The somewhat monastic aspect of my home helps focus my mind, I find. It suits me and that is, after all, the only person it need suit. I generally start off my days early with a six-or seven-mile run, then black coffee and a piece of toast before walking over to the campus. This day was no different. The predawn air was cold and clean, and at first I thought of nothing but the slap of my feet against the asphalt of the road and the thrum of my leg muscles as I covered the distance. But before long I found the usual pleasant mental blankness that accompanies a run, that feeling of being only a body, swept away by thoughts of the visit Jana paid me yesterday and by her earnest pleas for my assistance. And, of course, my own ill-advised behavior. To tell the truth, no one could have been more surprised than I was. I will admit that I had become constantly aware of her physical presence—the way she had of touching her hair or the way she sat, girlish, with her hands pressed between her knees—but no clear thought of acting on my feelings ever came to me. Or rather, when it did, I quickly set it aside. We were colleagues, after all. Still, when I saw that I had angered her, perhaps endangered our friendship, I acted without thinking. I could still feel her hand in mine, the firmness of bone beneath her skin, the warm metal and stone of her rings; my only thought an unclear desire not to lose her. So. She looked both alarmed and confused. There was nothing I could say to her in that moment. Maybe later. But I don’t know. I was beginning to sweat now, despite the cold, and impatiently wiped my face and pulled off my gloves, my feet still moving, the only sound in the world.

I was somewhat more preoccupied with my behavior toward Jana than with her request—in part because I have dealt with young men like Bryson before, though never one with such a tragedy in his past. I had been inclined to think that Bryson was unlikely to do well here at Chelsea, precisely because of his background. When I first began teaching, I felt as Jana did, that I could make a difference for these boys. I like to think I was less naive than she, but in my own way, I did believe. I even taught in the Boston public schools for a few years after my graduation from Harvard. But it was so wearing. So wearing. I was never confident that my presence was having any effect at all on the boys. And then Isaiah.