Archive of Our Own

The house saw the lightness, that first year. Its owner, with a smile on his face. It overheard the words that would come back to haunt them.

I want to be completely honest with you, these two weeks.

It heard many firsts; caught the context in the two months it was inhabited during the summer. It heard gasps and moans, it heard many iterations of the names Ilya, Shane, Hollander, Rozanov.

It remembered, with trembling breath, when David walked in, saw its boys on the deck. It breathed its sigh of relief when they came back, shaken, but smiling, confident. It noticed, how the rest of their time felt easier. How they breathed easier. How much it had freed them that someone, besides the house, knew.

Their conversations became easier too. It was there, the year after, when they came in already tanned, early. It was there when the Pike family and its bunch of little feet, visited for an evening. It fixed lifted footboards as they ran with no abandon.

When Anya entered the house the first time around, it almost felt like she knew. She found the best places to cuddle up, and the house always assured that it was either perfectly warm on a colder evening or perfectly cool on the scorching days.

The dog brought a new level of joy to its boys. They were out more often, but also smiled more often. There was the telling tip tap of the dog’s nails against the wooden floors. There was the squeak of toys, waking up Shane and Ilya in soft summer mornings.

The light felt extra warm that year. The house felt extra loved, that year.

It felt loved, because there were so many guests. There was a wedding in the back garden. There were gentle vows and shed tears. There was wedding cake and drinks. Despite the full house, it made sure that every single member of the Rozanov-Hollander extended family, felt every inch of the love it had for them.

When the guests left, and complimented the mattrasses, it felt pride.

There were troublesome years. There were years that felt dark and heavy. The house did not understand those, not fully. Despite the fact that they were in the space together, they did not feel tethered together. It felt like its boys were drifting in their own orbits. There was the year that no one used the hammock in the back garden, because just the sight of it sent a rush of panic and pain through Ilya.

The house did what it could. It could not do much, it was not a person, but it helped. It delayed the pasta cooking over when Shane stared off into the distance. The alarm turned on when they forgot to turn it on when leaving to walk Anya.

It assured that the sun shone perfectly on Ilya’s face when waking up. It assured that the alarm for his medication rang twice, when Ilya silenced it the second time. Assured to drop the bottle from their medicine cabinet in Shane’s hands, when it notices that Ilya has not taken them two days in a row.

A fight ensued that ended in tears, but the medication was taken and a soft movie put on. They fell asleep together, on the couch. The house did what it could to make the couch as comfortable as possible.

The morning after, the pull between them returned. Gently, softly.

When Ilya is in the kitchen, that same year, the house assures that the food so cleverly hidden, sits suddenly a top the trash, instead of under wrappers and tissues. It keeps sending gentle reminders.

The next year, a secondary medicine pops up in the cabinet. Matching his and his bottles. The house rejoices in it. It was a house; it did not care for the prejudice that the world seemed to have. It was happy that Shane was taking something too. That he seemed fuller, happier. Not so hollow.

The alcohol bottles lessen in amount too. There is still the good vodka in the cupboards, but it is taken in celebration. Every year, its boys sit on the deck with Anya and clink their cups, to another year together.

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The best change happens after the boys find more time to spend away. There are still ice skates in storage, but they are used differently. It is the first year that around Christmas time, there is a beautiful Christmas tree in the living room, an eclectic mix of ornaments hanging from the branches.

It felt like a gift, to the house. New decoration, that sparkled warmly and coated the house in a warm blanket once the lights were off. There was so much laughter that winter, unwrapping of presents.

The house sensed sweet Anya’s aching joints, heated up the spaces she lay just right. It assured that despite the cold, the floors felt nice and toasty. That the mornings were not quite so sharp.

The house watched its favorite boys throw snowballs like children and make a snow family.

It watched them relax.

Maybe that it was why it stung, almost like a wound, when they arrived without its sweet Anya. The house felt the sadness in its boys that summer. It held them tight, and maybe, just maybe, that helped, just a little bit.

The Pike children, grown up, still visited that summer. They played football in the yard and swam in the lake. The house held them afloat, assured that they could spend hours here.

The Pikes’ stay over for the night, and the house ensures that it protects Hayden’s back and cups their heads as gently as possible. It does its best to cover all aches in a salve. It doesn’t quite work, but they all wake up happy.

The kitchen gets sticky from maple syrup pancakes, which Shane eats too. Even if they are not part of the previous diet. But Shane eats them with gusto and happiness. The house practically gleams in joy. Ilya felt heavy, but light at the same time.

