Chapter Text
The cold bites at Ilya’s cheeks as he pushes through the heavy door of his family’s apartment building, his hockey bag slung over one shoulder, stick in hand. His legs ache — Coach Petrosov made them do extra conditioning drills today — but it’s the good kind of ache. The kind that means he’s getting stronger, faster. Better.
He’s twelve now, almost thirteen, and he can feel himself changing. Growing into the player he’s supposed to become. His mother says he’s going to be great someday. She says it with such certainty that Ilya believes her completely.
The stairwell smells like cabbage and old cigarettes. Mrs. Kuznetsova on the third floor is cooking again. Ilya takes the stairs two at a time despite his tired legs, because Mama will have dinner ready soon, and he’s starving. She always has dinner ready when he gets home from practice. Always.
He fumbles with his keys at the door, finally getting it open. “Mama! I’m home!”
Silence.
Ilya frowns, stepping inside and letting his hockey bag drop to the floor with a dull thud. “Mama?”
The apartment is dark. Not completely dark — there’s still some grey winter light filtering through the windows — but darker than it should be. Mama always turns on the lights before it gets dark. She doesn’t like sitting in the shadows.
“Mama?” His voice sounds smaller now, swallowed up by the quiet.
The kitchen is empty. No pot on the stove, no smell of cooking. The table is bare except for a single teacup, half-full and abandoned.
Something cold crawls up Ilya’s spine. Something that has nothing to do with the Moscow winter.
“Mama, are you here?”
He walks through the apartment, his footsteps too loud in the silence. The living room is empty. The bathroom door stands open, dark inside.
That leaves the bedroom. His parents’ bedroom.
Ilya’s hand trembles slightly as he reaches for the door handle. He doesn’t know why he’s scared. It’s stupid. Mama is probably just tired. She gets tired sometimes. She’ll be resting, and she’ll smile when she sees him, and everything will be fine.
He pushes the door open.
“Mama?”
She’s on the bed. Lying on top of the covers, still fully dressed in the blue sweater he saw her wearing this morning. Her blonde hair is spread across the pillow, and her hands are folded on her stomach, peaceful-like. She looks like she’s sleeping.
“Mama, I’m home,” Ilya says, quieter now. He doesn’t want to wake her if she’s resting, but also he does want to wake her, because the apartment is so quiet and dark and wrong.
She doesn’t move.
Ilya takes a step closer. Then another. “Mama?”
Her face is pale. Paler than usual. There’s something waxy about her skin, something that makes Ilya’s stomach twist.
On the nightstand, he sees it: an empty pill bottle. Lying on its side, the cap off.
“Mama.” His voice cracks. He rushes to the bed, grabbing her shoulder. “Mama, wake up.”
She’s cold. Even through the sweater, she’s cold.
“Mama!” He shakes her harder, and her head lolls to the side, and that’s when Ilya knows. Knows with absolute certainty what he’s been trying not to know since he walked into the apartment.
“No. No, no, no. Mama, please.” His hands are shaking as he touches her face, her neck, trying to find a pulse like they taught in school. His fingers slip and fumble. He can’t feel anything. He can’t feel anything because there’s nothing to feel.
“Mama, please wake up. Please.”
Her skin is so cold.
Ilya stumbles backward, his hip hitting the nightstand. The pill bottle rolls onto the floor. He stares at it, then at his mother’s still form, then at the bottle again.
She took the pills. She took all the pills. She-
“No,” Ilya whispers. “No, you didn’t. You wouldn’t.”
But she did. She did, and Ilya knows why, knows without being told. He’s seen the way Papa talks to her. The way he makes her feel small. The way she flinches sometimes when Papa comes home in a bad mood. He’s seen her crying in the kitchen when she thinks no one is watching. He’s seen the sadness that lives in her eyes, even when she smiles.
He should have known. He should have done something.
“Mama, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please.”
His hands find the phone on the nightstand. He can barely see the numbers through his tears, can barely make his shaking fingers work. He dials 112. The emergency number. The number Mama taught him when he was little, just in case.
It rings twice. Three times.
“Emergency services.” The voice on the other end is bored, detached.
“My—my mother. She won’t wake up. She’s-” Ilya can’t finish. Can’t say it.
