It was the sensible version, the version any reasonable person would have chosen.

The only thing that saved me from it was the decision, against all my careful habits, to drive to Colfax at first light and see her with my own eyes.

I have never been so grateful for an impulse in my life.

It is the difference between the man I nearly remained and the father I became.

And I have come to believe that the impulse itself, the decision to drive to Colfax rather than write a check, was not really an impulse at all, though it felt like one.

It was nine years of accumulated hunger finally finding an object.