in my experience few sons have admitted to their mothers, Yeah, Ma, you’re right. I’m a terrorist. True or not, she certainly believed he was innocent. And as our conversation wound down, I finally found out why: “Here is the truth, mister,” she said. “My son, Mustafa, he was a drug man. What could I do, that’s how he worked. What could I do?” Her son had gotten into the drug business as a fourteen-year-old, making deliveries on his bicycle. Then he started dealing. “But not to children. No time, never. He promised me, never to children. My son was a good boy.” He was making a lot of money, she continued, offering to show me Mustafa’s “money pad,” his notebook. He had bought beautiful things, a beautiful car, a motorcycle. He had bought the house for her. None of it was in his name, though, because the police would know where the money had come from.

I took notes as I listened to her. Not to rely on when I wrote my story, but to remind me of the questions I wanted to ask. The kid was living a big life; he was making money and he had no overt religious beliefs to get in his way. In the background I heard a baby crying. Twice the mother had asked someone to pick up the child. Then it suddenly dawned on me. “Do you need to take care of the baby?” I asked. I figured that was the best way to ask the question.

She responded with a massive sob as her emotions again overflowed. “My grandson…” she started. “Mustafa lived for his son. His boy, his whole life is that boy.”

After I’d thanked her for her time, given her my contact information in case she thought of anything else, and left open the possibility I would call her again, I leaned back and asked Cher to play Night on Bald Mountain. It seemed like the appropriate background music for my thoughts; it was soft and dramatic, loud and threatening. Her words settled in my mind. On balance, I decided, who the fuck knows? To me, it seemed pretty unlikely this guy was a terrorist, but stranger connections had been made. Was it possible? It definitely wasn’t impossible. “Cher,” I said, “transcribe and print, please.” The transcription wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be good enough for me. F or O, I wondered?