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Growing up, in his parents’ first house, Toby’s favorite spot was on the fireplace hearth during the winter or late fall. He’d sit there for hours, drawing in the warmth, watching the flames consume heavy pine logs. Slowly, patiently.

The second house too has a fireplace—the kind that lights by the flip of a switch dead-smack in the center of the living room wall. “Just how,” his grandpa was fond of asking, “Are you supposed to hang pictures around that?” Toby usually just shrugged, staring moodily at the blue flames of the pilot light barely visible beneath ceramic-fiber logs. Artistically arranged and fixed permanently in place.