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 had put four children in matching coats on an aircraft, which is its own kind of promise, and I knew that then and I knew it at the time.

All four of them have his face.

That is not a figure of speech and it is not something people are being polite about.

The grey eyes. All four of them, which the genetics people tell me is not even particularly unusual and which still stops strangers in shops.

The slightly crooked smile.

And the dimple that only comes up on one side when they laugh — which is his, exactly, down to the side it is on, and which I found charming for about four years in a previous life.

There was never going to be any explaining that away. Not by anybody, in any room, at any distance.

The Vail place came up below us at about half past