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Sonya is not a morning child. She does not like bright skies bejeweled with the sun; she prefers constellations moving sneakily in the dark of night and intelligent animals confessing their secrets to her in her dreams. But grandpa says life is give-and-take: in exchange for shedding off her abstract imaginations for school and rigid rules, she is woken up everyday by papulya.
Papa’s voice brings her back home: “Sonechka, my little gold,” he says, “It’s time to wake up.” Moyo zolotko, thinks Sonya, suddenly aware, that is me.
She carefully tastes her unsavoury palate and asks, “Five more minutes?”
“Okay,” papa agrees. Sonya burrows her cheek deeper into the warm pillow; it smells of worn cotton and their fabric softener. Her thoughts slip from her mind like syrup once more. She hears papa say, “You’re allowed to be late to class for once.”
Sonya groans, her dreams scattering away completely like startled critters. She curls her hands into fists, “No, I can't.”
Papa's ticklish fingers find her bare foot hanging outside the blanket. She kicks at him with a loud yelp.
“It's okay, Sonechka, you deserve it.”
“You know I can't be late! I'm the class representative and cannot set a bad example!” Sonya sits up abruptly and looks at papa in anger. He’s a familiar shape of light and shadow in her dim room. And he is, of course, smiling like a big cat. “Papa,” she warns him.
“Ah, I see,” he says, switching his tone and adopting gravity. He brushes back her bangs firmly, “Then we better get you to school as quickly as possible, yes? If Miss Sofiya is tardy, everyone will try to copy.”
“It's not funny, papa. I'm serious.”
“No, it is not funny.” He kisses her cheek with a loud smack, “The pancakes will be hot and ready for eating in twenty minutes.” Papa looks at the bedside analogue clock; it's 7:02 a.m. “Remind me how much that is?”
“7:22 a.m.”
“Excellent. Let’s make that 7:25.” Papa kisses the top of her head and murmurs, “See you again downstairs, my little sun.”
Moyo Solnysko, Sonya echoes as she watches the reflection of her close cropped curls glow like dim fire in the sunlit bathroom, that's me, too.
Papa’s flat pancakes—blini—are topped with honey and raspberries. He sits across from her with a cup of coffee, whose thick, familiar aroma she can smell. Sonya studiously cuts into her portion and begins eating.
“Mm, papka, it’s so yummy.”
He smiles softly at her. She swings her legs under the table a few times. The autumn sun is lazy in its ascent, and Sonya looks from the window back at papa.
“But you know what would make it yummier?”
Papa levels her with a knowing gaze over the rim of his mug. Eventually though, he bites her conspicuous bait and asks, “What?”
“A sip of your coffee.”
“Ah, you want Shane to murder me?” he asks rather dramatically.
“Please papulya, I have an exam today, and Ruby said she drinks coffee to focus before class.”
“School started two weeks ago, what exam could you possibly have?”
“They’re testing us on third grade stuff to decide, uh,” she struggles to find the word in her mental library for Russian vocabulary, and settles for the English equivalent, “Aptitude.”
“Sposóbnosti.”
“Sposóbnosti,” Sonya repeats, “We did General Knowledge yesterday.”
“And what’s today?”
“Math…” she answers timidly.
“Neither Shane nor I were good at studying, Sonushka. You can tell the time, you can count money; you’re doing great.”
“I am good at studying. Math is the only subject bringing down my grades.”
Papa taps the table in a muted tuktuktuk before he nudges his coffee cup forward, “One sip.”
Sonya turns a keen ear to the front door and hears only silence, so she stands to drag the heavy mug toward her. When she glances up at papa, he tilts his chin lower and warns, “Behave,” looking like a leopard in the jungle with his sharp blue eyes. Sonya points her tongue at him and takes a sip excitedly.
Daddy calls new experiences ‘experiments’. Sonya calls them ‘adventures’. Papa calls them both ‘silly’, and says, “Try doing things without being overwhelmed. Aim for steady.”
Sonya hadn't understood why positively driven things like an adventure required steadiness. Now she did. Adventures didn't promise good outcomes: Coffee tastes like medicine. She cringes and has to gulp down her mouthful despite feeling like a rattled matchbox missing a few matchsticks. “Yuck!” she gags, pushing the mug back towards papa, who's laughing. “It's not funny, papa!”
