My ex-husband invited the former wife he believed was still childless and miserable to his family’s Christmas at their military estate. He never imagined I would arrive on a government tactical helicopter — with four eight-year-olds who had his face.

That one did reach me. A man called Teague handed it to me in a corridor without knowing what he was handing over.

I read about four lines of it standing up, and then I put it in a drawer. It is still in that drawer. I have not read the rest of it and I am going to this week.

The third was a telephone call in the November of 2018. She got through. I was twenty-seven years old, eleven months into doing it on my own with four of them, and I was standing in a kitchen.

And I said four words to that woman.

Never contact us again.

Flat. I did not shout. I have never shouted at anybody in my life and I did not start on that one.