Chapter Text
Irina spat on the ice and winced at the puddle of red that appeared beside her skate.
‘Bitch,’ she muttered and threw down her gloves.
The girl opposite her grinned behind her cage, egging her on. She was pretending that her stick had slipped, but Irina knew the truth. ‘Bring it.’
Irina did as she was told and whacked her across the face. It took two refs to pull them off of each other.
‘Hollander, penalty box now,’ the one closest to Irina ordered.
She grimaced as she skated towards the sin bin. ‘It’s Hollander-Rozanov.’
‘Whatever. You’re done.’
~
‘She had it coming,’ Irina said to her parents before she was even off of the ice.
Shane frowned disapprovingly. ‘You need to keep your temper under control out there.’
‘Papa never did and he was number one in the draft.’
‘And never lets me forget it.’ Shane rolled his eyes.
Ilya chuckled and reached for his daughter. ‘Let me see, malyshka.’ She tilted her chin and let him probe gently at the skin around her mouth, checking for damage to her jaw and teeth. ‘No lasting damage. No missing teeth so you can still be a model. Just a busted lip.’
‘And the bruised knuckles,’ Shane added disapprovingly. Ilya winked at Irina and lifted her hand to kiss it better.
‘Does it hurt, Ira?’ Lyubov asked with wide eyes.
‘No way, zaynka. I’m too tough.’
‘It wasn’t the ideal moment for a fight,’ Ren said knowledgeably. ‘You should have waited til you were up at least one more point.’
‘She didn’t actually check if the timing worked for me when she hit me with her stick, Ren.’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘Alright,’ Shane cut in. ‘And I’m just saying we should head home now-… Sora, don’t do that, please.’
Sora was halfway over the edge of the rink before Ilya caught him by the waistband of his pants and hoisted him back over. ‘You’re not even wearing skates, sumasshedshiy mal'chik. Use your head.’
Irina laughed at her youngest sibling and let Lyubov take her hand as they walked out of the rink as a family. At seventeen, she would have been excused for feeling embarrassed when her entire family, including her grandparents, parents and siblings, came to her hockey games. But Irina couldn’t help but love when they were all together. She knew their time as a solid family unit was running out. Before the year was up, she would be drafted and moving to a different city. How far away that city would be, she didn’t yet know, and the possibilities filled her equally with dread and excitement.
‘Malyshka, you will have to get showered and changed quickly when we get home,’ Ilya said, still wrangling Sora in his arms. ‘Your appointment was moved up an hour.’
She nodded and readjusted her bag onto her shoulder. ‘Okay, Papa.’
Shane nudged her and asked, under his breath, ‘Been taking your meds on time? Every day?’
‘Yes, Dad.’
‘Okay, just checking.’
Irina pretended to be annoyed whenever her parents fussed over her mental health this way but, truthfully, it made her feel cared for.
She liked that her parents drove her to therapy sessions and waited patiently for her in the car afterwards, even though she had recently got her license. She liked that sometimes, if she’d had a hard session and they could tell she had been crying, they would take her to get ice cream, just her, and let her eat it in comfortable silence. She liked that they asked her if she was managing to take her pills on time, whilst trusting her to keep the medication in her bedroom, rather than doling them out to her as they had done when she first went on her anti-depressants.
All it meant was that she was loved and that they wanted her to feel as happy as possible as much as possible. She was grateful for that, even as she worked at unlearning her impulse toward familial gratitude.
It had been three years since her parents had first put her into therapy, and a lot had changed. Most sessions were spent unpacking the few memories she had from Russia and her feelings of displacement when she had first come to Canada. Often they talked about her fears that she did not belong in her family the same way her siblings did, or that her parents would one day decide they no longer wanted her. This latter feeling had raised its head more and more recently, as she approached her eighteenth birthday, at which point Ilya and Shane’s legal responsibility to her would end.
She knew, logically, that they were not going to give up on her. Not now, not ever. But she also knew that sometimes her brain told her stories that weren’t true, and often they felt horribly real.
Things weren’t all bad, though.
