Work Text:
⋆꙳❅*❆
Where she made her last snow angel
Little did they know
That it'd make a lasting impression
Deeper than the snow
In his soul, snow angel never faded
⋆꙳❅*❆
Shane stood frozen in the lobby of the Moscow camp, hockey bag slumped at his feet. His mom was a few meters away, talking to a coach. Shane caught words floating through the noise. "Development." "Opportunity." "Very promising."
Very promising meant he could not, under any circumstances, screw this up by doing something stupid. Like saying the wrong thing. Or -
His bladder sent an urgent memo.
This was already not starting great.
He'd taken his scarf off during practice because one of the older boys had snorted and gone, "Baby?" in English that was thick with accent and judgment. Shane refused to be internationally labeled a baby. So the scarf came off.
Now his neck felt like a frozen hot dog.
He scanned the lobby. Signs everywhere. All in Russian.
Okay. Fine.
He unzipped the outer pocket of his bag and pulled out his tiny Russian phrasebook. The cover featured a cartoon bear wearing a ushanka. He flipped through it with cold fingers.
Bathroom. Bathroom. Come on.
He landed on something. It looked right. "Ya… ya… karto… kartoshka."
A group of boys stood near the vending machines, roughly his age. Shane approached with what he hoped read as diplomatic energy and not desperation.
"Excuse me," he said. "Hello."
They blinked at him like he'd just materialized from a glowing portal.
"I am from Canada."
One boy muttered something fast. Another shrugged.
Right. Language barrier. He had a tool for this.
"Ya… ya kartoshka," he said carefully.
The boys went silent.
Then one of them lost it completely.
"He say he is potato!" the kid shouted in English.
The others detonated.
Shane stared at the book. Potato? He flipped the page frantically. No, he had definitely pointed at something bathroom-adjacent. Why would potato and bathroom even be on the same page? Who organized this book?
"That's not what I meant," he said, his face burning.
Before Shane could explain, another kid skated past the lobby entrance. Light brown hair, slouched posture, and a grin that suggested he was already preparing several excellent jokes about this situation.
"You are potato?" he asked.
Shane frowned. "Shut up."
The boy's grin stretched wider, like Christmas had come early. "Potato Captain."
"I'm not a captain," Shane snapped. Then he remembered his mom was literally ten meters away and he was supposed to be Very Promising. "Not yet," he added weakly.
The boys were leaning on each other now. One was wiping his eyes with the back of his glove.
Shane's stomach was doing some kind of interpretive dance of humiliation. Also he still really had to pee. Also his hands were kind of shaking, but that was just the temperature.
A woman's voice cut through the noise, like a teacher rapping a ruler on a desk.
The boys shut up immediately. Shane looked up.
She had dirty blonde hair tucked under a knit hat, and her eyes were actually kind. She looked at the boys first and said something that made the taller one roll his eyes, but at least he stopped grinning like a cartoon villain who'd just tied someone to train tracks.
Then she crouched down.
"You are not potato," she said quietly. "You are visitor."
Shane swallowed. "Yeah. That's better."
"You are cold," she said.
"I'm fine," Shane said automatically. His teeth betrayed him with a chatter.
She didn't ask again. She just unwound her scarf from her own neck and wrapped it around his.
Nobody except his parents did that.
The scarf was warm and smelled faintly like laundry detergent. He hadn't realized how cold he actually was until warmth hit his skin.
"Thank you," he said.
Behind her, the brown-haired boy muttered something in Russian that sounded annoyed. She answered without even turning around. The kid huffed but shut up.
Oh. That was his mom.
She looked back at him. "What did you want to say?"
He held up the phrasebook, cover facing her. The bear stared out mournfully, complicit in his failure. "I need the bathroom."
Understanding flickered across her face. Her lips pressed together, definitely holding back a laugh.
"Ah," she said. "Yes. That word… not bathroom."
"I figured," Shane muttered.
She stood up and offered her hand.
He hesitated half a second before taking it. She said something to the boys as they walked past. The one called out, "Potato Captain!" but his voice didn't have the same edge anymore. It was almost friendly.
