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Summer 2022
Shane didn’t mind the large flock of squawking birds that were surrounding him beneath a staggeringly oppressive late July heatwave. He knew that most would comment on it being strange, after all the geese had a rather strong reputation. But he had never understood it. Sure, they shat everywhere and never really shut up, but he had never in his life been chased down by a Canada Goose, like so many apparent had. He would always chuckle a bit when he saw them covering the grassy lawns of Ottawa on his runs, sometimes even giving his fellow Canadian icons a nod of recognition.
Ilya, given the chance, wouldn’t shut up about the other avian menace. The geese would peck at the yard and leave droppings for Anya to roll in. They always seemed to be just outside of the windows for Anya to bark at, or to glare menacingly at Ilya. He had listened to his husband’s collywobbles for years about his winged arch-rivals. It was bad enough in Ilya’s mind that the stupid Canadian wolf bird had been elevated to a prominent place on the national currency, and David had no power in his job at the Treasury to change that, but seeing the Canadian Geese so frequently.
For the three girls trailing behind Shane though, he was willing to drive out to an sanctuary in the middle of the Ontario countryside dedicated to them and put up with another rant from his husband about how the countries affection for the geese made him want to renounce his Canadian citizenship.
Even though it was one of their rare summer days that could have been dedicated to purely relaxing, Shane didn’t mind taking three of Hayden’s girls on a day trip so that his best friends could have some time with his only son. In a strange way he saw it as practice of his own parenting skills. He had been observing for years how his teammates raised their own children, taking notes, seeing which was the best perspective and methodology
Apparently, his literal note taking on his observations of parenting was yet another clear indication of his recent Autism diagnosis. Somehow most adults didn’t prepare as fully as Shane Hollander to be parents. They might have some financial plans or do a bit of comparing real estate listings to school district ratings, but many adults who he knew were parents. Jackie and Hayden had just gone and had four kids and thought about that stuff later. That still blew his mind.
Arthur, Hayden’s only son, was at a soccer tournament. His parents wanted to spend the whole day giving their son undivided attention and support. It was quite well proven that in households with multiple children, solo activities with both parental units undivided attention was valued as developmentally helpful. So, the two uncles followed through on their duties. Made even easier now that Hayden was finally moving to the Centaur’s roster in the fall to entertain three girls with one very hairy dog into the countryside. The girls had sung along to the soundtrack of Encanto three times before Amber had let it slip that Hayden had compared both of her uncles to the older sister in the film.
‘The strong one, right?’ Ilya had winked back at the backseat of the car where Anya was blissfully lounging from child to child for belly rubs.
Jade shook her head and replied, ‘Nope, the flowery one’. That had been enough for Shane to make an executive decision to change to a playlist filled with Disney Renaissance era songs which were charmingly vintage to the Pike girls.
They had stewed in relative silence for a song or two before Ilya feigned for the girl’s entertainment to not understand the difference between American Football, and International Football. He used his near decade of living in Boston in which their NFL team had multiple league victories as an excuse from his confusion. He feigned his disgust that Hayden would let his only son play such a dangerous contact sport at a young age, while the backseat chorus interjected with reminders that it was soccer, not football. Jade kept mentioning it was the one that ‘didn’t have hands’ while Ruby muttered under her breath with a pre-teen snicker about them all being paid to play a sport in which ‘fighting is legally allowed’.
The long drive had been enjoyable, filled will laughter and calm silence that comfortably defined their time as uncles. The last year of their lives had been a blur of playing on the same team, being openly out and married and finally being comfortable with being themselves with the rest of the world. The last year hadn’t felt real, the time stretched into something that was elastic and nebulous. Some days Shane would just stop and breathe, fearing that he was going to wake up and be stuck in Montreal once more, but he never did. The fear and hiding which had consumed him for over a decade had been washed away to reveal a future where he finally got to live his truth.
He had hazy childhood memories of a large bulky video camera moving around a primary classroom invading the faces of grade one students and asking them what they wanted to be when they grew up. So many of them had given wide gap tooth smiles and proclaimed the desire to become an astronaut or something else statistically impossible. Children all to frequently saw the world to be filled with endless possibilities rather than understanding the crushing limitations that really rested on adult shoulders. Astronauts, movie stars, marine biologists, the ideal occupations of daydream youth. He reminded himself to ask Ilya if children in 90’s Russia had dreaming of becoming astronauts too. Predictably, Shane proudly declared that he wanted to play professional hockey.
He had achieved his childhood fantasy of professional hockey. Blessed by a natural aptitude, surrounded by circumstance and privilege that had allowed his talents to be nurtured to fulfill that childhood dream. How many of his fellow classmates grew up to be what they wanted at seven?
It was the memory of his husband bickering playfully with their nieces in the car that made him feel a deep complicated swirl of pride that was better than winning any playoff cup. The life he had now, all of which had been so impossible in his youth. The world had swirled and changed to make it happen. Not only was he a professional hockey player, but he was a well-paid one, blessed with a lack of lingering injuries as well as the respect of many of his fellow players. Not only had he achieved his professional goal, but he was married. Married to a man who he had been infatuated with since he was a teenager. None of that had been even plausible to him when he was growing up, let alone years ago. The path to get to this place hadn’t been without pain or setbacks, but really…
A smile formed under the ball cap of his head, that he wore not to hide his identity but because it was nearly forty degrees out. He was surrounded by gently chirping geese who all wanted to be fed by his three nieces who were snapping photos of them with the birds to later terrorize Ilya. His husband who had used needing to take their dog for a run as an excuse to avoid his fears within the fences of Jack Minor’s Migratory Bird Sanctuary.
