Hold Still by Lynn Steger Strong Page B

both wearing neon tights; matching headbands hold their hair.
    â€œDad’s going to hate me.”
    The air burns Maya’s throat, cold and sharp, then sluices through her lungs. She finally looks at him. His face looks round and small.
    â€œHe won’t be able to handle two fucked-up kids.”
    â€œFuck Dad, Benny,” she finally says.
    He smirks and turns to her. “Right,” he says.
    He picks up speed and she stays with him. Her whole body feels warmer now, firmer and more sure. They pass a skateboard park and a playground, a row of tennis courts. They can hear the whoosh of the first smattering of cars out on the West Side Highway. There’s a thin layer of mist hovering over the whole city still.
    â€œDo you want to take the semester?”
    â€œI just feel like I’m wasting everyone’s time,” he says. “I don’t know what I’m doing there.”
    â€œI think that’s what college is for, though,” Maya says. Her children are finally the age she’d always looked toward: the age of her students, whom she’s always loved, whom she’s nearly always known how to help.
    â€œBut I don’t like anything,” he says.
    â€œBenny . . .” She tugs his arm and they turn off the path just as the signal turns green and they cross into the city. They’re all the way west, just south of Times Square, but the streets are still quiet this early in the morning. They pass storage warehouses, then apartments, billboards for Broadway plays, then lines of theaters, finally the fluorescent flashing lights of the main square. The morning shows are getting started up in some of the glass-walled buildings. Cameras glint and anchors settle into chairs. Cars are no longer allowed here and the streets are filled with flimsy metal chairs and tables. Everything around them is too bright and too big.
    â€œI miss . . .” he begins. “I miss it here,” he says.
    She wants to ask him to be more specific. Does he miss them? Does he miss the city? Was the quiet as awful as Maya had feared?
    â€œBenny, I think it’s fine, okay? I just don’t want you to feel stuck here,” she says. This isn’t right exactly. “I don’t . . .” She’s not sure she’s capable of staying functional for him.
    â€œDave says I can come help him this semester. He says he’ll pay me to be his assistant coach.”
    â€œAll right,” says Maya. “That sounds . . .” They pass Grand Central, then go south a block to get off Forty-second Street. They pass beautiful apartments and hotels.
    Her whole life, September’s served as her beginning. May has meant the end. She likes the sound of the word semester , how it cuts the school year into halves and the whole year feels more surmountable somehow. She doesn’t want him running back and forth, reacting and escaping. She’s not sure what else there is to do.
    â€œIf it’s what you think you need to do,” she says, “you should.”
    â€œCan you tell him?”
    Him is Stephen. Him is Dad.
    Maya nods. “Sure, Benny,” she says. “I can tell him.”
    She stays with her son all the way down the East Side of the island, up into Chinatown and along the bike path on the Manhattan Bridge. He slows down a bit once they get back into Brooklyn, and Maya’s grateful. They take the most direct route, straight up Flatbush, then right just before the park. They’ve covered probably twelve or thirteen miles in a little over ninety minutes. It’s only when they get to their stoop and stop running that Maya feels the weight of what they’ve run, the tightening of her muscles and the rush of lactic acid. She grabs the wrought-iron rail that runs along each side of the steps that lead to the apartment and tries to keep her breathing steady as she watches her son begin to stretch.
    â€œI’m old,” she says. She has hold of