Outside, the wind whipped a heavy sheet of rain against the double-paned window of my maternity room.

The glass rattled in its aluminum frame.

Every noise made me flinch.

I kept expecting my father’s heavy, booming voice to echo through the corridor, or my mother’s soft, manipulative tone to drift through the door.

My phone buzzed again, three short vibrations.

I unlocked it instantly.

“I’m in the archive registry,” Claire wrote. “I ran the name. Margaret Elaine Mitchell.”

“And?” I typed.

“Rachel, the file is active. Her benefits are being paid out every single month.”

A cold sensation washed over my chest, freezing the air in my lungs.

“What benefits?” I asked.

“The Department of Defense survivor benefit plan from her late husband, plus her own federal civil service pension,” Claire replied. “It’s roughly forty-two hundred dollars a month.”

“Is there a death certificate on file?” I typed.

“No,” Claire sent. “The system shows she is alive. Her current address on the disbursement file is a residential home in Ocala, Florida.”

“Who is the designated co-signer on the account?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.