I step outside, watching my eleven-year-old twins, Gina and Caleb, play catch outside -- the ragged ball smacks their gloves. I smell the early spring air.

"I'm going running." I bend over, stretching my hamstrings.

"Do you have to go?" Gina says, throwing the ball with her dainty left hand.

"I won't be long. Maybe we'll play baseball later on." I straighten Gina's hair with my fingertips.

"You always say stuff like that," Gina says.

"Can't we come with you?" Caleb tugs on my arm, dropping his glove to the ground.

"No, I need to go alone."

"But Dad used to run with you." Gina leans on me, then wraps her arms around my skinny waist.

My husband Brian and I met in college cross-country. Brian stopped running after we expanded the farm, saying he had too much other work to do. Now I run alone to clear my head.

"Mom, watch this." Caleb throws the ball -- it disappears into the field. He runs through the pasture to retrieve it. Grazing Holstein cows look up with bulgy eyes, chewing on their cud.

I say goodbye to the children, then stride down the desolate road. Toothless, wrinkled Samuel passes in his John Deere tractor, waving his right gloved hand. I nod, but keep on running. I turn my head to look back at the farm. Wind blows in my face. Buffalo stare as I pass their fenced-in pasture. A dog barks in the distance.

My feet crunch over the new-fallen snow. The sun shines, then hides behind a cloud. I look back at the farm -- it looks peaceful from the distance. The lakeshore's tone is like a sigh. I breathe the same beat as my footsteps.

I wonder what to do about the farm. Brian would want me to keep it. He stays in the asylum, lying in bed, gazing at a lifeless ceiling with his distant eyes. He hasn't said a word since the breakdown last September. I try to keep the good memories of him alive, the joy in his eyes while playing with the twins. And when the children were sick, I would pace the floors -- Brian would take me in his arms and hold me.

Now I think of the crops that need planting, the daily milking to be done, about telling the twins their favorite heifer, Mint, just passed away. I think of lessons to teach the children, roles for them to play. I picture myself telling them their father will never come home, that he'll never be the same.

I turn around on my running path, facing the farm.

I see my footprints. They are alone -- I am the only one who has run this path today. The buffalo stare, then run away. The dog stops barking. The sun shines again. The lake keeps moving. The world is still, but I keep going.

Grass peeks from under the fresh melting snow. Ice melts.

I run home, staring at the silo, knowing it needs to be filled. The farm's scent is alive. The barn needs painting -- wooden slabs are broken from its framework.

The children play outside. They get warm, so they drop their tattered jackets. Their cheeks are red like gumdrops. They run to me and hug me.

"We got you a surprise." Caleb hands me a bundle of yellow dandelions.

"They're just beginning to bloom." Gina's eyes glow like ripe blueberries. "We found them peeking up under a patch of snow."

"Thank you." I smile, taking the bouquet. Sweat melts from my body. I kiss my children on their foreheads. We go inside and place the flowers in a clear vase. The last time I used it was to hold the roses Brian gave me.

"It's so pretty." Gina runs her finger along the hilly grooves.

"Your dad always made sure it was filled with flowers."

"We know." Caleb smiles faintly, looking up at me.

We smell the bouquet, then put it on the table.

"It's more beautiful than a topaz," I say.

We stand around the arrangement, studying it, and I grasp my children's hands, warming them, hoping to make the coldness disappear.