The plastic hospital band pinched my wrist every time I adjusted my pillows.

My lower abdomen burned with a dull, white-hot ache where the surgeon had cut me open twelve hours before.

I looked down at the plastic bassinet beside my bed.

My newborn son, Leo, was fast asleep under a tight swaddle.

He was perfect, but his father wasn’t there to see him.

Ethan was somewhere in the Horn of Africa, on a silent deployment with no phone access for another three weeks.

I was entirely on my own.

The nurse, Lena, walked in with a small paper cup of ice chips.

She looked at the empty chairs in the corner of my recovery room.

“Still no sign of your family, Rachel?” she asked.

“They said they were on their way,” I muttered, swallowing a spoonful of ice.

My throat felt like sandpaper.

“I’ll check your vitals again in an hour,” Lena said, giving me a sympathetic pat on the blanket.

As soon as the door clicked shut, I reached for my phone on the bedside table.

I opened my family’s group chat.

The last message from my mother, Diane, was sent eighteen hours ago, right before I went into emergency surgery.

*We are praying for you, sweetie. Victoria’s car is acting up, but we will head down as soon as we can.*

I tapped over to social media.

The first post at the top of my feed was a photo uploaded by my sister, Victoria, ten minutes ago.

It was a picture of Victoria, my mother, and my father, Richard, standing on the deck of a massive cruise ship.

They all wore matching floral shirts and held tropical drinks with tiny paper umbrellas.

The caption read: *Bon Voyage! Bahama breeze, here we come!*

My heart sank into my chest.

They hadn’t been delayed by car trouble.

They had boarded a cruise ship while I was in emergency labor.

Before I could process the sting of their abandonment, my phone vibrated in my palm.

It wasn’t a text from my family.

It was an automated security alert from my military benefits portal.

*Alert: Multiple failed login attempts detected on your DEERS account.*