“It's a little funny.”
“No, it isn't!” The front door opens and shuts.
“I'm home!” Daddy announces. Anya’s nails hurriedly pitter-patter on the front doormat like raindrops on rooftops. Sonya looks at papa, miming a zipper dragging her lips closed. He copies her gesture.
“In the kitchen!” Papa yells.
Daddy walks in, Anya already rubbing her flank all across Sonya’s legs under the table. “Hi, baby.” Daddy cradles her head and kisses the top of it.
“Hi.”
“Sorry I'm late.”
“It's okay.”
“Was it Moran again?” Papa asks. The Moran family are the new neighbours to their left. They have a sixteen year old daughter who never hangs out with Sonya, Willa, or Andrew. They're currently renovating their mansion and sometimes, they ask Sonya's family if they might pet sit their two golden retrievers—Poppy and Daisy—who together with Anya, Sonya likes to put on simple obstacle courses in the backyard and have a competition.
Daddy grabs his electrolyte bottle from the refrigerator, shaking his head in exasperation, “Yup. They’re getting their bathroom retiled next.” He leans his back against the counter separating the kitchen and dining area, tilting the bottle back and forth. His athletic sweatshirt today is a dark green colour which reminds Sonya of shadowy winter lakes, “Couldn't shake him off.”
“You gave him your contact for tiling work, too?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“That's why he doesn't let you shake him off.”
“What else was I supposed to do? He asked for a good recommendation; I gave him one.”
“Have you considered saying no?”
“Leave me alone.” Daddy takes a swig of his drink and looks between Sonya and papa, “So, what's the plan for today?”
“School,” Sonya drags out the vowels, exchanging a quick glance with papa before papa turns his attention to Anya, scratching beneath her ear and cooing at her. “Oyster?” Sonya asks him in Russian.
“No,” papa replies in Russian.
“What was that?” Daddy asks, looking back and forth between them. Papa shrugs, and Sonya swings her leg once, says, “Nothing.”
Daddy is inherently a high achiever. He is the Ottawa Centaurs’ Captain and a winner of nine Stanley cups—two more than papa. He's the fastest ice skater in the league, simultaneously possessing unmatched backhand skills. He runs a famous summer hockey school, and appears on billboards all over the country.
Like the speckled Woodcock, it seemed as if daddy migrated to the moon for a few months every year—a brilliant impossibility sewing together reality.
At home, he watches TV with Sonya and papa from the couch while pressing a cold compress to his body. He worries over minutiae related to the Irina Foundation until the last minute, while papa cajoles him to relax. He never misses a day in his workout routine or practice, even when it's raining or snowing or hot like the ground was a barbeque grill.
Sonya knows for a fact that birds were hollow inside—but daddy is filled to spillage with knowledge of the moon and the stars. Curiously, daddy has never demanded for Sonya to achieve something, even though her classmates cannot say the same about their parents.
It made her want to impress him, and surprise him. Although sharp-eyed, daddy usually maintained a monotonous expression and inflection. But when happy—and proud—his features crinkled and his voice sang high in excitement. Papa made him smile a lot, but so did Sonya. Sonya is not funny like papa, so she does things like build houses from popsicle sticks and win the 100 meter dash at the summer sports fest for him.
Sonya stuffs the hollow of her own body with secrets—like participating in the girls’ volleyball team tryouts that afternoon at school. While papa’s been training her, the first daddy hears of it will be about Sonya's success. Secrets were fragile objects in a multilingual household though, so Sonya came up with a trick: give daddy a Russian nickname so they can talk about him without his knowledge; a word he is the least likely to know given his moderate Russian fluency—until he inevitably catches up.
Ústritsa—oyster—is her latest attempt at discretion.
Daddy looks curiously at her, “Oysters?” He asks, “Is that what you said?”
Startled, Sonya looks at papa. Papa is gazing at daddy with admiration. “Why do you know that word?” Sonya demands.
“Oysters?” Daddy repeats awkwardly in Russian, “It was within the seafood vocabulary I learned years ago.”
“Ah, well,” Sonya says, legs swinging once, twice, “do you enjoy eating them?”
“Uh, no, not really.”
