The telephone rang as I finished showering and dressing. It was Jon Sasser. We talked for a few minutes of this and that, the logistics for an upcoming meet, how certain boys’ times were improving or not. Then he asked, “How’d your practice go with Rashid today?”

“Well, I think. The boy is coming along.”

“I’m glad you’re taking the extra time with him. I think it’s going to pay off by the end of the season.” He paused. “Do you think he wants to go as far as he can? Does he really love this?”

I was silent a few minutes, considering. I thought of the boy’s wariness in our practices; how opaque his expression had been until the moment he beat me in our race. Then his face had glowed with a barely suppressed joy, the gleam of the victor. The hint of a gentle smile around the lips. The impulse to throw his arms into the air. I could feel it—and I won’t deny that I had wanted to be the one to feel that way, to show him that I had learned a thing or two in my life. That it was that knowledge that was allowing me to win. But he was so young and so talented. A gift from God. How could he not love it? How could he not want to exercise it to the fullest? “I think he does. I think he’ll go the distance.”

“How far do you think he can go?”

I thought of his loping, leonine stride, the ease with which he ran past me. I looked at the picture of Bikila on my wall, shoeless in victory. “I think he can go as far as he wants to. He’s got the ability. It’s a matter of will.”

“I know. That’s what I worry about. It’s hard with boys. You know.”

“I know. But I think we can hold on to him.”

“Right, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“All right.” In the distance, I could hear the cows lowing as evening fell.

A Woman’s Life

ON A COOL November evening, I stood under the showerhead, feeling the water course smoothly through my hair and down my back as I readied for a high school dance, of all things. I had been pressed into service as a chaperone by Ted Fox himself. “Good chance for you to see the boys at play, Jana,” he said in his bluff manner. “And to make sure they don’t play too much.” He chuckled at his own mild joke. I had never chaperoned a dance before—the big schools I taught at didn’t have them. Too hard to control and staff.