He nodded, looked at me seriously, and then said, “Are we done for today, Mr. Washington?”

I let him go after that. I believe that he was listening, that the abruptness of his change of subject was a function only of his youth. One thing I’ve learned in many years of spending time around boys this age is that they never know what to say. Particularly to men like me, men in positions of authority. Either they are too bold and achieve a rare kind of obnoxiousness or they are simply mute, content to keep their thoughts to themselves. But they are listening. Despite my initial reserve about him, I believed that Bryson was making an effort.

On this day, as we worked together, there was not so much talk. I wanted to keep moving, to shake off the residue of my recent trip to New Haven. I drove the boy rather hard in sprint after sprint, but he never yielded. He came huffing up to me after some wind sprints, his eyes dark with fatigue. His face was shining with sweat, and his hair bobbed around his face. “Now what, Mr. Washington?”

“I think we can finish today with a longer run. Five miles, perhaps?” He groaned. “Now, Mr. Bryson, no theatrics. I’ll be joining you today. There’s a reason to cheer up, eh?”

He looked a bit startled but then smiled at me, warily. We busied ourselves stretching out after that. I usually prefer that my running be a solitary endeavor, but today I was oddly eager to test myself against this boy.

“All right, then, are you ready?” He nodded. “Let’s go.”

We took off over the gentle, rising path that ran behind the barn. We didn’t speak. Only the sounds of our breath and our shoes hitting the earth filled the crystalline air. For the first few miles, we ran at a companionable jog, neither of us speaking. The trees rolled past and our breath shot cold puffs before us, rhythmically. The boy’s hair flopped annoyingly at every step, but I tried to put it out of my mind. I had not run with him before and found it remarkable to study him as he moved along. It was as if there were some small machinery at his core that allowed an unusual degree of fluidity to his movement. Nothing was wasted or jerky or excessive. I found that as I attempted to match his stride, I became more graceful in my running as well. But it did not feel natural to me. I had to think, to be conscious of my limbs, before I could even begin to approximate a stride like his. That is, I suppose, the difference between an inborn talent and a willed one. The latter cannot be maintained indefinitely.