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.

I told him the truth. That the question was fine, and that it was my sentence and not his, and that he had been given it by me without either of us noticing.

He thought about that for about eleven seconds, which is a long time for an eight-year-old to think about anything.

He did not get upset. He did not say it was not fair.

And then he said: “So what do I actually think?”

And I said I did not know, and that it was his to work out, and that it might take years, and that I would not be putting any more of my sentences in his mouth while he did it.

That is the only promise I have made any of them about this and it is the only one I am going to make.