“Oh, yeah. Me neither. They taste like snot. But anyway, I have a test today. Do you have practice?” Swallowing the last bite of her food, Sonya climbs down and picks up her bag and jacket from the back of her chair.
“Yeah,” says daddy, while Sonya urgently gestures for papa to get up, we need to go.
“See you at dinner then.” Daddy leans down easily into her hug, “Je t’aime.”
He says into her hair, “Je t’aime aussi, Sonya.” Then, as usual, “Enjoy school.”
“Yup.”
Papa drives them to the park, through which they walk for fifteen minutes to reach school everyday.
Daddy often wants a purpose for doing things: why are we getting out; do we have to do something in the park? Sonya and papa do many things for no reason. She holds his large, calloused hand everyday—again, for no reason—swinging their arms between them—for no reason—while they share conversations, arguments, and laughter between them. There was once during class when Sonya recalled papa standing in front of the TV, and gravely asking Sonya where Astroboy’s nipples were, and she was scolded by her teacher for abruptly laughing—of course—for no reason.
The September sun is cold and jitters through the leaves like fireworks sparklers as the park slowly brightens and comes to life, “When they ask you to play the setter position at the tryouts today, you should,” says papa
Between them, Sonya swings their arms especially hard, and skips over a fallen auburn leaf, “No.”
“Don’t be stubborn.” Papa shakes her hand as if trying to jolt her awake, “It’s the smartest position in volleyball.”
She finally looks up. Papa towers over her. The upturn of his sharp nose is fox-like cunning, but his pale eyes are limpid like someone caught amidst confessing. Papa is many things at once, which sometimes Sonya finds difficult to reason with.
Grandma said when Sonya was tiny, she wouldn’t let papa leave her even for a bathroom break—like a duckling imprinting on its mama—and Sonya would feel embarrassed, but also find her behaviour inevitable: Papa’s like a fruit on the tree bitten by a bird because birds knew which fruit were secretly the sweetest.
Sonya knows him to be the kindest person in a room, and the smartest. But, similar to how a bitten fruit had an inclination for rot—so did papa bear an inclination for sadness.
Unlike her peers, Sonya discovered early-on the nuance within sadness: always prompted by loss, failure, or even anger; it may be prompted by nothing at all. Sonya cries when sad, but papa struggles to put away his dinner plate, or get up from the bed until the afternoon. Daddy told her it is a disorder—it’s depression, and he’s told Sonya over and over and over and over that it isn’t her fault; it is nobody’s fault.
Sonya wishes it were somebody’s fault so she could hide papa from them. Cover his gouges with her solid hands so no one would ever see them.
And within the dome of her hands, while sparkling like the undeniably sharp edge of glass—Papa woke her up, fed her breakfast, and took her to school everyday. Every weekend, they went on a hike or to an amusement park or to the cinema. They argued over Sonya not doing a chore she dislikes while he ironed her clothes. They watched daddy play all his games on TV during the season, and he let her have ice cream before bed when she missed daddy so much she couldn't hide it at all.
Sonya scowls at the leaf mush on the pathway and says, “I want to be cool and strong. Wing spikers are very cool.”
“Okay.” Papa easily agrees, “But playing several positions is a good thing.”
Sonya looks at him sideways.
“You take me for a liar?” Papa insists.
“You played several positions? Papa, you were literally one of the best forwards in the league.”
“Yes, it's true. The coach back in Moscow made me play defense for half a year.”
“Seriously?” She asks, “But were you good at it?”
“Obviously. Of course, I was the best scorer on the team so he made me center inevitably. Playing defense improved me as a forward, though.” He shakes her hand again, “Which is why you should try any position you are offered. Setters control the entire court; imagine the skills you can develop playing as one.”
Sonya hums, “Papulya, you’re always learning things, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“You learned how to make those yummy pistachio cookies last month after seeing them on instagram, now you have learned volleyball too, for my sake. You also know how to play hockey defense, and you're great at all of them.” Sonya counts down on her right hand, “You’re so talented!”
When she looks up, papa has a slow smile spreading across his face—like a cat who got the canary.
“Ugh, I take it back.”
“Why take it back, Sonechka? Papa finally gets to hear nice words from his stubborn child.”
“I'm not stubborn.”
“You are very stubborn. It’s charming, don't worry.”
