My own message, sent at four fifteen a.m., sat right under her comment: “Caleb is prepped at St.

Jude.

Heart surgery begins at 6:20 a.m.

Please call when you get to the hospital.”

Neither my mother nor my sister had added one word or one emoji under my message.

I looked down at my left hand resting on my knee.

A smear of light blue dry-erase ink clung to the skin near my thumb, where I’d brushed the whiteboard in room 4B while helping Caleb into his slippers.

The coffee in the paper cup was barely warm in my hands.