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run.
    Around the corner from the barns came a dog. It was gold and white, with patches of gray. One of the counselors said he was a blue heeler mix with more good nature than good sense. She didn’t care if he wasn’t smart—he’d run with her every day so far, and his companionship was one of the most pleasant things she’d ever discovered.
    “Good morning, Merlin,” Tanya said, moving from side to side to stretch her spine. He lifted his nose at her and sat at the bottom of the steps to wait.
    Her days since her arrival had settled into a pattern. Mornings she ran her usual three miles, then got back in time to shower and help Desmary get breakfast on the table before the bus came for the boys who had clearance to go to public school. The rest went to classes held in rooms set aside for such purposes in the dorms.
    The days she spent working with Desmary and whatever boys happened to be on KP that week or just drifted in to sit at the table and steal nibbles of carrot or apple or cake batter. Sometimes Tonio was one of them.
    They seemed so hungry to just sit in the kitchen with the women that Tanya asked Desmary about it.
    “They miss their mothers,” Desmary had replied simply.
    “You ready, Merlin?” Tanya skipped down the steps and paused to scratch the dog’s ears. He made a soft, whining yip to signal his impatience.
    “Come on, then,” she said with a laugh.
    Tanya began to run loosely, past the barns and the corrals, the pens with their sheep, the vast gardens with tangles of yellowing squash and melon vines, and pepper and tomato plants still heavily laden with fruit. Behind them grew stands of corn.
    The air tasted like leaf smoke, and Tanya smiled, thinking it had been a long time since she’d smelled that particular aroma. Out here, some agricultural burning was allowed.
    Her body fell into its natural, loping rhythm. She didn’t run fast, just steadfastly. This morning, she took particular joy in the sturdy new running shoes on her feet. They had cost almost half her first paycheck, but even after one day, Tanya could feel the difference. In the prison yard, where she’d run in the grass along the perimeters of the fence, a pair of ordinary sneakers had been fine. Here there were cacti and thorny goatheads and the possibility of snakes, and she’d quickly seen the need for better shoes.
    Aside from the protection they offered from pointy invasions, they made her feet feel embraced. Bouncing, she tested the sensations once again. A hug around her arch, a cushion under the balls of her feet. Quite luxurious.
    She’d also purchased a pair of sweats and a sweatshirt in dark blue, and she was grateful for their warmth this chilly morning. Her cheeks tingled with a sharp breeze sweeping down from the northern mountains.
    Merlin crisscrossed the path in front of her like a vigilant scout, and it made her feel safe. The fine thin mountain air tasted as cool and sweet as apples, and she breathed in with gratitude.
    Glorious.
    As a girl, Tanya had never been athletic. She was hopelessly incapable of doing anything with a ball, whether it be basket, bowling or tennis balls. There was just some short circuit in her brain that made it impossible for her. In school she’d suffered endless humiliations at the hands of Gestapo teachers and cruel classmates. She flunked PE her junior year and vowed she’d never go back.
    And she hadn’t.
    In prison, however, she’d discovered the deep pleasure of solitary noncompetitive exercise. At first, she’d simply walked the perimeters of the yard, over and over and over, walking away her grief and fury so she wouldn’t lose her mind inside the walls of the cell. That had gone on for a long time, her restless, endless walking. One day, almost crazy with missing her son, she bent her head down and leaned into a run. When she stopped twenty minutes later, her heart pounding, her breath ragged, she had felt a strange peace.
    Sometimes, she didn’t feel like running,