“What is your address?”
Ilya gives it mechanically, the words coming from somewhere outside himself.
“What is the emergency?”
“She took pills. There’s—there’s a bottle. Empty. She won’t wake up.”
“Is she breathing?”
Ilya looks at his mother’s chest. Watches for movement. Sees nothing. “I-I don’t think so.”
“We’re sending an ambulance. Stay on the line.”
But Ilya drops the phone. It clatters against the nightstand and falls to the floor. He doesn’t care. He climbs onto the bed next to his mother, careful not to jostle her, and takes her hand in both of his.
It’s so cold.
“Mama, they’re coming. They’re going to help you. They’re going to fix this.” His tears fall on their joined hands. “You’re going to be okay. You have to be okay.”
She doesn’t answer. Her face is peaceful, almost serene, and Ilya hates it. Hates that she looks calm when he’s breaking apart.
“Why did you do this?” he whispers. “Why did you leave me?”
He thinks about this morning. She’d made him breakfast — kasha with butter and a little sugar, the way he likes it. She’d kissed his forehead before he left for school. She’d told him to have a good day.
She’d been saying goodbye.
“I would have helped you,” Ilya chokes out. “I would have—we could have left. We could have gone somewhere. Just us. I don’t care about Papa or this apartment or anything. I just wanted you.”
The minutes stretch out, endless and terrible. Ilya holds his mother’s hand and talks to her, tells her about practice, about how he scored twice in the scrimmage, about how Coach Petrosov said he has real potential. He talks and talks because if he stops talking, he’ll have to face the silence. The finality.
When he hears the sirens outside, he can’t make himself let go of her hand.
The paramedics come crashing in. Two of them, a man and a woman, both wearing navy blue uniforms. They have a stretcher and bags full of equipment.
“Son, you need to step back,” the woman says, not unkindly.
“No.” Ilya’s grip on his mother’s hand tightens. “No, she needs me.”
“We need to examine her. Please.”
The man — older, with grey at his temples — gently pries Ilya’s fingers loose. “Let us help her, boy.”
Ilya stumbles off the bed, his legs nearly giving out. He backs into the corner of the room, making himself small, watching as the paramedics work. They check for a pulse, for breathing. They shine a light in Mama’s eyes. They use words Ilya doesn’t fully understand, medical terms that sound cold and clinical.
“How long has she been like this?” the woman asks.
“I don’t—I just got home. From hockey practice. She was-” Ilya’s voice breaks. “She was like this when I found her.”
The man picks up the pill bottle from the floor, reads the label. Exchanges a look with his partner.
“What time did you find her?”
Ilya looks at the clock. 5:07 PM. “Maybe twenty minutes ago?”
The woman’s face softens with something that might be pity. “I’m sorry.”
“What? No. No, you can—you have to help her. That’s your job. You help people.”
“Son-”
“Don’t call me son! Help my mother!”
The man moves toward him, hands up in a placating gesture. “There’s nothing we can do. She’s been gone for hours. I’m sorry.”
“No.” Ilya shakes his head violently. “No, she’s just sleeping. She’s just—wake her up. Try harder. There are things-” He’s seen it on television, people pounding on chests, breathing into mouths. “Do the thing. With the heart. Do it!”
“It won’t help. I’m very sorry.”
Ilya’s legs finally give out. He slides down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor, his arms wrapped around his knees. “Please,” he whispers. “Please try.”
They don’t try. Because there’s nothing to try. Because his mother is gone, and she’s been gone for hours, and Ilya was at hockey practice learning how to take a better slap shot while she was dying alone in this room.
The female paramedic crouches next to him. “Is there someone we can call? Your father?”
“He’s at work.”
“Do you have the number?”
Ilya recites it numbly. She steps out of the room to make the call, and Ilya is left with the male paramedic and his mother’s body. They’re covering her with a sheet now, and that’s wrong, that’s so wrong because she’ll be cold and-
She’s already cold.
“Don’t,” Ilya says, his voice sharp. “Don’t cover her face.”
The paramedic hesitates, then nods. He pulls the sheet back down to her shoulders.