"I'm going to learn the right word," Shane told him seriously.
The boy just grinned.
She led him down the hallway toward a door with a sign that nobody on earth would ever guess meant bathroom.
"Thank you for helping me," Shane said. Then he remembered his manners, the ones his mom eight years drilling into him. "I'm Shane, by the way."
She looked down at him with those kind eyes. "I am Irina."
"Hi, Irina." He adjusted the scarf again, just because it was nice to have something to do with his hands. "This is really nice of you."
She squeezed his hand once. "You are welcome, Shane."
~
In the camp library full of books about skating technique, biographies of famous players, and even a few in English tucked away on the bottom shelf, Shane practiced his new Russian phrases under his breath just right, like Goldilocks but with fewer bears and more consonants.
When he came back out into the hallway, he spotted his mom near the lobby talking to another parent. He hurried over.
"Mom," he said, tugging lightly on her sleeve. "Listen."
Yuna looked down at him, already smiling. She always smiled like she knew he was about to do something interesting.
"Okay," she said.
"Privet," he said carefully. "Spasibo. And… gde tualet."
Yuna's eyebrows went up. "That's very good."
"I didn't say potato," he added quickly.
She blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"Nothing." He shifted his weight. "I think I should test it."
"Test it?" she repeated.
"With a Russian speaker," he explained.
Yuna considered this. Around them, the hallway buzzed with activity.
"Okay," she said slowly. "But don't go too far. I'm right here."
"I won't," he promised. Then he turned and walked away.
He was not going too far. He was just… looking around. Definitely not looking for a woman with kind eyes and a wool scarf that still smelled like cold air and warmth at the same time.
He had folded that scarf neatly and tucked it into the side pocket of his hockey bag, wrapped around his extra laces so it wouldn't get wrinkled. He meant to give it back yesterday. He just hadn't seen her again.
Maybe she didn't remember him.
That would be fine. There were a lot of kids here. She probably helped fifteen kids a day and sent them on their way.
He wandered down a hallway he hadn't explored yet and stopped dead when something hit his nose.
Slightly roasted and absolutely delicious food that made his stomach file a complaint about how long it had been since breakfast.
The door at the end was propped open with a chair that had seen better days. Inside, a big kitchen gleamed with stainless steel counters and giant pots bubbling on stoves like happy volcanoes. Several adults in aprons moved around fast, tossing ingredients and talking rapid-fire Russian like they were in a race and the prize was dinner.
Shane hovered in the doorway. One of the cooks spotted him.
"Privet," he said politely.
The women exchanged glances.
One of them laughed and walked over, wiping her hands on her apron. She crouched a little and said something long and complicated that Shane had zero chance of understanding. Panic tickled his throat. He deployed his strongest phrase.
"Spasibo," he said firmly.
The woman laughed again, and then reached out and gently pinched his cheek.
Another cook joined her, all saying things that sounded very pleased.
Shane stood there, face on fire, being cheek-pinched by a small crowd of Russian grandmothers he had never met in his life.
"I am just visiting," he tried in English. "I'm not here to steal food or anything."
They definitely didn't understand him, but they appreciated the effort. One of them took his shoulders and turned him toward the inside of the kitchen.
"Shane?"
Irina was standing near one of the long tables, her hair pulled back loose, and flour dusted the front of her sweater like snow on a mountain. "You come back."
Relief hit him so hard it was almost embarrassing.
"You remember me," he blurted out.
"Of course," she said, stepping closer. "Potato."
"I learned the right word," he said. "Gde tualet."
She laughed softly. "Yes. Is correct."
His heart did this weird floaty thing, like it forgot how to stay put and just kind of drifted upward into his throat.
Time to show he wasn't just some kid who needed rescuing.
"Ya iz Kanady," he announced proudly. "I am from Canada."
Irina clapped her hands softly. "Very good!"
Encouraged, he kept going.
"Ya lyublyu khokkey. And - and - spasibo for helping me yesterday and I am not potato and I was just confused and also the library here is very good and I didn't know camps had libraries but I think that's nice and I think maybe your scarf is lucky because I haven't tripped once since I wore it - "
He stopped.
