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Ilya doesn’t have many specific memories of his childhood, or at least not the good parts. It’s more like flashes and scraps, moments without context.
When he thinks back on it, some things blend together, moments and sensations felt so often that it was impossible to distinguish one event from another – like the sound of his father’s fury bouncing off the walls of the big echoing house. His brother’s sneering taunts. The prickle of tears in Ilya’s eyes, and his desperate determination to hold them in. Leaden shame, festering anger. The rasp of his skates cutting into the ice, and the cold air of the rink in his lungs. Those were everyday occurrences that wove into a blurred composite memory.
The good memories are more rare, and usually incomplete. His mother is hazy around the edges, in his mind, because he didn't have enough sweet moments with her; there was no such thing as mundane happiness. His mental image of her isn’t a portrait so much as a collection of brushstrokes: echoing laughter and the flash of her smile and the glint of sunlight in her eyes.
***
Ilya doesn’t have many photos of his mother. The candid photos he does have were mostly taken when he was too young to remember the moment; the rest are stiff, posed family portraits, where they all looked almost as miserable as they probably felt.
Would it be easier to remember her if he had more photographs? If he’d had someone to tell him stories about her?
Shane’s childhood home is full of photos. Ilya takes a tour of them, the first time he really visits – Yuna and David tell the story behind each one. Sometimes one of them forgets a detail, and the other fills it in, or they go back and forth to remind each other: “Was that his second year, or –” “No, must’ve been the year before, because that was just after we got back from that trip –” “I think it was ‘97 –” “Remember what your sister said at Christmas, about –”
Ilya feels greedy, like he’s gobbling up memories of Shane that don’t belong to him, but they insist that they love telling the old stories, especially the ones that make Shane wrinkle his nose with embarrassment. And when he’s heard about the photos on the walls, they offer more: albums full of photos pasted neatly into pages, shoeboxes full of hundreds more. Ilya gorges himself on their memories, enthralled, closing his eyes and trying to imagine that tiny Shane, building a picture in his mind until he could almost swear he was there.
***
They treat him like he’s part of the family. Ilya’s not always sure what to do with that.
Yuna is easier to talk to than David, at first. She is like Shane, both in her obsessive knowledge of hockey and her ways of caring. They show their love in plans and lists, in organization, in including Ilya when they envision the future and taking steps to ensure that he will be there. Ilya understands her easily.
When Ilya moves to Ottawa, Yuna is there every step of the way, offering to help him find a house, giving advice on the best neighborhoods, trying to convince him that he’ll like the city. She chauffeurs him around on a little driving tour of the city, pointing out landmarks through the windows.
“It’s not Montreal, but there’s plenty to do,” she says. “Nightlife, music, art… we could go to the National Gallery. Do you like art?”
“Maybe, I think,” Ilya says slowly. At her curious blink, he explains, “I used to. But I haven’t been to the museum since I was small. My mother used to take me.”
It was called the Pushkin Museum, he knows now, but Ilya still thinks of it as the museum, as if there is only one. When he was a child, there might as well have been. They used to go every few months, he thinks – maybe it was an easy way to get out of the house when she needed a break from his father.
And after a moment of hesitation, Yuna says, “You don’t talk about her much.”
“I don’t remember much.” Ilya shrugs uncomfortably. But as he thinks about it, details come back: “Monet was her favorite,” he says. “Monet, and… what is it called, when they do not worry about details? Is about the emotion you walk away with. Imperfect.”
“Impressionism,” Yuna says, with a strangely gentle look in her eyes.
“Yes. That.”
There was a whole gallery devoted to that era. They used to make up stories about the paintings, about what was going on in their heads. Ilya particularly liked the ballerinas. Mama liked the way those paintings captured the light. The sparkle felt nothing like their claustrophobic house.
He hasn’t thought about that in years.
“Shane was never very interested,” Yuna says. “Always wanted to get back on the ice.”
Ilya suppresses a smile. “Sounds like Shane.”
“Would you like to go?” Yuna offers. “It’s free, we can just wander for a bit. The building itself is worth a visit, it’s beautiful.”
“Not today, maybe,” Ilya says quietly. “Plenty more to see. Another time?”
“Of course,” Yuna says, in her brisk no-nonsense way, and they move on.