Ilya doesn’t know how much time passes. Could be minutes. Could be hours. He sits in the corner, staring at his mother’s pale face, and tries to remember how to breathe.
When his father arrives, Ilya barely registers it. There are voices in the hallway — his father’s deep bark, the female paramedic’s calm explanations. Then Grigori Rozanov is in the doorway, still in his military uniform, his face carved from stone.
He looks at the bed. At his wife. At the paramedics.
“Everyone out,” he says. “Except you. You stay.” He points at the male paramedic.
“Papa-” Ilya starts.
“Not you, Ilya. Wait in your room.”
“But-”
“Now.”
Ilya doesn’t move. Can’t move. His father’s voice gets harder, sharper. “Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov. Your room. Now.”
The use of his full name, the military tone — Ilya’s body responds before his brain can catch up. He pushes himself up from the floor on shaking legs and moves toward the door. As he passes his father, Grigori grabs his arm.
“Control yourself,” his father hisses. “This crying. Stop it.”
Ilya wrenches his arm free and stumbles into the hallway. He can hear his father talking to the paramedics in low tones. He catches words: “accident,” “pills for headaches,” “terrible tragedy,” “my son found her.”
Accident. Papa is calling it an accident.
Ilya stands in the hallway, his back against the wall, and something hardens in his chest. It wasn’t an accident. Mama didn’t take too many pills by mistake. She took them all. On purpose. Because she was sad, so sad, and no one helped her. Papa made her sad. Papa made her feel small and worthless and alone.
And now Papa wants to pretend it was an accident.
“No,” Ilya whispers to the empty hallway. “No, I won’t.”
He goes back to the bedroom doorway. His father is signing papers. The female paramedic is preparing the stretcher.
“It wasn’t an accident,” Ilya says.
Everyone stops. Turns to look at him.
Grigori’s face darkens. “Ilya. I told you-”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Ilya repeats, louder now. “She did it on purpose. She was sad and you made her sad and she killed herself.”
His father’s hand moves so fast Ilya barely sees it coming. The slap catches him across the face, snapping his head to the side. His cheek explodes with pain.
“You will not speak such lies,” Grigori says, his voice deadly quiet. “Your mother made a mistake. That is all. Do you understand?”
Ilya’s cheek is on fire. Tears spring to his eyes, but he doesn’t know if they’re from the pain or from everything else. He looks past his father to where his mother lies on the bed, sheet drawn up to her shoulders, face peaceful.
“Tell them,” Grigori demands. “Tell them it was an accident.”
The paramedics are watching. The male one looks uncomfortable. The female one looks angry, but not at Ilya. At his father.
“Tell them, Ilya.”
Ilya’s jaw clenches. He wants to refuse. Wants to tell the truth, scream it until everyone hears.
But his mother is gone. The truth won’t bring her back. And if he defies his father now, here, Papa will make things worse. Papa always makes things worse.
“It was an accident,” Ilya whispers.
“Louder.”
“It was an accident.” His voice is dead, hollow.
Grigori nods. “Good. Now go to your room. I’ll call you when it’s time.”
Time for what, Ilya doesn’t ask. He doesn’t want to know. Doesn’t want to think about what comes next — ambulances and morgues and funerals and a world without his mother in it.
He turns to go, but then he stops. Turns back.
“I need-” His voice cracks. “Can I say goodbye?”
His father’s expression doesn’t soften, but he steps aside. “One minute.”
Ilya moves to the bed on trembling legs. Up close, he can see the fine lines around his mother’s eyes, the ones that appeared over the last year. The ones that came from worry and sadness. Her lips are slightly parted, like she’s about to speak.
“Mama,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I’m sorry I didn’t know how bad it was.”
His hand finds hers under the sheet. Still so cold.
“I love you,” he says. “I love you so much. I’ll—I’ll be good. I’ll be the player you wanted me to be. I’ll make you proud.”
The words feel insufficient. How do you say goodbye to the person who was your whole world? How do you fit a lifetime of love into sixty seconds?
His eyes fall on the gold cross necklace his mother always wears. She got it from her own mother, she told Ilya once. Brought it all the way from her village when she married Papa and moved to Moscow. She never takes it off.
Never took it off.