The boys spend a lot of time that year on the couch, in each other’s embrace, talking. It seems to help. When they leave, Ilya feels like a lighter presence.

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In preparation for the summer, the house felt like it was being built again. Boxes upon boxes enter it and get built. It was not its boys doing it all, but David and Yuna, grey around the temples. The house did what it could as cribs and dressers were being built, helped the stair gates feel extra secure.

Then finally, its boys, with two beautiful baby girls. Different ages, different lineages, but theirs now. They bore homage to the women who helped create them. The house knew that they did not know it yet, but one day, they would proudly exclaim that they were named after the best women Shane and Ilya knew, Yuna and Irina, by middle name.

The puppy is an extra. The house does not know how the boys keep up with three new additions. The house did its best, keeping the babies safe and the puppy contained and entertained and comfortable.

When baby Anna Irina goes blue during the night and the bed alarm does not wake anyone up, the house makes sure that Shane is woken up by the dripping of the rain outside on his face.

It feels popular that night, with paramedics and a helicopter to take one of its two new babies to the hospital, but she returns soon happy and healthy. It had been a bad cough, a young nervous system forgetting that it needed to breathe.

When the roofing company climbs on the roof and exclaims that there is no reason for the roof to have leaked, they are stumped and the house proud.

They take their first steps that summer, unsteady but certain, each walking to a different father. Its boys are over the moon, tired and exhausted but happy. That year, the medicine cabinet grows, but also starts including bandages in bright colors and cough syrups, vitamins.

The puppy is maybe the houses’ favorite. It bounds without fear through the entire ground floor, steals toys and chews on socks. The laughter that follows as it steals a sock right off of Jane Yuna’s foot, is so warm and gentle, that it feels like a breath of fresh air.

Yuna and David are there like an anchor, and the house quietly thanks them for their presence.

The years steadily pass this way. A keyboard joins one of the children’s rooms. In the other, a barre ends up. A third room gets taken up when Jamie is born. Over time, there’s practice ice and hockey sticks in that room. The noise of a puck being passed around.

Its favorite boys slowly go grey around the edges. One summer, the sadness feels heavy, in the entire Rozanov-Hollander family. David lives with them that year, tears in his eyes. The house hugs him closer, before he too, does not return.

That year is extra heavy. Both its boys are now orphans. While it’s not a new feeling to Ilya, Shane is adrift on the sea of melancholy and sadness. New medicine bottles appear and the alcohol goes behind a lock, accessible only via a key around Ilya’s neck. Food is monitored again, reminders given.

Shane wanders, but the house assures he always wanders right into Ilya’s loving arms.

The house holds the children close as they cry during the night.

Jane Yuna starts wearing a ring on a chain around her neck. Jaime wears a gold band around his. The house knows, in quiet agreement, who they belonged to.

All five fold together that summer. When they leave, for the school year to start again, they feel a little stronger. Weathered, like their souls were eaten up a bit from the salt in their tears.

Soon, new faces appear, again. They are the faces of friends, lovers and ex-lovers. The house welcomes them all but keeps its favorite family safe all the same. When something happens one year, between Anna Irina and her girlfriend, the house assures that Shane is the one to walk into the room, to protect.

Ilya is the one who it sends into Jane Yuna’s room, when the sadness becomes too much and she starts punching her walls for a way out of it. The house feels every strike, but tries to soften it. Her knuckles are bruised, but her heart even more.

When the next year, there’s a teen size bottle of antidepressants on the shelf, the house assures that it does everything it can so they are not forgotten.

Its boys have heavy conversations, some evenings. The house does its best so soften those edges too. It wraps blankets around their aching knees and shoulders. It assures that their hearts remain soft. It mutes things up when they argue in Russian, so the kids can’t understand as well.

The house knows, that one day, it will be just the children. That its boys will not show up forever. It mourns the day, rues the fact that it will stand longer, prouder. But it has a whole new generation to protect.

It does not fancy ignoring this responsibility. If it can, it will stand until the thought of its boys, and all they’ve been through, is no more than questions about what grandpapas did, when they were young. How they changed the way that hockey looks at being queer. When it will be fond memories of a time that was harsh.

The name Irina, the house knows, will always be loved. It sees it, when Ilya and Shane unexpectedly early, welcome their first grandchild into the world.

The house loves them all. It will always love them all.