Chapter Eleven

She trained him the way she had been trained. There was no other way she knew, and she didn’t go looking for one.

Cones at dawn. Drills before the sun cleared the ridge. Starts until his starts stopped being apologies. He ran; she watched with her arms folded; he finished and looked at her, and she gave him the correction.

“Again,” she said.

He didn’t commentate the drills. Drills weren’t races, she supposed.

Cheta watched from the rail some mornings, leaning on the rake. He never crossed.

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By the second week the boy was running real sessions, and real sessions needed real times, and she could not keep carrying splits in her head.

The stopwatch was in the side pocket of the kit bag, with the medals. She took it out by the cord.

81:09:15.

The numbers had said that for seven years. She had never pressed the button again.

Ayo was at the line, shaking his arms out, waiting for her.

Her thumb found the reset. The button was worn smooth. She held it there, not pressing, while the mist moved on the lanes and the boy bounced on his toes a hundred meters away.

Eighty-one hours was five days, give or take. She had done that arithmetic before.

She pressed it.

00:00:00.

“Positions,” she said.

He ran.