Ilya’s hands shake as he reaches for the clasp. It takes three tries to get it undone, his fingers clumsy and numb. When it comes free, the chain is still warm from his mother’s skin. That small warmth in all this cold.
He fastens it around his own neck. The cross settles against his chest, just over his heart.
“I’ll keep it safe,” he promises. “I’ll keep it forever.”
He leans down, pressing his lips to her forehead. Her skin is cold and waxy under his mouth, not like skin at all anymore, and that makes something break inside him all over again.
“I love you, Mama. I love you. I love you.”
“Time’s up,” his father says.
“Please,” Ilya begs. “Just one more-”
“Now, Ilya.”
Ilya straightens. Looks at his mother’s face one last time, trying to memorize every detail. The curve of her cheek. The arch of her eyebrows. The way her hair falls across the pillow.
Then the female paramedic is gently steering him away, and they’re pulling the sheet up over Mama’s face after all, and Ilya wants to scream but he doesn’t. He just stands there, his hand clutching the cross around his neck, and watches them prepare to take his mother away forever.
“Come on, sweetheart,” the female paramedic says softly. “Let’s get you out of here.”
“Don’t call him that,” Grigori snaps. “He’s not a child.”
“He’s twelve,” the woman says, and there’s steel in her voice now.
“He’s a Rozanov. He can handle it.”
Can he? Ilya doesn’t feel like he can handle anything. He feels like he’s made of glass, like one more word, one more blow, and he’ll shatter into a thousand pieces.
The paramedics lift the stretcher. His mother’s body — not Mama anymore, just a body — shifts slightly under the sheets. They wheel her toward the door, and Ilya’s feet move of their own accord, following.
“Ilya,” his father says. Warning in his voice.
But Ilya doesn’t stop. He trails after the stretcher down the hallway, down the stairs. The female paramedic keeps looking back at him, her expression sad and concerned, but she doesn’t tell him to stop.
Outside, the ambulance is waiting, its lights dark. No sirens. No rush. Because there’s no emergency anymore. Because it’s too late.
They load the stretcher into the back of the ambulance. Ilya stands on the sidewalk, the cold biting through his practice jersey, and watches.
“Wait,” he says. “Please wait.”
The female paramedic turns. “What is it, honey?”
“Where are you taking her?”
“To the hospital. The morgue.”
The morgue. Such an ugly word. A place for dead things.
“Can I-” Ilya’s voice breaks. “Can I come?”
“Oh, sweetheart.” The woman’s eyes are shiny now, like she might cry too. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Please. I don’t want her to be alone.”
“She won’t be alone. We’ll take good care of her.”
“But I-”
“Ilya!” His father’s voice echoes down from the apartment building. “Get back up here!”
Ilya looks up. Grigori is standing in the window, silhouetted against the light, looking down at him like a judge passing sentence.
“You should go,” the male paramedic says, not unkindly. “Your father’s waiting.”
“I don’t care.”
“Ilya.” The female paramedic crouches down so she’s at eye level with him. “Listen to me. I know this is hard. I know you’re hurting. But right now, you need to go back upstairs. You need to let us do our job. Can you do that?”
“I don’t want to.”
“I know. But you have to.”
She reaches out, squeezes his shoulder gently. Then she climbs into the back of the ambulance, and the doors close, and Ilya is left standing on the cold sidewalk as the ambulance pulls away.
No sirens. No lights. Just gone.
Ilya stands there until he can’t see the ambulance anymore. Until it’s turned the corner and disappeared into the Moscow night. His hand is still clutching the cross around his neck.
“Ilya Grigoryevich!” His father’s voice again. Angrier now.
Slowly, like a prisoner walking to his execution, Ilya turns and goes back inside.
The apartment feels different now. Emptier. Wrong. Like something essential has been carved out of it, leaving only a shell.
His father is in the living room, pouring himself a drink from the bottle of vodka he keeps in the cabinet. His hands are steady. His face is blank.
“Sit,” Grigori says, not looking at him.
Ilya sits on the edge of the sofa, his back straight, his hands clasped in his lap. The way Papa likes. Proper. Controlled.
Grigori takes a long swallow of vodka, then another. When he finally turns to face Ilya, his eyes are hard.