He had grown up to become an astronaut.
There were a few doubles takes from the other visitors who recognized him. But in the last year he had found that most fans who he ran into were better at giving him his privacy, simply nodding in his direction or saying a few words of encouragement. Interactions with fans that he had dreaded for years felt as easy as breathing now that he had nothing to hide. No one bothered the multi-millionaire hockey player reasoning with a five-year-old to not pick up the geese by the pond while her older twin sisters lovingly encouraged her.
An hour out in the hot-mid day sun with the constant buzzing of unseen insects in their ears and the appeal of the geese had been replaced with the promise of stopping for ice cream on the way back to Hayden and Jackies rented cottage near Niagara Falls. He made the girls all wash their hands twice and use hand sanitizer once before
He could hear Anya barking happily at the sight of the children once more as he saw the silhouette of his husband sitting on the hood of their SUV, looking peacefully at the field beyond while Anya sat beside the wheels of the car, gently tied to the wing mirrors with a bowl of water at her feet.
“Uncle Ilya you should have come with us.” Ruby said as she wipped out the smart phone to begin scrolling through the photos. Shane was still shocked that Hayden let the twins have phones. As the uncles, he was confident the twins let more slip about group chats and social media postings than they did around their parents.
“Yeah, they were so tame it was lame. We almost got Amber to pick one up.” Jade was looking down at her phone as she crossed the r
The littlest Pike squealed as she ran up to Anya and began to pat the dog with large unfocused gestures. Anya sniffed her curiously “Shane says no!” Amber laughed either referencing Shane’s interference with the birds, or Anya who was trying very hard to lick her hands clean.
Ilya had yet to refer to the girls by any of the fish species nicknames that he secretly had a notes app off. Shane, already suspicious, felt his eyes roll into the back of his head as he saw the cause of Ilya’s silence.
“Seriously?”
Shane watched as his husband raised his head in greeting with a mix of childish glee and shame that he had been caught with a bright colorful carboard carton of Timbits held in between his large hands. The evidence of powdered sugar turning his beard into a comical approximation of Santa Claus making it clear that he had been eating them by sticking his large head directly into the container.
Never mind the fact that there were far more healthy snacks in the back of the car than the carton of mixed donut holes that the kids had pleaded for. It wasn’t any use arguing the choice of his snack just… “Why?” He said begging for him to explain the logic to his method.
Ilya lowered the box to his lap. “There was no….” He rubbed his hands together in a motion mimicking washing his hands.
“Hanitizer?” Amber provided in her small voice.
He snapped his fingers and pointed at her “Hanitizer in the car.”
Shane rolled his eyes as he rummaged in his own backpack to pull out a small container of hand sanitizer from his backpack and handed it to his husband. He seriously doubted that excuse. Yet the dawning realization from the kids that they would no longer be able to share the donuts between them on the ride back was a bigger concern.
Ruby muttered something angrily in French, that contained at least one word which she shouldn’t know.
“English please.” Ilya replied with a groan as he hopped down from the hood of the car and began to help Shane in wrangling the three girls and dog back into the car for the long ride towards Niagara.
“It’s a bilingual country.” Jade replied with a roll of her eyes at the comeback that both men knew Hayden must have taught her. Spending the first chuck of their life in Quebec made both twins partial to whispering in French or English to annoy others depending on their intended targets linguistic preference.
“I am bi-lingual.” Ilya’s eyes twinkled with double meaning as he grabbed Amber from under the arm pits and helped fasten her into a booster seat. The youngest Pike giggled as she ran a hand through his beard, showering herself with sugar.
“Then become Trilingual.” Shane said as he double checked that twins seat belts were secured before squeezing a healthy amount of hand sanitizer in all their palms once more. He moved around to the trunk to pull out a few Ziplock bags of carrots and celery that the girls took as a snack with little coercion. The now tainted box of Timbits was shoved under a few shopping bags to mostly keep it out of Anya’s line of sight.
“Uncle Ilya.” Amber muttered softly as he gave her another quick ruffle ono the head before closing the car door. “More bits?”
He gently patted her shoulder with the same level of serious he would have given her to announce that her stuffed bear had a terminal disease during a game of pretend. “I don’t think here are any Tim Horton’s between here and Niagara.”
Given the highway system it was hard to go more than twenty kilometers without seeing at least one of the establishments. “We can look out for one.” Ruby chuckled.
Shane got back in the driver’s seat, checking the mirrors and making sure that everyone was buckled up before he looked down at the small compartment in the console that was filled with a small but deemed necessary amount of car debridement. Extra baggies for Anya, charging cords for phones and a multi-tool. There really was no hand sanitizer in its normally designated space. He moved around the pair of dark winter gloves and an old granola bar looking to see if it had rolled under the rest of the detritus, but it wasn’t there.
Ilya gave him a raised brow that proved his innocence. “We’ll you just secured your spot on the 2026 team.” He snickered as the car came to life.
The timing of Ilya’s immigration status had meant that he had missed out on Team Canada earlier in the year, cheering on his husband instead from the couch of their Ottawa home. Beijing just a little too close to Russia for his comfort. “Why?”
“Because we just walked out of Jack Minors to find you bobbing for Timbits.” He sighed as they began to set off down the countryside roads once more. “That makes you pretty Canadian.”