My smartphone vibrated twice on the glass top of the nightstand.

I picked up the phone and opened my messages.

A new message from my mother’s number filled the top line.

“Please don’t bring your military colleagues to future family gatherings,” Eleanor’s text read.

“It makes the rest of us look political in front of Derek’s corporate guests.”

I tapped the details icon in the corner of the screen to open the message log.

The log showed the message had been drafted and queued on Eleanor’s phone at four minutes past ten on Tuesday morning.