“I am not! I'm gonna tell daddy you're picking on me again.”
“And what will daddy do? Pout at me together with you?”
Sonya tries to wiggle her hand out of papa's, “Go away, I'm angry at you!”
“My little dandelion,” papa coos, letting her go, “I'll take you to the rink after school. You can complain to Shane about me all you want, then.”
“In that case, I'm telling Coach Wiebe too.”
“Go right ahead. Would you like me to provide a witness statement?”
“Whatever!” Sonya tugs papa’s coat until he's crouching. They've reached school. She kisses both his cheeks and forehead loudly and wraps her arms around his neck. Very angrily, she tells him, “I love you.”
Laughing, he replies, “I love you too, my funny girl.”
In one of her third grade classes, Mrs. Roberts said that children inherited traits from each parent through genes—like height, skin colour, and even a low tolerance for bitter food. Sonya is adopted, and realised anybody could tell just by looking.
Then, as Sonya's face burned hot red from shame, Grandma told her that all children were mirrors of their parents, and Sonya started searching for every way in which she reflected hers.
Daddy is found in the way she taps away the ice crystals from her skates after stepping off the rink—right foot first, then left. In the way her laughs are sometimes scoffs, and in the way she warns papa not to antagonize her. They have the same taste for air fresheners and how wood feels beneath one's fingers. She loves summers because her freckles appear with kisses from the sun, and while the scattered pollock of them all over her body is different from daddy’s press of preordained asterisms across the cheeks and nose bridge, their skin momentarily appears as if cut from the same cloth.
Although red-haired, Sonya is papa at eleven with his close-cropped curls, dripping with sweat under a hockey helmet and wearing a brat’s smile. In that old photograph, papa holds babushka’s hand, who gazes at the camera with a knowing look. Sonya wonders what she knows—maybe that she has tasted her food from papa’s hands, or that she has adopted his poker face and never loses at bluffing games with her friends. How babushka taught papa her language, and how papa has taught her theirs.
Something she has from both her parents is her name—Sofiya Hollander-Rozanova. It means wisdom, papa named her. You’re our wisest choice. Starts with an S like Shane.
Aaro hisses to get Sonya’s attention. Aaratrika is her best friend and thankfully, they’re in the same class in fourth grade as well. She asks, “What did you get?”
Sonya shows her her returned General Knowledge test paper. Twenty out of twenty in red ink on the top right corner of the page
“Oh!” Aaro smiles, showing off her own twenty.
Later, Sonya struggles on her math test. She doesn't understand the rules for arithmetic, and numbers are hard to imagine. By the end of the period, she’s marinating in anger aimed at herself.
“It’s okay, I’ll teach you,” Aaro offers her help during recess. They’re leaning against one of their classroom’s windows, gazing out at the basketball court. A few boys are playing while talking loudly to each other.
“Okay…” Sonya scoffs, “Whatever.”
“Don’t be like that, come on,” Aaro says, chin resting on her forearms crossed over the windowsill. A pleasant breeze flows through Sonya's short hair, cooling her scalp, “At least you get to have fun and play volleyball after school. My parents are putting me in abacus classes and I hate it so much. Though my stupid brother gets to play football.”
“What do you wanna do instead?”
“Dunno. Not abacus, that’s for sure.”
Sonya nudges her arm, “Come with me to tryouts then.”
“No,” Aaro whines. “My dad's making me jog with him every morning and I hate sweating. Sofiya, your dads are so chill and don't force you into doing anything. I wish I could sleep in and play video games after school.”
“You're so lazy,” Sonya laughs, “Plus my dads are so not chill. And I have a strict bed time.”
Aaro turns her head to look at Sonya, cheek squished into her forearm, “Well, uncle Shane is serious so maybe. But your papa is all smiles.”
Sonya adores how Aaro pronounces papa the Russian way. Her mother tongue—Telugu—contains elongated vowels, too, as in Aaro’s own name. So casually she drags the pa sound for Sonya’s sake, and Sonya loves her some more for her thoughtfulness. In return, Sonya flattens out the r in Aaro’s name to approach authenticity, “No no,” Sonya shakes her head, “Papa is worse than daddy. You remember we went skiing this January? Papa hovered so bad. Wouldn't let me do anything without sticking to me like gum. I started yelling and even daddy was like, let her do her own thing, but papa was like, what if she falls? And daddy said, ok, let her fall, she will get back up and that's how you learn—but no. Papa was like, oh, she's too young and this is a mountain with rocks and trees everywhere.”