“What happened today,” he says, “was a tragedy. Your mother took too many pills by accident. That is what happened. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Papa.”
“When people ask — and they will ask — that is what you will tell them. An accident. Nothing more.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Your mother was not well,” Grigori continues, his voice clipped and precise, like he’s delivering a military briefing. “She had headaches. Bad ones. The pills were for the headaches. She must have lost track of how many she’d taken.”
Every word is a lie. Ilya knows it. His father knows it. But the truth — that Mama was so desperately unhappy that she chose death over another day in this apartment with this man — is too shameful for Grigori Rozanov to admit.
“Do you understand?” His father repeats.
“Yes, Papa.”
“This family has a reputation. I have a reputation. We will not have it tarnished by rumors and gossip. Your mother’s death was an accident. Period.”
Ilya nods. He doesn’t trust his voice anymore.
Grigori drains his glass and pours another. “There will be a funeral. You will attend. You will not cry. You will not make a scene. You will stand beside me and accept condolences with dignity. Like a man.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Crying is weakness. Emotion is weakness. Your mother was weak. You will not be.”
Something hot and sharp flares in Ilya’s chest at that. His mother wasn’t weak. She was sad. She was hurt. She needed help and no one gave it to her.
But he doesn’t say any of this. He just nods and stares at his hands.
“Good.” Grigori downs half his second glass. “You have school tomorrow. Go to your room. Study. Then sleep. Life goes on.”
Life goes on. As if his mother didn’t just die. As if the world didn’t just end.
Ilya stands on shaking legs. “Yes, Papa.”
He makes it to his room before the sobs come. He closes the door as quietly as he can — Papa doesn’t like noise — and then he’s on his bed, face buried in his pillow, trying to cry quietly enough that his father won’t hear.
The cross around his neck digs into his chest. He pulls it out, looks at it through his tears. The gold gleams in the lamplight. It’s the only warm thing left in this cold, terrible world.
“Mama,” he whispers into his pillow. “Mama, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He cries until he has nothing left. Until his eyes are swollen and his throat is raw and his chest aches. He cries until he’s empty.
Then he lies there in the dark, the cross clutched in his fist, and tries to figure out how to survive in a world without his mother in it.
The days that follow are a blur. Ilya goes through the motions like a puppet on strings. He wakes up. He goes to school. He sits through lessons without hearing a word. He comes home. He does his homework. He eats the meals his father buys from the restaurant down the street because neither of them can cook. He goes to hockey practice because his father insists. He goes to bed.
He doesn’t cry. Not where Papa can see.
His teammates at hockey know something is wrong. They whisper when they think he can’t hear. They’re awkward around him, not knowing what to say. Even Coach Petrosov, who usually runs practice like a drill sergeant, goes easier on Ilya. Gives him concerned looks.
“You need to talk?” Coach asks one day after practice, awkward but sincere.
“No,” Ilya says. “I’m fine.”
He’s not fine. He’s drowning. But talking won’t help. Nothing will help.
The funeral is on a grey Thursday. It’s small — just family and a few of Mama’s friends from her old neighborhood. Ilya’s father invites some of his military colleagues, men in uniform who shake Grigori’s hand and say stern things about “tragic accidents” and “terrible losses.”
Ilya stands beside his father at the graveside, his hands clasped behind his back, his face a mask. He doesn’t cry. Papa is watching. Papa is always watching.
The priest says words in Russian and in Church Slavonic, old words that sound important but mean nothing to Ilya. He talks about God’s plan and eternal rest and resurrection. Ilya doesn’t believe any of it. If God had a plan, it was a cruel one. If Mama is at rest now, it’s only because living hurt too much.
They lower the casket into the ground. Ilya watches the wood disappear into the earth and thinks about his mother inside, cold and alone in the dark. He wants to scream. Wants to throw himself on top of the casket and refuse to let them bury her.
He doesn’t. He stands perfectly still, his face blank, and lets them bury his mother.
After, people come up to him and say things. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” “She was a lovely woman.” “If you need anything, please let us know.”
Ilya thanks them politely. Like Papa taught him. Like a good boy. Like a Rozanov.
One of his mother’s friends — Lyuba, an older woman with kind eyes — takes his hand and squeezes it. “Your mama loved you very much,” she says softly. “She talked about you all the time. How proud she was.”