Her friendship with Freya Hunter, although mostly long-distance, was one of the best things in her life. Freya was joy personified. She sparkled, she glowed. It was rare for her to speak a sentence that didn't have at least the glimmer of a laugh attached to it. Seeing the impact Freya had on Irina, her parents had made sure the girls saw each other as much as possible, flying Irina down or Freya up at least one weekend a month. Those visits were the highlight of Irina’s month, every month.
Irina was counting down the days until she next saw her friend. This time would be even better because this time Freya was coming to stay for three whole months. She and Irina had both qualified for the Junior Women’s team in Ottawa and would be coached by her papa in the lead up to the draft. She couldn’t wait, especially because Freya would be staying with her family while she was in Ottawa.
Her siblings had changed too, and not just through growing up.
Ren was more like Shane every day. He was top of every class at school and the best hockey player on his team. He had hockey statistics for the past century memorised. Unlike Shane, Ren was notoriously unflappable.
Lyubov got sweeter with every passing day. She was shy and sensitive and prone to happy tears. She loved openly and indiscriminately, reaching for the comforting hugs of her brothers and sister as much as she did those of her parents when she was upset or hurt.
Sora was just Ilya reborn. Although, Ilya liked to say Sora had only his good qualities. He loved big, like Lyubov, and he was impulsive and loud like Ilya. He said and did long before he had thought things through, which often got him into trouble. But unlike his papa, he didn’t dwell on things or let them keep him down.
The leader of their pack, Irina Hollander-Rozanov was simply growing up. It was hard and messy and most days she wanted to tear her hair out. She was sad and angry and frustrated most of the time. But she was also learning to be happy again. She was taking her medication and going to therapy and talking to her parents more openly than she ever had before. She adored her siblings, even when Ren corrected her on hockey stats, or Lyubov sang the same song from her favourite Disney movie over and over again.
Even on the hardest days, Irina was proud to be a Hollander-Rozanov.
~
Shane groaned and reached for the salad bowl in the centre of the table.
‘Mom, please, enough with that.’
‘I’m just saying, it could set her up for a very strong career-…’
Shane took a steadying breath and spooned salad onto Sora’s plate for him. ‘If she wants a strong career, she can have it when she is eighteen.’
‘Child modelling is incredibly lucrative,’ Yuna said innocently. ‘Think of the college fund.’
Shane’s jaw tightened. ‘Thank you for the concern but we have plenty in all four college funds.’
‘But-…’
‘Please, Yuna,’ Ilya winced. ‘We know you mean well and want the best of Lyuba, but the idea of her becoming a model so young really bothers us.’
‘Alright, alright, I’ll keep my mouth shut about it. Just keep it in mind.’
‘We will, we promise.’
‘Grandma, I’m going to be a figure skater,’ Lyubov told Yuna, as if worried that her grandmother had not been paying enough attention.
‘Of course you are, sweetie. And you’re going to be the very best one there is. We’ll get you plenty of good deals when the time comes-...’
‘Mom, let’s move on.’
Yuna changed directions and beamed at her eldest grandchild instead. ‘Rumours are that Washington, Michigan and Montreal are all eyeing you-…’
‘Not Montreal.’ Ilya cut in. ‘You’re not becoming a Metro.’
‘The girls aren’t Metros, Papa,’ Ren reminded him. ‘They’re the Montreal Millions.’
‘Well, that is silly name so another reason not to be one.’
Irina considered. ‘Washington could be cool.’
Ilya grimaced. ‘Is very far away.’
‘Papa, anywhere I go that’s not Ottawa is going to feel far away.’
Ilya gave a sob and threw his head into his hands, making the dishes on the table jump and the littlest children giggle. ‘I can’t think about it, it’s too distressing!’
‘Don’t be so dramatic!’ Laughed Irina.
‘This cannot be helped, I am Russian.’
Shane put an arm around Ilya’s shoulders and a hand on his chest. He knew that Ilya was being dramatic to keep from revealing how deeply the idea of any of their children leaving home hurt him.
‘Wherever you go,’ Shane said. ‘We will support you, sweetie.’
‘Yes.’ Ilya nodded. ‘Unless you go to Montreal. In that case we would cut you off forever.’
‘Not funny.’
‘Little funny. Irochka, admit, you found that funny.’
‘I will never admit that either of you is funny.’
‘See how she wounds us, Shane? She is pulling away already!’