“Duh.” Aaro giggles.
“Duh, I know,” Sonya sighs, “Then daddy and papa started fighting. I stuck to daddy all day and didn't speak to papa until the next morning.”
“Oh my god,” Aaro laughs. A boy screeches loudly from the court below them. Sonya and Aaro both look—it’s Jack Lalonde. Jack is popular for his looks amongst many girls their age—even Aaro is partial to him sometimes, although Sonya doesn’t understand why. Good at basketball and overly confident, he often gets picked out by their P.E. teacher as team leader during sports fests. Sonya rolls her eyes. She doesn’t like rowdy kids.
Sonya continues their conversation, “Papa won't let me learn anything sporty unless he can keep an eye on me. And you can't say anything ‘cuz his face becomes a brick wall and he won't change his mind no matter what.”
Aaro hums, “I guess once we’re old, we can do whatever we want.”
“Yeah.”
“What would you do?”
“Sky dive.”
Aaro gasps.
“You?”
Aaro says, “Wake up at twelve.”
Sonya bursts out laughing.
In the end, she’s not asked to play any particular position. The girls’ volleyball coach tests Sonya’s passing, jumping, and spiking skills. She performs well.
Afterwards, she’s at the water fountain outside the gymnasium refilling her bottle, when she’s approached by Jack Lalonde. The basketball club had run their own tryouts on the other side of the gym earlier—the thumping of the balls and the sounds of boys shrieking barely breaking her concentration. Jack leans against the wall now, and says, “Hey.”
“What’s up?” Sonya asks.
“Saw you playing,” says Jack, nodding at the gym, “I’m definitely in.”
Sonya hasn’t really spoken to Jack before. The only time she interacted with him, really, was during P.E. She twists the bottle cap closed and turns his way, somewhat curious, “Cool.”
“Didn't take you for a volleyball girl. Don't you play hockey? Like your dads?”
Sonya shrugs, “I like volleyball.”
“You played well,” says Jack. His dark bangs fall into his eyes, and Sonya can't parse his expression clearly, “You're really boyish after all.”
“What do you mean?”
Before Sonya can react, Jack reaches for her head and tugs her hair painfully, “You have boy hair.”
Sonya smacks away his arm, jaw dropped, “What the hell, Jack?!”
Jack grins at her like he did nothing wrong, and Sonya feels her throat tighten, “Can't take a little heat, Sofiya?”
Behind Jack, in the walkway connecting the main building to the gymnasium, she catches sight of their French teacher—Ms. Dubeau. Sonya ignores Jack and sprints in a beeline towards her.
“Ms. Dubeau!” She calls, stopping the woman in her tracks.
“Sofiya? Good Afternoon,” she greets in French. When she notices Sonya's urgency, she says in English, “Is something the matter?”
“Jack Lalonde just pulled my hair near the water fountain!” She points in the direction where she came from, where Jack is—audaciously—still standing.
“Oh, Sofiya,” says Ms. Dubeau. Her spectacles reflect the sunlight in blue, “He’s just teasing you because he likes you.”
“Huh?”
She chuckles, looking down at Sonya as though she’s naive, “He thinks you’re cute; that's just the way boys are.”
At lunch time, the cafeteria is overly noisy and in response, Sonya finds herself quieted like a house before sunrise.
Some years ago, Sonya had been collecting wild acorns near their cottage late into a boring morning. Whenever she licked her lips, she tasted powdered sugar, and her hair—longer then—was held back by a hairband so her face felt bare for the day to warmly burn.
As she wandered on, she came across squirrel babies wriggling on the dewy, grass floor beneath a tall tree. Their mother was hurriedly picking them up one after the other to put them back on a high branch.
The urge to solve their vulnerability bound Sonya's chest closed like a tight corset, but the fear of touching them—and causing them accidental harm—paralysed her. The mother squirrel hesitated in her task with Sonya hovering so close by. Before they knew it, a crow flew in and snatched up one of the babies.
Sonya ran after the crow, and caught the bird eating it.
