I opened my briefcase on my lap to look over tomorrow’s presentation schedule, then shut it when my phone chimed three times in my coat pocket.

Every message was from Daniel.

The first had come in at nine fourteen while I was answering the Milwaukee clients’ questions.

“My mother made barley soup for three people and two bowls are sitting cold on the kitchen counter.”

The second came twenty minutes after that.

“Must be nice eating prime rib on the company’s dime while we sit here listening to the furnace run.”

The third had no words at all, just a blurry picture of our kitchen wall clock reading ten past ten.