“Can you hold just a minute, Roy? I’m sorry. I won’t be a second.” Mattie wondered why she hadn’t chosen to ignore the signal, as she often did when talking to important clients. She already had voice mail to take messages. What did she need with call-waiting? Except that Kim had been so adamant about keeping it, and these days, most of the calls were for Kim. Maybe it was time for her daughter to get her own line, although it seemed an unnecessary expense in light of Jake’s departure. And sooner or later she was going to have to start giving serious thought to her financial situation. “Hello,” Mattie said into the phone, amazed at the number of irrelevant thoughts she could crowd into the space of a second. “Mattie, it’s Lisa.” Mattie stared vacantly toward the sliding glass door of her kitchen, noting the sun shining incongruously through heavy gray skies. She didn’t want to talk to Lisa. Lisa was only going to tell her more things she didn’t want to hear. “Lisa, can I call you back in a few minutes?