What if she didn't understand any of that? He stared at her anxiously.
Irina smiled apologetically.
"Slow," she said gently. "My English… little."
"Sorry," he said, horrified. "I talk too fast. My mom says I've been doing it since I was two and I never grew out of it. I'm working on it."
He tried again, slower this time. "I thought maybe… you forgot me."
Her expression softened, like butter left out on the counter. She stepped closer and tapped his chest lightly with one finger, right over his heart.
"I remember serious little Canadian," she said. "Very much."
Behind them, one of the cooks pointed at a tray of dumplings like it was about to make a run for it. Irina answered back without taking her eyes off him, then looked down.
"I help here," she explained. She paused, searching for the right words. "I am… host family. For camp. We cook. Soup. Dumplings." She gestured around the big kitchen. "Some for players. Some for… charities." She made a motion like giving something away, hands open.
"For like… people who need it?" Shane asked, eyes wide.
She nodded. "Yes. People who need."
That was the exact moment something clicked into place inside Shane's head. Irina was like the good queens in storybooks. The ones who walked around in cloaks giving bread to villagers. The fairy godmothers who appeared exactly when you needed them and fixed everything without making you feel dumb for needing fixing. The kind of person who saw someone cold and just gave them their scarf, no questions asked.
She had rescued him from being internationally identified as a potato. And she made food for people who needed it. That was basically magic.
"I can help," he said immediately. "I'm very good at helping. I clean my room without being asked sometimes. I carry stuff for my mom when her hands are full. I know my Russian is not perfect but my helping is good and I don't want to just take and not give back - "
He stopped because he ran out of air.
"You talk very fast," she said. "Where is your mother?"
"Oh! She's fine. She's in the lobby talking to someone. I know how to read a map and the signs and everything. And it's not too far from here." He paused. "Not that I'm lost. I know where I am. Mostly."
"Okay," she said slowly. "But not long."
"Not long," he promised. He hurried over and washed his hands with a lot of soap, the way they made everyone do before team dinners. Shane rinsed carefully, dried his hands on the towel, and looked around.
He was shorter than the counter.
He spotted a small wooden stool near the wall and dragged it over with both hands. Irina moved the stool the rest of the way and steadied it with her foot.
He climbed up.
Now he could see everything. Rows of little flour-dusted circles waiting to become something more. Bowls of meat filling.
Irina picked up a small circle of dough and held it flat on her palm. "Put… little meat." She placed a small scoop in the center. "Then fold. Like this."
Her fingers pinched the edges into a neat half-moon shape.
Shane picked up his own circle of dough and scooped what he thought was a reasonable amount of filling. When he tried to fold it, the filling squished out the sides like it was escaping prison.
One of the cooks gasped.
"I can fix it," Shane said quickly.
He tried again with less filling. This time he pinched too hard and the dough ripped right down the middle.
Irina touched his wrist. "Soft hands."
Shane tried a third time. It came out… more like a sad little pillow that had given up on life.
"It looks wrong," he said.
Irina looked at it.
"It looks… special," she said.
"I can do better," Shane insisted. "I just need more practice. I'm a fast learner. You'll see."
He focused very hard on the next one. Meat small and centered. Pinch soft, like he was closing a book he didn't want to damage. This one held together.
It was crooked. One side was higher than the other, but it stayed closed and contained and dumpling-shaped.
Shane lined his finished dumplings in a neat little row on the tray. He adjusted them so they all faced the same direction, evenly spaced, like soldiers standing at attention.
As the cooks worked, Shane kept sneaking glances at Irina. The way she moved around the kitchen like she knew exactly where everything was, her hands finding things without her even looking. The way the other women listened when she spoke, nodding and then doing what she said.
She really was like a queen. The kind who knew everyone's name and what they needed before they asked for it.
One of the cooks handed him a small piece of extra dough to play with while they worked. He rolled it into a perfect ball and flattened it slightly. Then used his fingernail to make little crosshatch marks on one side.
