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.

The first was a letter in the March of 2018, forwarded twice, to an address I had already left. I never saw it; it came back to her and she has it.

The second was a letter sent care of my old department in the summer of that year.

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.