Ilya’s throat closes up. He can only nod.
“If you ever need to talk,” Lyuba continues, “about anything, you can come to me. I know your father is … busy. But you don’t have to be alone.”
“Thank you,” Ilya manages.
“I’m serious. Don’t be a stranger.” She presses a piece of paper into his hand. Her phone number and address, written in loopy handwriting.
Ilya clutches it like a lifeline.
Life goes on, like his father said it would. The world keeps spinning. People keep living. Ilya keeps breathing, even though sometimes he’s not sure why.
He buries himself in hockey. It’s the only thing that makes sense anymore. On the ice, he doesn’t have to think. He just has to move, to react, to play. The cold air, the scrape of skates, the crack of stick against puck — it’s the only time Ilya feels anything close to normal.
He gets better. Faster, stronger, more skilled. Coach Petrosov notices.
“You play angry,” the coach observes one day. “Is good for hockey. But be careful. Anger can hurt you too.”
Ilya doesn’t tell him that anger is all he has left. Anger and the cross around his neck that he never takes off. Not even to shower. Not even to sleep.
At home, his father is distant. They coexist in the apartment like strangers. Grigori works long hours and comes home late. When he is home, he drinks and reads military reports and barely speaks to Ilya. Sometimes, late at night, Ilya hears his father pacing in the living room, the floorboards creaking under his weight. But they never talk about Mama. Never say her name. It’s like she’s been erased.
Ilya keeps his mother’s memory in secret, hidden places. He has a photo of her tucked inside his textbook. He has the cross around his neck. He has the memories in his head that he replays at night when he can’t sleep — her smile, her laugh, the way she used to ruffle his hair and call him her little champion.
He talks to her sometimes, when he’s alone. Tells her about his day, about hockey, about the goals he scored. He pretends she can hear him. It helps, a little.
Three weeks after the funeral, his father comes home with news.
“There’s a scout coming to watch your practice next week,” Grigori announces over dinner — takeout again, some kind of meat and potatoes that tastes like cardboard. “From one of the development programs. This is your chance to prove yourself.”
Ilya looks up from his mostly uneaten food. “Okay.”
“This is important, Ilya. Very important. You need to play your best.”
“I always play my best.”
“Better than your best.” His father’s eyes are hard. “You understand? This is your future. Your mother-” He stops abruptly, his jaw clenching. For a moment, something crosses his face — pain, maybe, or regret — but it’s gone so fast Ilya thinks he might have imagined it.
“Your mother would want you to succeed,” Grigori finishes, his voice rough.
It’s the first time he’s mentioned Mama since the funeral. Ilya’s chest tightens.
“I know,” he says quietly.
“Then don’t disappoint her.”
Don’t disappoint a dead woman. The cruelty of it — the impossibility — makes Ilya want to laugh or cry or throw his plate across the room. Instead, he just nods.
“I won’t, Papa.”
The scout comes the following Tuesday. Ilya doesn’t know which man he is — there are always parents and officials in the stands — so he just plays. He plays like his life depends on it. Like his mother is watching from somewhere and he needs to make her proud.
He scores four goals. Sets up two more. Throws hits. Wins face-offs. Skates faster than he’s ever skated in his life.
When practice ends, Coach Petrosov calls him over. There’s a man with him, middle-aged, wearing an expensive coat and an evaluating expression.
“Ilya, this is Ruslan Galkin,” the coach says. “He’s from the Red Army development system.”
The scout extends a hand. Ilya shakes it, trying to keep his grip firm the way Papa taught him.
“You played well today,” Galkin says. “Very well. Coach Petrosov tells me you’ve been working hard.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How old are you?”
“Twelve. Almost thirteen.”
“And you want to play professional hockey?”
Does he? Ilya doesn’t know anymore. He used to dream about it, about playing in the big leagues, about making his mother proud. Now he just dreams about not feeling empty all the time.
But he says, “Yes, sir.”
“Good. We’ll be in touch.” Galkin nods to Coach Petrosov and walks away.
Ilya stares after him, feeling numb.
“This is good,” Coach Petrosov says, clapping him on the shoulder. “Very good. You have talent, Ilya. Real talent.”
