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Skip to next Saturday's run with Sina and Kimo's 8 year old cousin. the 8 year old keeps up

Five AM and the streetlights are still humming and the air is thick and warm and the concrete is dark with dew. Lena is on the sidewalk stretching — hips open, hamstrings long, the belly resting heavy on her thighs — and Kimo is in the jogging stroller and the boy is asleep and the rainbow hair is dull in the pre-dawn light. The truck pulls up at four-fifty-seven and Sina gets out and the clothes are the same. The same tiny shorts. The same sports bra. The same bare feet. The salt lines from last week are gone but the stance is the same and the body is the same and the body is the body that Sina has decided is the body she is going to live in. The passenger door opens and a boy steps out — eight years old, barefoot, wearing shorts and nothing else, the chest bare and the ribs visible and the legs thin and long and the legs are the legs of a boy who runs.

"This is my son," Sina says. "He wants to run."

"Hey," Lena says.

"Hey," the boy says. The voice is high and clear and the face is Sina's face — the same jaw, the same wide-set eyes, the same directness in the looking. He looks at Lena and the looking takes in the 600 pounds and the tribal ink and the rainbow hair and the steel in her tongue and the looking is the looking of an eight-year-old who has not yet learned to be surprised by bodies.

"You're big," he says.

"I'm big," Lena confirms.

"Mom's big too," he says. "Not as big as you. But big."

"Not as big as me," Sina says. The voice is dry and the dryness is affectionate.

They start slow. The boy sets the pace for the first mile — not deliberately but because his legs are short and his stride is quick and the quickness is the quickness of a child who runs the way children run, with the whole body, arms pumping, feet slapping. Lena and Sina match him and the matching is easy and the three of them move through the empty streets in the pre-dawn dark and the boy's breathing is audible and the breathing is steady.

By mile three the sun is up and the boy is still running. The legs are still moving and the arms are still pumping and the breathing is harder now but the rhythm hasn't broken. Sina watches him from the corner of her eye and the watching is the watching of a mother who expected this but is seeing it confirmed. Lena watches too and the watching is the watching of a woman who recognizes something — the gait, the low center of gravity, the way the boy leans into the turns, the way the feet find the ground and push off and find it again.

"He's got your stride," Lena says.

"He's got his uncle's stride," Sina says. The words come out flat and the flatness is the flatness of a woman who has said the name enough times that it doesn't catch anymore. The boy doesn't hear. The boy is running.

Mile five and the boy is still there. The breathing is heavy and the shorts are dark with sweat and the bare feet are slapping the concrete and the slapping is louder now but the pace holds. Lena's feet are raw — thirty miles last Saturday and the calluses are thick but the concrete is concrete and the concrete takes its tax. Sina's feet are callused too and the three of them leave a trail of sweat on the sidewalk and the trail dries behind them in the early sun.

Mile six. The boy's mouth is open and the chest is heaving and the ribs are working and the legs are still moving. He hasn't stopped. He hasn't walked. He hasn't asked. Sina looks at Lena and the look is the look that says *I told you* and the look also says *this is who he is* and the look also says something else that Sina doesn't have words for yet.

Mile seven. The boy slows. Not stops — slows. The stride shortens and the arms drop and the breathing is ragged but the feet keep moving and the feet are bare and the feet are torn up and the boy doesn't look down. Lena slows with him. Sina slows with him. The three of them move through a residential street where the sprinklers are on and the water hits the sidewalk and the boy runs through the water and doesn't flinch.

"How far?" the boy says. The voice is thin.

"Seven miles," Lena says. "You ran seven miles."

"Is that good?"

"That's good," Sina says. The voice is thick now and the thickness is not from running.

They stop at a water fountain in a park and the boy drinks and the drinking is desperate and the water runs down his chin and chest and Sina puts her hand on his head and the hand is large and brown and the hand is the hand of a mother whose son just ran seven miles barefoot on concrete and didn't stop. Lena stretches against the fountain and Kimo wakes in the stroller and the humming starts and the boy looks at the baby and the looking is curious and uncomplicated.

"He's loud," the boy says.

"He's loud," Lena says.

"Can I push him?"

"Push him."

The boy takes the stroller handle and the baby is in the seat and the boy pushes the stroller down the sidewalk and the humming is steady and the boy is walking now and the walking is the walking of a child who has earned the walking and the morning is the morning and Sina watches and Lena watches and the structure holds.