***
Ilya can conjure up the lilting sing-song tone his mother used when she called his name, the way it echoed down the hallway, and the way she hummed to herself in the kitchen. He remembers her beaming smile and cheers as she watched his earliest hockey games from the front row. He remembers the sound of her laughter from the formal dining room – always laughter, when there was company present, and always slightly higher and sharper than her private laugh. He remembers her smile, both the real, joyful one and the tremulous one she would put on for his benefit when he caught her crying.
She always cried very quietly. He didn’t understand how, at the time; Ilya was often scolded for crying, back in those days, because his father did not want to be disturbed by his scraped knees or petty moods, and Ilya whined that he couldn’t help it, he didn’t want to be crying, but —
He learned. He thinks she probably must’ve learned too, at some point, long before he came along.
The last time they went to the museum together, he was old enough to be able to wander a bit; he never strayed far, so she trusted him to speed a room or two ahead as long as he circled back to her. This time he found her crying. Just… standing there, utterly still in that fragile way she had, with tears running down her face and a tiny tremor in her mouth. It was a frequent occurrence, by that point, but – never in public, never where someone might see, and that rattled him to the core.
Usually, when he asked if she was alright, she would immediately wipe away the tears and find a smile for him. This time she just pulled him against her side, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, and he stood there with her for a minute, staring at the painting.
He doesn’t remember it now. All he can conjure up is a lot of blue, and… men walking in a circle? Something like that.
***
Ilya wonders, sometimes, if it’s his fault that so many of his memories are fragmented and indistinct like this.
He remembers some things with shocking clarity, so it’s not that he’s incapable of remembering. Maybe he wasn’t paying enough attention. Should’ve been better, should’ve memorized everything about her, should’ve held on tighter. He tries, sometimes, when he’s with Shane – when he realizes that this moment is one he’ll want to keep forever. He tries to memorize the details. Tries to hold on to the way they fill his chest until there’s no room for air.
When he found her, he sat down on the floor with his back to the wall, and he didn’t move for a long time. An hour, at least, but time stretched and blurred that day. It was long enough to memorize the details. Ilya can still remember the texture of the duvet and the sage green of her sleeve; one hand was flung lazily over the edge of the bed, like she was reaching out to him.
He wonders if it’s his fault that she didn’t hold on. If he had made her proud, back then… if he had done anything worth sticking around for… if she had known who he would grow up to be, would she have wanted to stay alive long enough to meet him?
For most of his life, the answer to that question was a very firm no.
But there have also been times he would swear she was right there with him. When he won the Cup, he could all but hear her cheering. Like the flashbulbs were the only reason he couldn’t spot her in the crowd.
***
He looks the painting up on his phone one night, when he can’t sleep – finds a list of paintings that hang in the Pushkin Museum’s Impressionist and Post-Impressionist gallery. He recognizes it immediately when he sees it: Prisoners, by Vincent Van Gogh. Painted not long before he killed himself. It depicts inmates walking in a tight circle within a claustrophobic courtyard, shackled, stone walls stretching up around them as they shuffle endlessly.
Tears turn the image to a blue-green blur on his phone. Ilya wipes them away. He understands, now, why that particular painting would make his mother cry.
***
David couldn’t possibly be more different from Ilya’s own father.
He’s harder to talk to than Yuna at first, partly because he doesn’t seem all that concerned with talking; he will answer any of Ilya’s questions, if Ilya decides to make small talk, but only sometimes returns questions of his own. Ilya is comfortable with silence, but most people aren’t, so at first it makes him nervous.
But David likes to ask for help – cooking dinner, or finishing a puzzle, or changing the oil… the task doesn’t matter so much as the fact that they’re both keeping their hands busy. He comes to recognize it, eventually, as David’s way of offering his support without pressure. The task is an excuse, an opening for Ilya to start a conversation if there’s something on his mind, but if he doesn’t, that’s fine too.
David almost always has a puzzle in progress on the living room table, and this becomes their go-to bonding activity. Sometimes they put a TV show on in the background, usually Doctor Who; David used to watch the original series when he was growing up, apparently, but neither Yuna nor Shane have any interest in watching the re-boot with him. Ilya loves it. It’s a silly show, in the best way. The “bad guys” are silly little extermination robots, and the Doctor always wins. Aliens defeated, crisis averted, every time. Ilya is a sucker for a happy ending.
