Some things you do not have to think about.

That was one of them, and it remains one of the few decisions from that entire year I made without a moment of doubt.

But I did have to think about the children, and about what my refusal meant for them, and this is where the whole thing became complicated in a way I did not expect.

Because the invitation was not only to me.

It was to four kids who had done nothing wrong, whose father — for all his betrayal of me — was still their father, and who would go on having a relationship with him whether I approved of it or not.