A tiny hockey puck.
The dough hockey puck got passed around the kitchen like a celebrity. One of them pretended to shoot it into an invisible net.
Then one of them disappeared to the stove and came back with a small spoonful of golden liquid, fragrant, little bits floating on top. She held it out toward Shane with a hopeful expression.
Irina gently touched the woman's wrist before the spoon reached him. She leaned down, blew on it once, and took the first bite herself.
Only then did she hold the spoon toward him.
Shane hesitated. "You go first?"
She smiled. "Yes. Always."
"Why?"
She tapped her chest. "Mothers." Then she made a small motion with her hand, like shielding something from the rain. "We try first. Make sure safe. Then kids."
Shane thought about all the times his mom tasted his soup before he ate it. Or cut his apple and ate one slice first to make sure it wasn't mealy. Or sniffed milk before pouring it in his cereal and made a face if it was off.
He accepted the spoon.
The soup was warm and salty and a little sour in a good way.
All the cooks leaned in. He felt their eyes on him like spotlights.
"It's… really good," he said. "It's warm. And the flavor is big. Like it fills up your whole mouth and you don't even want to swallow because then it'll be gone."
The women burst into pleased chatter. Another scooped a tiny dumpling onto a small plate and handed it to Irina.
Again, Irina took a bite first. Then she passed it to Shane.
He chewed. It was soft and juicy and way better than the lumpy ones he had made.
Another woman brought over something that looked like a small pastry. Golden brown and flaky. Irina took a bite, then Shane did.
One of the women said something that sounded like a question.
Shane panicked a little.
He did not want to hurt anyone's feelings. What if sweet was rude here? What if this was a test and he was about to fail and they would never let him back into the kitchen and his dumpling career would be over before it even started -
"It's happy," he blurted.
All of them made soft "awww" noises at once.
"I mean," he added quickly, "it tastes like birthdays."
That was apparently even better.
~
The snow outside the rink was softer than the ice. Shane knew that didn't make sense. Ice came from snow, they were basically the same thing, water that gave up and turned solid. But the snow was forgiving. Snow didn't make that horrible clink sound when you hit it wrong.
He sat on a wooden bench near the side of the building, boots half-zipped because he'd started the zipper and then just sort of given up halfway through.
They had lost by one goal. A little one-goal margin that felt enormous when you were sitting on the wrong side of it.
He had been so close in the third period. The puck had sailed off his stick, straight toward the top corner where the goalie couldn't reach.
Then it hit the post.
Clink.
The sound of almost, of so close, of maybe next time.
His mom had squeezed his shoulders after the game and said, "You played well" in the same voice she used when he was sick and she was taking his temperature. Then she'd gone to buy him ginger ale from a little shop across the street because that's what she always did after games. She hadn't looked disappointed.
But that almost made it worse too. It was like he'd let her down and she was too nice to say it, like he had failed a test and she was giving him a gold star anyway just to make him feel better.
He drew a crooked circle in the snow with his glove. Then he stabbed two dots for eyes. It looked like a sad snow blob.
He didn't want to cry. He just felt tight inside, the same as when you wear a helmet that's one size too small and you can't fix it because nothing fits right and you don't know how to explain it so you just sit there with your head squeezed and pretend it's fine.
A shadow fell across the snow. Shane looked up.
Irina was walking across the courtyard, bundled in her coat, carrying a small bag in one hand. Her eyes were on the path ahead, her breath puffing out in little clouds. She stopped a few steps away and used the toe of her boot to draw something in the snow.
A flower with petals and a stem and little leaves branching off the sides.
She noticed him then and smiled.
"Ah," she said softly. "Serious little Canadian."
He tried to smile back. It came out more like a wince.
She walked over and sat on the other end of the bench.
"We lost," he said suddenly.
She nodded once, waiting.
"I almost scored," he rushed on. "It hit the post. If it went like - " He made a motion with his hand, just a centimeter between his thumb and finger. " - this much more, it would have gone in. And I should have gone faster in the second period. I was too slow on the backcheck. And I missed that pass. It was right to my stick and I just didn't get there in time. And I don't want my mom to think I didn't try hard enough and - "
He stopped because he was talking too fast again. His mom called it word vomit.