While Yuna and Shane have a video meeting about a sponsorship deal, they watch an episode about Van Gogh.
“Oh,” Ilya says, vaguely pleased with himself. “I know this guy.”
They decide to go back in time to prevent him from killing himself. At one point, the Doctor goes leafing through piles of paintings in his house. Ilya recognizes one; he can’t help but suck in a sharp breath at the sight of it. But he’s not thinking about it too hard, for most of the episode. He’s not thinking much at all today; it’s a gray sort of day.
The alien is defeated and the crisis is averted, and then they bring Vincent Van Gogh into the future with them, to an exhibition of his work. To show him that he’s admired, revered — show him how loved he is. To show him that he will be remembered as one of the greatest artists in history.
There is so much joy in Vincent’s face. So much hope it overflows.
Ilya, to his dismay, finds himself tearing up.
“Aw, jeez,” David mutters, with a little sniffle, and then he chuckles quietly. Doesn’t sound like he’s laughing at Ilya, it’s a very self-deprecating laugh, but Ilya still can’t bring himself to turn and look at him.
Ilya cries silently, and when David gets up to bring a tissue box to the table, he dries his eyes without making a fuss.
“I would like the extermination robots back now,” he mumbles, which gets a much louder laugh from David.
On the screen, they have returned Vincent to his time with a new lease on life. They go back to the present day, to the museum, looking for new paintings.
But — there’s nothing new.
Van Gogh killed himself anyway.
And Ilya just… bursts into tears. Not the quiet kind, this time – the heaving, gasping, raw-in-your-throat kind. He tries to contain the first sob, but it escapes with a godawful strangled noise; he buries his face in his hands and tries not to choke on the next.
David doesn’t try to shush him, doesn’t tell him to pull himself together, just scoots closer to wrap an arm around his shoulders.
Ilya tries to memorize the way it feels. He’s never had a dad hug him like this; he’s not sure it’ll ever happen again.
***
Ilya got his mother’s sadness.
He also got her wicked sense of humor, though. She liked to needle and tease – especially when he was in a sulk. When someone was taking themselves too seriously, she could almost always break them out of it with a joke.
He got her looks, for the most part: her cheekbones and long sandy-blonde curls.
He doesn’t have her eyes. Not exactly. He doesn’t have his father’s, either – bright and cold and hard, an icy shade of blue... which is good, because he’s not sure he would be able to look in the mirror without feeling small and weak and terrified.
No. Mama had some of the same green-gray-blue as he does, like the ocean in winter, but his are solid. Her eyes had sunflowers in the center: bursts of sparkling gold around each pupil.
It’s a shame, he thinks. He would’ve liked to see those eyes looking back at him in the mirror. He would’ve liked to remind himself of the exact shape of that ring. He worries that he’s losing the details, that they’re slipping through his fingers, and he worries that he’ll lose more memories of her, as he gets older and takes more hits to the head. That he’ll be like his father, with great blank gaps where she used to be.
***
Ilya celebrates his birthday a little late, so that Shane can be there. “The whole family,” as Yuna puts it.
David gives him a puzzle. The image is a painting – the Van Gogh painting of the sunflowers. They start setting it up after dinner, clearing a space, while Shane and Yuna bicker happily about trade news in the kitchen.
“Did you know sunflowers are major crop in Russia?” Ilya says. “Reminds me of something from childhood.”
“Lucky coincidence,” David admits, smiling.
Ilya remembers driving through the fields one summer – but he doesn’t remember why they were that far south, and he can’t seem to remember his father or Alexei in the car; his brain has erased them. Insignificant details. The important part is the memory of his mother’s smile, and rolling fields of gold out every window, all the way to the horizon.
She would be proud of him, he thinks, for making it another year. Maybe even proud of who he’s growing up to be.
Yuna is bringing him a cupcake with a candle in it, telling him to blow it out and make a wish.
He’s surrounded by his family, and Ilya would really love to capture this moment and freeze it for eternity, but he knows some of the details would escape him. Instead he focuses on how loved he feels.
Maybe when he looks back, someday, this birthday will blend into many others. Maybe this sort of happiness will be so routine that the years will blur together into one long smudge of warmth and family – that he won’t need to remember this birthday as a singularity.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.