“Thank you, Coach.”
“But talent is not enough. You need-” He taps his chest. “Heart. You need to want it.”
Ilya touches the cross under his jersey. “I want it.”
He’s not sure if he’s lying.
That night, Ilya lies in bed and stares at the ceiling. The apartment is quiet except for the distant sound of traffic and the occasional creak of the building settling. His father is in the living room, drinking as usual.
Ilya pulls out the photo of his mother from under his pillow. In it, she’s smiling, really smiling, the way she used to before the sadness took over. She looks young and happy and alive.
“I played good today, Mama,” he whispers. “There was a scout. Papa says it’s important.”
She doesn’t answer. Of course she doesn’t. She’s gone.
“I miss you,” Ilya continues, his voice cracking. “I miss you so much. I don’t know how to do this without you. I don’t know how to-” He stops, swallowing hard. “Papa says I need to be strong. That crying is weak. That you were weak.”
His hand tightens on the photo, crinkling the edges.
“But you weren’t weak,” he says fiercely. “You were sad. And I-I should have helped you. I should have known.”
The guilt is a constant weight in his chest. If he’d been paying attention, if he’d noticed how bad things were, maybe he could have done something. Maybe he could have saved her.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry, Mama.”
He presses the photo to his chest, right over his heart, right over the cross. And he lies there in the dark, a twelve-year-old boy trying to carry a grief too big for his small shoulders, and wishes for a world where his mother is still alive and his home is still a home and he still knows how to smile without it hurting.
Outside his window, Moscow sleeps. Inside his room, Ilya doesn’t.
The weeks turn into months. Winter gives way to a grey, slushy spring. Ilya turns thirteen. His father doesn’t celebrate — birthdays are frivolous, Papa says — but Coach Petrosov gives him a new stick, and his teammates chip in for a chocolate cake that they eat in the locker room after practice.
“Make a wish,” one of them says as Ilya stares at the candles.
Ilya closes his eyes. I wish Mama was here. He blows out the candles.
The wish doesn’t come true. It never will.
Ruslan Galkin returns in April with papers for Ilya’s father to sign. Ilya is being accepted into the Red Army development program. He’ll train with them, travel with them, potentially move up to the junior teams when he’s old enough.
“This is a great honor,” Galkin tells Grigori. “Your son has exceptional talent.”
Ilya stands off to the side, hands behind his back, and says nothing. It doesn’t feel like an honor. It feels like another current pulling him along, another thing he has no control over.
After Galkin leaves, his father actually smiles. It’s a rare thing, that smile. Sharp and cold like a blade.
“You see?” Grigori says. “This is what comes from discipline. From controlling emotion. Your mother-” He stops again, shakes his head. “No matter. You’re doing well. Keep it up.”
It’s the closest thing to praise Ilya’s gotten from his father in months. Maybe years. He should feel proud. Instead, he feels hollow.
“Thank you, Papa.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank yourself. You earned this.”
Did he? Ilya doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything anymore except how to skate and how to shoot and how to pretend he’s okay when he’s really not.
That night, Ilya dreams of his mother. She’s in the kitchen, making kasha, humming to herself. The apartment is warm and bright. She turns when she hears him, and her face lights up.
“Ilya! There you are. I made your favorite.”
He wants to run to her, to throw his arms around her, but his feet won’t move.
“Mama,” he says. “Mama, you left.”
Her smile falters. “I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”
“Why did you go? Why did you leave me?”
“I was tired, Ilya. So tired.”
“But I needed you.”
“I know.” Her eyes are sad now, infinitely sad. “I know you did. I’m sorry.”
“Please come back.”
“I can’t, my love. You know I can’t.”
“Please.”
She crosses the kitchen and reaches for him, but just before she touches him, she starts to fade. Growing transparent, insubstantial, like smoke.
“No!” Ilya lunges forward, trying to grab her, but there’s nothing there. Just air. “Mama, don’t go!”
“Be strong,” her voice echoes as she disappears. “Be brave. Make me proud.”
“Mama!”
Ilya wakes up gasping, his face wet with tears. The apartment is dark and cold and empty. His mother is still dead. The world is still broken.
