CHAPTER 8
Making love to Tracie stirred up feelings in Adam he didn’t understand. He liked Tracie, but he still wanted Zoë. Every woman he dated over the years always ended up being compared to her. Adam yearned for the same feeling he felt when he first met Zoë — the indescribably incredible spark He longed to think about someone constantly, to count down the minutes until he could see her again. Tracie was sweet and pretty, but there wasn’t the “wow” that he experienced so many years ago with Zoë. And their lawyer-client relationship clouded things, too.
Zoë had been the romantic benchmark in Adam’s love life for more than 15 years. She was the only girlfriend he had ever loved, at a time in life when they couldn’t really do much about it other than talk on the phone and make out in movie theaters. Now she was gone, and he needed to move on. Carrying a torch for a woman who was happily married was foolish. Carrying a torch for a woman who was dead was crazy. The idea of what Zoë stood for in Adam’s heart was something he created because of the void of not having anyone really special in his life. Zoë, without even knowing it, had been an indispensable part of Adam’s life for nearly 15 years.
Adam sought closure for a relationship that really never was. He needed to prove to himself that Zoë was really dead and that the email was a hoax or maybe meant for someone else.
Even though he wasn’t one for road trips, Adam hopped in his car early Saturday morning and started driving toward Winnipeg, an eight-hour car ride from Minneapolis. The drive was filled with introspection about his life. He thought about how much he dreaded the upcoming work week on Sunday nights and how he had to drag himself out of bed every weekday morning. Friends and family always told him that if he didn’t like law, he could always do something else, but it just wasn’t that easy. He wasn’t sure what he wanted.
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