"We lost," he said more quietly.
Irina looked at him. "Your mother… angry?"
"No," he said immediately. "She's not mad. She's buying me ginger ale."
Irina's mouth twitched.
"But," he added, "I don't want her to be sad."
Irina was quiet for a moment.
Then she said gently, "Mothers… cannot stop being proud."
He looked up.
She tapped her chest. "I am Mama. I know."
He blinked.
"She loves you," Irina continued, choosing her words carefully, like she was picking out exactly the right ones. "When you win. When you lose."
Shane swallowed.
"She knows when you are sad," Irina added. "And when you are sad… she is sad too. Not because you lose. Because you hurt."
He frowned a little. That didn't make sense. If she was sad because he was sad, then he was making her sad by being sad, which meant he shouldn't be sad, but he couldn't just stop being sad, and the logic was going in circles and none of it worked.
"She doesn't like tears," Irina said softly. "Mamas don't like tears on their kids."
Shane thought about how his mom always knelt down when he got frustrated. How she rubbed his back after bad games and didn't say anything. How she never once asked, Why didn't you score? She just asked, Are you hungry? Do you want to talk about it or do you want to be quiet?
He drew another line in the snow.
"You are small now," she said. "But inside you... I see someone very tall."
Shane frowned. "I'm not gonna be that tall. My dad's only this high." He demonstrated.
She shook her head. "Not tall like this." She reached up, hand flat above her head. "Tall like... here." She hovered her finger over his heart. "Big heart. Big feelings. Big care. That is tall."
His ears went pink.
"When you are older," she continued, "you will still be this person. The one who feels too much. The one who cares too much. Some people will tell you this is bad."
"Yeah. They already do."
"Those people are wrong," she said firmly. "Those people do not know. Feeling too much is not weakness. Is the whole point."
She crouched down again so they're eye level.
"My son," she said, "he feels too much too. Too much fight. Too much love. Too much everything. I worry for him. I worry people will not understand." She paused. "But maybe... maybe someone will..."
She trailed off, like she's said too much.
Shane didn't understand what she's trying to say, but something in his chest goes warm anyway. He stared at the flower she had drawn.
"It's nice," he said.
She smiled. "You draw sad face."
He looked at his lumpy snow blob with its two dot eyes.
"It was right at the time," he said.
That made her laugh. He watched her boot move again, adding more leaves to the flower.
"Can you help me write my name?" he asked. "In Russian letters?"
She looked at him with interest. "Your name?"
He nodded. "I wanna see how it looks. In the… curly alphabet."
He didn't know the right word for Cyrillic. Curly alphabet was the best he could do.
She knelt down properly in the snow. With one gloved finger, she smoothed out a clean patch and wrote:
Шейн
"That's me?" he asked.
She nodded. "Sheyn."
He tried to trace it beside hers. His version came out wobbly and too big, the Ш looking more like three tiny mountains having an argument.
"Shhh… Shay… Shayn," he sounded out. He sat back on his heels, suddenly remembering something very important. "Now your name in English."
He cleared a space in the snow with his glove and began printing in careful block letters, the way his teachers liked:
I R I N A
"There," he said proudly. "Ee-ree-na."
"Ee-ree-na," she repeated.
Then Irina stood up from the bench. "Come," she said.
He followed her into a patch of fresh snow.
Without any warning at all, she let herself fall straight backward.
Shane gasped.
She landed with a soft thump and started moving her arms and legs back and forth, sweeping wide arcs through the snow.
She sat up, revealing a perfect snow angel. Wings curved graceful. Robe flared out. Head round and even.
Shane stared. "That's allowed?"
She laughed. "Yes."
He hesitated only half a second. Then he copied her. He fell back.
The snow was cold and shocking and amazing all at once. It caught him like a pillow that hadn't finished freezing yet, like a hug you didn't see coming. He waved his arms and legs like she had shown him, flapping and kicking and probably looking ridiculous.
