One week before the blackout

ADAM CLAYTON LOOKED around the photo studio and asked himself what the devil he was doing. It was one thing to help out Nick with paperwork while his buddy was at the hospital about to become a new dad, but there was no way Adam could actually take the photos for the appointments booked into Nick’s studio today. He was a stockbroker, not a photographer. Or at least he used to be a stockbroker. Now he was a…

He dragged his hands through his hair. What exactly was he? Career-wise, he didn’t know, and it had become increasingly clear to him every day since leaving Wall Street two months ago that, while he’d accomplished his goal of minimizing the health-threatening stress in his life, he didn’t like not knowing what he was. Who he was. Where his life was heading. For a guy who’d always defined himself by his career, he now felt like a ship without a port.

He frowned. Surely this disquiet was only temporary. He just needed more time to get used to being out of the rat race. Still, it was difficult for him not to have a grasp on things. He’d always been so disciplined, his schedule so regimented, his time so consumed with work, that he was finding it a real challenge to take it easy.

He missed the passion and energy his hectic, frenetic work had inspired. He needed to find another outlet for that energy and passion-something that would bring him the same sense of satisfaction but wouldn’t make him face another health scare like the one he’d recently experienced. Nothing quite as sobering as a grim-faced cardiologist asking him if he wanted to end up like his father. Which he sure as hell did not.