If one peels this incident like an onion, then beneath the layer of cruelty would lie the layers of guilt and regret. Sonya thought, it's my fault. She never cried, although she had wanted to, and the memory of it all clings to her like tears which do not know how to be. She does not know how to be.
Aaro settles next to her with her tray of falafel sandwich, sweet corn salad, and milk. She bumps shoulders with Sonya and asks, “How'd it go, Sophie?”
The chatter around them flows back into Sonya like soft ocean waves grabbing her ankles. She smiles, “Good. I have a decent chance.”
“Heck yeah!” Aaro says, grabbing her sandwich, “I'm gonna tell mama I'm skipping abacus ‘cuz I have to go cheer Sophie on during games.”
Sonya giggles, “You're such a brat.”
After school, Sonya tells papa she doesn't want to walk to the car. He carries her on his back; Sonya hides her face in his shoulder.
Papa’s jacket smells like his deodorant—something leathery like a shoe—and the material rubs her mouth with a pleasant static. Papa rambles on about weekend plans—daddy’s in Ottawa—and they might go to a baseball batting cage. She interrupts him.
“I got full marks on yesterday's test.”
She sounds garbled against papa's collar but he understands her nonetheless, “Good.”
“And my volleyball thing went well.” She lifts her face, cheeks feeling sensitive like she's just awoken from a nap. She notices some of papa’s hair curling in the shape of a heart over his ear and wishes she could take a photo of it, but her phone feels out of her reach in her backpack, “And for lunch, I had a fried chicken sandwich. You know I hate school chicken. But I ate it because daddy kept lecturing me about protein.”
“Very commendable.”
“I know.” Sonya swings her legs, her heels bumping into papa's thighs in gentle thuds, “What are you gonna give me for doing so well today?”
“What does Sonechka want?”
Sonya doesn't answer, and hides her face again on papa's shoulder.
“I bought your skates, in case you wanted to skate at the rink today.”
“Which ones?” She mumbles.
“The ones with the shooting stars.”
Sonya contemplates it. The shooting stars pair were her second favourite—they reminded her of Astroboy, “Okay.”
“Go on in, I'll park the car and join you,” says papa.
Sonya grabs her skates bag and climbs out the car. Inside the Canadian Tire Centre—the Centaurs’ home rink—the team appears to have finished practicing. Only a handful of players are staying back on the ice—including daddy.
Sonya watches him converse with uncle Troy very seriously. The chill of the ice rink fills her nostrils with a dry cold, and the bright white lights nearly burn her eyes when she blinks. As she watches, daddy’s gaze drifts and he notices her standing at the gate. Pausing mid sentence, he smiles at her.
Like he's so happy to see her; as if he's seeing her after months and not mere hours spent apart. But daddy always smiles at her like this: at home, when Sonya wakes up and wanders into whichever room he's inside, searching for him. At night, when she goes into her parents’ bedroom because she wants him to read her a story; he doesn’t do different voices like papa, but it’s fine, his consistent cadence gentles her into a calm sleep.
Daddy smiles at Sonya as though she's wonderful to him—like the wonder won't cease—and Sonya feels her face crumble like crinkled paper. Tears push their way out her eyes like fat bugs running from underneath a lifted rock.
She hears the knife’s edge noise of skates cutting across ice. Promptly, she's in daddy's arms, his careful touch glancing at her elbows, knees, and head as he asks, “Did you get hurt? Sonya, bubba.” Daddy's voice wavers the longer she won't answer, so she shakes her head with fists pushed up against her wet eyes.
“Okay,” and now he sounds firm, “I trust you,” he says. Then she's being lifted up. They’re taller on skates, and the sudden distance gained from the floor gives her vertigo. Daddy walks them to the bench and they sit down with Sonya in his lap. Sonya nuzzles her forehead into his chest—into his soft soft soft sweatshirt—like she's digging for bone, and clutches at the fabric on his sides. Her whole face hurts from muscles clenching, unclenching.
“It will be okay. All will be okay,” daddy murmurs, carding gentle fingers through her hair, patting her back, rubbing her arm. She sniffles, trying to inhale her runny snot back inside her skull. Daddy smells like cotton and pain spray; Sonya clings to him harder like he's a dream that might collapse, “Oh, my sweet baby.” Eventually, she feels daddy’s torso shift as he shrugs, and he murmurs to someone else, “I don't know.”
