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.

She dictated it to him in a back room in the November, sitting down, with a blanket over her knees.

He typed it out and sent it, and he put his own flavour on that last line — make sure you're there — which is the only four words of that entire message that were ever his.