The hardest part, I suppose, was telling the children. After initial shock and tears, the tide of questions, planning.

I admit that I didn't call them right away. I needed time to live with it, as if the truth needed to form a bubble around me from which there was no escape, my hands beating on the opalescence of a globe that wouldn't give, wouldn't break.

Strangely, I thought it should. I thought it should burst and let me fall to earth without wings, without hope.