I sat on the basement floor next to the furnace and went through that sketchbook for an hour.

I had been going to be an illustrator.

Not in a vague way — I had a portfolio, and I had been in a program, and I had had a professor who had told me at twenty-one that my line work was better than my color and that I should not let that discourage me, and I had done four freelance jobs before I was twenty-three.

And then I had gotten married, and had a child, and had a second one, and there had always, always been something more urgent.