They were eight.
I did not give it to them.
I read it twice and I put it in the box file in the wardrobe with the court papers and I have moved house once since then and it came with me.
My reasons — and I have had to say all of these out loud to a woman called Halla on Wednesdays, which is a very different thing from thinking them — were as follows.
He had not seen them in four years. He had paid nothing in four years. The letter arrived eleven days before a hearing about arrears.
And there is a paragraph in it, on the third side, about how he would love to see them and how it has always been made impossible for him.
So I decided, at thirty-six, on my own, at a kitchen table, that it was a tactical document, and I did not hand it to two eight-year-olds.
I think I was right about the letter.
I know I was wrong to keep it for seven years after that.
Because whatever it was for, it was addressed to them. And every year I did not mention it, the not-mentioning became a bigger thing than the letter, until by about 2022 there was no version of telling them that did not require me to explain why I had not told them in 2018.