When he sat up, he twisted around to look.
One wing was fatter than the other. The head was kind of lopsided, tilted to the left like it was confused.
But it was definitely an angel.
"Good!" Irina said.
He fell back again just because he could. Another angel. This time the wings were more even. The cold didn't feel bad anymore. It felt exciting, like the snow was saying, yes, you can do this, yes, you can leave marks, yes, you can be messy and it's okay.
He scrambled up, hair messy with snow, gloves wet and probably ruined.
"I'm not sad anymore," he announced, surprised.
Irina smiled like she had known that would happen. From across the courtyard, a loud shout rang out.
Irina muttered something under her breath that sounded like a name. Shane followed her gaze.
Potato Captain himself was in the middle of what looked like an aggressive snowball fight. He had built some kind of snow fortress, and was currently launching projectiles at another kid while yelling what sounded like war cries.
Irina sighed fondly. "Is… very competitive."
Shane nodded. "I noticed."
She brushed snow from her coat and started walking toward the battlefield.
"Wait," Shane said quickly.
He hurried over to the bench and grabbed her scarf from where he had set it earlier, folded neatly on the wood. He held it out with both hands.
"This is yours," he said.
"You keep," she said. "For Russia."
He hesitated. "But it's yours."
She tucked it around his neck firmly, pulling it snug so no cold air could sneak in.
"Snow angels need scarf too," she said.
Then she squeezed his shoulder once, and turned toward her son who was apparently waging international war in the courtyard.
"Bye, Sheyn," she called.
"Bye, Ee-ree-na," he said.
He stood there for a moment, scarf warm around his neck, watching her walk away through the snow. Then he looked at the messy angels in the snow. His and hers, side by side, wings overlapping in some places. Below them, two names.
He spotted his mom walking back toward him with a paper bag and a bottle of ginger ale.
He ran to her. When he reached her, he wrapped his arms around her middle in the biggest hug he could manage.
She laughed in surprise, nearly dropping the ginger ale.
"Hey! What was that for?"
"Just because," he said into her coat.
Just because she was here. Just because he loved her. Just because the snow was soft and his neck was warm and he had made an angel that looked like him.
~
The first time Ilya said his mother's full name out loud, they were in Shane's cottage floor in sweatpants that had seen better days. Half a cold pizza sat between them on a paper plate. An open photo album was spread across the carpet because Ilya had finally decided he could talk about her without his voice cracking dangerously.
He tapped a picture of a familiar soft-smiling woman in a winter coat, standing outside the rink with flour on her sweater and snow in her hair.
"My mama," Ilya said. "Irina Rozanov."
"Irina?" Shane repeated carefully.
"Yes, moya lyubov." Ilya was already flipping the page, distracted. "Why?"
Shane didn't answer right away, because somewhere in the back of his head, eight-year-old snow and cold air and a wool scarf were waking up and tapping him on the shoulder like hey, remember us?
Irina.
Snow angel Irina.
The woman who had wrapped a scarf around a shivering kid who didn't know how to say bathroom in Russian and instead announced himself as a root vegetable.
The woman who had tapped her chest and said, I am Mama. I know.
"That's funny," Shane said. His voice sounded strange to his own ears. "Because when I was eight, at a hockey camp in Russia…"
Ilya looked up.
"I met this lady named Irina."
"Lot of Irina in Russia." Ilya was still trying to find the corner of the photo he wanted.
"She made dumplings for charity."
Ilya’s hand stopped mid-page turn. "…That narrows it down little."
"She had a very competitive son."
Ilya frowned. "Describes half country."
"She made snow angels like it was a professional sport."
That did it. The room went quiet in a different way.
"She did that," Ilya said, his voice thin.
"And," Shane added, almost shy now, "she gave me her scarf."
Ilya's head snapped up. "What scarf?"
Shane stood up so fast he nearly took out the pizza box.
What followed can only be described as a full-scale domestic archaeological excavation.
