My mother took three full minutes, and then she answered.

Don’t start with your endless drama, Brenda wrote. The ship doesn’t dock until Tuesday.

And under it, a moment later, Garrett added his own line: You’re the military doctor.

Do your job and handle it.

Raymond read every word of it from his bed, over my shoulder, and I watched the last small light of hope go out of his eyes — not with shock, because he had already known, but with the particular grief of a man having his knowledge confirmed in writing by the people he had raised and fed and sheltered.

There is a difference between believing your family would abandon you and reading the words on a screen.