He touches the cross around his neck and cries silently into his pillow until dawn.
The Red Army program is brutal. The coaches are demanding, the practices are grueling, and the other boys are competitive and sometimes cruel. Ilya holds his own. He’s good — better than good — and he knows it. But he takes no joy in it.
He plays hockey because it’s what he’s supposed to do. Because his father expects it. Because his mother wanted him to be great.
He plays hockey because on the ice, he can forget. For sixty minutes, he can be someone else. Someone who isn’t broken. Someone who isn’t haunted by the image of his mother’s pale, still face.
The other boys don’t understand him. They think he’s cold, unfriendly. They’re not completely wrong. Ilya keeps to himself. Doesn’t make friends. Doesn’t let anyone get close.
Only Lyuba sees through the mask. Ilya visits her sometimes, when his father is away on military business. She makes him tea and cookies and lets him talk about his mother.
“She was so proud of you,” Lyuba tells him during one visit, her living room warm and cluttered and comforting in its chaos. “She used to tell me, ‘My Ilya is going to be a star. Just wait and see.’”
Ilya’s throat tightens. “Did she-” He stops, unsure how to ask. “Did she ever say why she was sad?”
Lyuba’s expression grows pained. “Your mama carried a lot of weight, Ilya. More than anyone should have to carry.”
“Because of Papa.”
“Because of many things. But yes, your father didn’t make it easy for her.”
“Why did she stay? If she was so unhappy, why didn’t she leave?”
“It’s complicated when you’re married. When you have a child. When you’ve built a life, even a hard one.” Lyuba reaches over and squeezes his hand. “Your mama loved you more than anything. Please don’t ever doubt that.”
“Then why did she leave?”
It’s the question that haunts him. The one he can’t answer. If she loved him so much, how could she choose to go?
“Sometimes,” Lyuba says softly, “the pain becomes so big that it drowns out everything else. Even love. It doesn’t mean the love wasn’t real. It just means the pain was bigger.”
Ilya doesn’t understand. He can’t. Maybe someday he will. For now, he just nods and drinks his tea and tries to memorize the feeling of being in a place where his mother is remembered with kindness instead of shame.
Summer comes. He’s taller now, stronger. His game has improved even more. Scouts from other programs are starting to take notice.
His father is pleased. “You’re making a name for yourself,” Grigori says one evening. “People are talking about Ilya Rozanov. That’s good. That’s what we want.”
What Ilya wants doesn’t factor into the equation. It never has.
“Yes, Papa.”
“I’ve been thinking,” his father continues, pouring himself his usual vodka. “In a few years, you might have opportunities abroad. Leagues in other countries. Maybe even North America.”
North America. The NHL. Every hockey player’s dream.
“Would you want that?” Ilya asks, curious despite himself. “For me to go to America?”
His father’s expression hardens. “I want you to succeed. Wherever that takes you.”
It’s not an answer, not really. But it’s all Ilya’s going to get.
Late that night, Ilya sits on his bed with his mother’s photo and the cross around his neck and tries to imagine a future. Any future.
He can’t see it. Can’t picture himself as an adult, as a professional hockey player, as anything other than this — a broken boy trying to survive day by day.
“Help me, Mama,” he whispers. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to be what everyone wants me to be.”
The silence is his only answer.
Ilya lies back on his bed, staring at the ceiling, and tries to remember what it felt like to be happy. To have a mother who hugged him and told him stories and made him feel safe.
He can’t remember. It’s been too long. The memories are fading, slipping away like water through his fingers.
“I won’t forget you,” he promises the darkness. “I’ll never forget you.”
He won’t. He can’t. Because remembering his mother — the pain of it, the grief of it — is the only thing keeping her alive.
And if he lets that go, if he stops hurting, then she’s really gone.
So Ilya holds onto the pain. Lets it live inside him like a second heartbeat. And he plays hockey and follows orders and becomes the player everyone wants him to be.
But late at night, when he’s alone, he’s still just a twelve-year-old boy who found his mother dead and never got to say goodbye properly.
He’s still the boy who wears her cross and whispers to her in the dark and wishes, desperately, that he could turn back time.
He’s still broken.
And he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be whole again.