Closets were opened with unnecessary force. Storage bins dragged out from under the bed, the ones that had been there since Shane moved in and never been fully unpacked. Suitcases unzipped and rifled through, old clothes flying everywhere, a winter jacket from three apartments ago landing in a heap by the door.
At some point Ilya was sitting cross-legged in the hallway watching this unfold, because Shane had banned him from the bedroom during the dig.
"You kept it?" Ilya called out.
"I never wore it again," Shane called back, muffled because his head was completely inside a closet. "It felt… important."
Which, frankly, should have been a bigger clue at the time. But they were both idiots, and some things you don't realize until you're ready to realize them.
"Where did I put - no, that's the ugly sweater - where is - "
Then Shane emerged, carrying the scarf.
Soft wool, faded at the edges, slightly pilled from years and years ago. It still faintly smelled like cold air and something floral and old-fashioned, as if winter and kindness had been folded into the fibers and never quite left.
He had folded it carefully when he was eight years old and tucked it into the side pocket of his hockey bag. Then he had transferred it to his suitcase. Then to a drawer in his childhood bedroom. Then to this closet, in this cottage, in this life.
He had never touched it again. He didn't know why. It just felt wrong to wear it. It belonged to a moment he didn't want to disturb, like a snow angel before the melt.
He walked back slowly. Ilya stood up without realizing he had, his body just deciding to rise.
"Can I?" Ilya asked.
Shane nodded.
Ilya took the scarf and pressed it to his face. He inhaled.
The sound that came out of him was a broken, startled sob. The kind that catches you off guard and doesn't ask permission.
The scent of home, waiting for him.
He folded in on himself a little, clutching the scarf like it might disappear, like it might turn out to be just another thing he'd lost.
"Is her," Ilya choked. "Is actually her."
Shane was there instantly, arms around him.
"She taught me how to write my name in Cyrillic," Shane said softly into Ilya's hair. "And she wouldn't let me taste anything until she tried it first."
Ilya let out a shaky laugh-sob. "Always did that. Every single thing we ate. Had to test it. Said mothers go first."
"She saved me from some kid who called me Potato Captain," Shane added faintly.
Ilya froze. "…What?"
"He invented it," Shane said darkly. "It was extremely rude. I was just trying to find the bathroom and this kid just yelled 'Potato Captain' in front of everyone."
Ilya pulled back slowly. "Describe this criminal."
"Light brown hair. Slouchy posture. Snowball aggression issues. Probably still holds grudges."
"Oh my god," Ilya whispered. "Was me. I invented Potato Captain. Called you Potato Captain. You said you were potato!"
"I did not mean to! The phrasebook was wrong! It had potato and bathroom on the same page - who organizes a phrasebook like that - "
They dissolved into laughter. Ilya was doubled over, clutching the scarf to his chest. Shane was holding his head in his hands, shoulders shaking.
Ilya looked down at the scarf in his hands. His thumb traced the edge, worn soft from years of use before Shane ever touched it.
"She gave you this," he said.
"She told me to keep it. For Russia. And snow angels."
"I think," Ilya said, voice breaking on the edges, "maybe snow angels are real."
Shane huffed a watery laugh. "That's not scientifically supported."
"I don't care." Ilya was stubborn even when crying. "I wished, you know. When I was a kid. I didn't know what I was wishing for exactly. I just knew I wanted someone. And I wished that whoever it was would meet her. That she would like him. That she would - " His voice cracked. "That she would know."
Shane's hands tightened in the fabric of Ilya's shirt. "She did."
Ilya looked at him, eyes shining, the scarf pressed between them like a third person in the embrace.
"She did," he echoed.
The thought hit them both at the same time: that years ago, without knowing it, Irina Rozanov had wrapped a scarf around the boy her son would one day love.
She had fed him soup and taught him how to fall backward into snow. She had told him mothers never stop being proud. She had crouched down eye level and made him feel like he belonged.
Given him, in a way, to her son.
From a woman falling backward into fresh snow to a scarf folded in a drawer to two men weeping on a living room floor; Irina's angel had been waiting all along. It just needed them to find each other before it was finished.