After lunch, a stylist showed up to do hair and makeup. Stefan looked like old money in a slate-blue Marc Jacobs sport coat over a gray checked shirt with a dark green tie. He told me that he’d gone swimming in the indoor rooftop pool and then took a nap. At four, we showed up at the theater. We sat side by side on the stage in big wing-back chairs. The sound technicians inserted the mics, clipped them and turned them on. When it was time for each of us to speak, we would get up and stand in front of a slender podium on which we’d set our notes.

An hour until the curtains would open. A half hour. Five minutes.

As the lights went down, I looked out over the crowd, which was startlingly vast, and reminded myself not to think too much. I began, “Today, you’re going to feel the whole range of emotions, from outrage to pity. When you leave, I hope that you will also feel understanding and compassion, even if that surprises you. I can assure you that this whole range of emotions is something that everyone who knows me and who knows my son Stefan has felt...”

Suddenly, a line of bright lights flipped on, along the first row of the mezzanine. A whole row of young women stood, fifteen? Twenty? Some were holding large flashlights, others leaning out over the railing, unfurling a canvas the size of a putting green, imprinted with the morgue photo of Belinda’s face.

“Say, say, say her name,” they began to chant. “Say, say, say her name.”

For twenty minutes, the rest of the audience watched aghast as extra security grappled with the girls, who were modestly attired in red or pink jumpsuits so that they could fall limp to the floor. Each time the guards gently wrestled one of them into the aisle, she ran back and began chanting again. Finally, using zip ties, they secured the young women’s wrists to the railings so tightly that it was necessary for police to turn on the auditorium lights and use delicate surgical scissors to free them.

As soon as police were able to get the girls out of the auditorium, we went on, probably less shaken by the familiar chants than the rest of the audience was.

I finished up by saying, “People always ask, how could you not have known your son was in so much trouble emotionally? What kind of parent are you? That’s a legitimate question. Until this happened, I would have said that I was a good parent, raising a loving and responsible son. I would have said that my son was the last person to be violent or to have a serious struggle with depression or mental illness or drugs. So I wasn’t really looking for any other possibility. And maybe that’s the only lesson I can leave you with.