What Happened to Hannah by Mary Kay McComas Page A

want to believe all this was a stupid mistake but—” She broke off when a solitary runner broke from the pack, her long legs eating up the track with ease and confidence.
    “I’ll keep an eye on him. He did seem confused about—”
    “Oh, God, Joe. I wish you could see this.”
    “What?”
    “Anna. She’s running. She’s . . . beautiful. She’s . . . Joe, she’s so graceful. She’s almost a quarter of a track ahead of the others, and she doesn’t look like she’s straining at all.”
    “It’s a quarter mile track?”
    “I don’t know. It’s around the football field.”
    “Has she gone around more than once?”
    “She just started the second loop around.”
    “Then she might be a long-distance runner. Sixteen hundred meters maybe.”
    “How many laps is that?”
    “Four. You said she runs cross-country in the fall?”
    “Yeah. I think so. I gotta go, Joe. Do whatever you think best with Jim. I’ll call you back later.”
    Hannah couldn’t take her eyes off the tall, lanky girl on the track. Running looked as effortless and natural to her as walking was for most people. Gradually, she’d taken close to a half-track lead ahead of the others and still didn’t seem to be fatiguing. She ran with her knees up, her arms bent, her blond ponytail swishing back and forth in a relaxed rhythm.
    She watched Anna through the wire fencing as she made her way to the gate, heading for the bleachers. Being that this was only a practice, there wasn’t a large crowd of spectators. One or two adults, parents she imagined, watching from the stands and a few younger onlookers leaning against a low wire fence around the track—Biscuit and Lucy were among them.
    Though their coiffures were somewhat dull due to the funeral that morning, they had gone to great lengths to make up for it with their wardrobes. Hannah now found it endearing in a strange way—perhaps because of the deference they’d both shown to her mother at the service that morning. Both had dressed in severe conservative black clothing, their hair devoid of all but their natural colors. Biscuit served as a pallbearer, along with Grady and his son, and three other gentlemen she hadn’t recognized but later found out were members of the church who knew and were fond of her mother—the parish gardener and two CCD students from many years past.
    Lucy had glued herself to her best friend’s side for support and was nothing but caring and concerned. Even on such short acquaintance, all in all Hannah found herself impressed with Anna’s choice in friends—they were certainly her defenders.
    During Anna’s third pass around the field, they noticed Hannah’s presence in the bleachers; and while Lucy didn’t seem to care one way or the other, Biscuit started climbing the seats toward her.
    “You don’t have to sit up here alone, you know.”
    “I don’t want to interrupt . . . or distract her.”
    He laughed as he sat down beside her. “Fat chance of that. She gets into a zone and can’t hear or see anything except the sound of her feet and her breathing, and the track about eighty feet ahead of her. Not the whole track. That’s too much. This reporter interviewed her last fall, and he wanted to know what she thought about while she was running. She said she mostly thought about putting one foot in front of the other, and breathing.”
    “She makes it look so easy.”
    He nodded, watching Anna. “This fourth lap she’ll push it a little harder, to shave off a couple more seconds.”
    As if he’d whispered in her ear, Anna picked up her tempo on the far side of the field and while she still looked uncommonly graceful, there was no doubt that she was working harder.
    “Does she try to break the record every time she runs?”
    “Just her record. It’s always nice to break someone else’s record but that’s not really what it’s all about. If it was, you’d go nuts. There’s always going to be someone faster than you are. After a