Sonya peeks out of her little cocoon and sees papa. His expression is shutting down like lights being turned off room after room, and she reaches for him too. When he sits down, she spreads her legs haphazardly over the bench between them and their laps. She clings to both their shirts with hard fists.
“My brave girl,” Papa murmurs in Russian, frowning sadly. He delicately pets her hair, “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
Sonya shakes her head again, and coughs. Daddy holds out a water bottle near her mouth. She takes it, squeezing out a little to understand the pressure before drinking from it. Her head hurts. She is feverish even being shrouded within the chill of the arena.
“It's not a big deal,” she finally says, croaking like an evil frog.
Papa rubs the shell of her ear softly, “Tell us anyway.”
Sonya pants in her breaths. Once feeling relatively collected, She tells them what Jack did, and what Ms. Dubeau said when she told her about it.
“That's all,” she finishes her story. Uncle Troy and uncle Luca are doing cool-down passing drills on the other side of the rink. They’re not looking at Sonya, but she thinks it’s deliberate. It makes her happy, but also angry. She wants to hide.
Daddy quietly says, “I'm sorry they treated you that way. They were absolutely wrong.”
“Yeah?” Sonya asks.
“He hurt you.” Daddy combs her hair with his fingers, “And it's not your fault.”
Sonya looks up at daddy, who looks suddenly tired. Or perhaps, softened. Like he’s ready for bed even though he hasn’t performed his bedtime routine. Still, his eyes are bright with clarity. Sonya loves his eyes, especially under arena lights.
“I'll have a conversation with your homeroom teacher tomorrow,” papa says in English, tickling Sonya's nose bridge until she swats away his hand and scratches at tingling skin. Papa smiles a little, “And if something like this happens again, you need to tell us.”
“Okay,” her voice wobbles. Daddy leans over and wipes her wet face with his fingers.
Sonya understands very well daddy's aversion to dirty things—cleaning spilled liquids immediately, always washing his hands before and after meals, regularly sterilising his phone screen—and to feel him do this, that he wants to, causes more tears to spill over.
“Hey, hey, you’re okay. There we go,” daddy murmurs, thumbs swiping firmly over her cheeks.
“You should have kicked him in the balls,” papa says suddenly.
“Ilya!” Daddy gasps.
“What? Kid picked a fight, Sonya can finish it,” his eyes meet Sonya’s, “You should have stayed in hockey and learned to fight. What did I tell you when you quit? They are life skills.”
Sonya gives him a dirty look—he knows she finds hockey trite. Sonya despises the contact aspect of the most famous contact sport in the world, yet papa looks for any opportunity to try and cajole her back in. Sonya crawls into daddy's lap again and hides her face. She mumbles into his chest, “Papa picked on me this morning.”
Daddy says, “Ilya.”
“I have a fox for a child, my god,” Papa says in Russian.
“Stop provoking her.”
“I am not,” papa switches back to English, “How is learning to throw a punch ever useless?”
“Don’t switch the topic.”
Sonya sucks in her snot again. “And, I don't have boy hair,” she says, words growing wet. She clears her throat and speaks in a firmer voice, “I'm a girl.”
“Of course you are.” Daddy kisses the top of her head.
“What about boxing?” Papa asks, sliding closer to them until he and daddy are pressed arm-to-arm, “You learn on a punching bag, no humans.”
“Let her be,” daddy admonishes him.
“How will she know whether she likes it unless she tries it out?”
“Not now.” Daddy leans closer to Sonya, “But maybe we can give it a try later, okay? I'll come with you.”
Sonya snorts through a bout of deep annoyance.
After dinner, Sonya dozes in her designated arm chair in front of the TV, while papa and daddy look at something on an ipad, cuddled up on the couch. Sonya can barely pay attention to the episode of dancing with the stars as her parents chatter through it. Her eyelids, sore, grow heavier.
Daddy is saying, “No, come on. That doesn’t make any sense.”
“No, it does. See?”
Through long blinks, Sonya sees daddy adjust his glasses and bring the ipad closer to his face, “Ilya…” he says, “Wait, did I miscalculate?”
“No worries. It was in fine print.”
“I never ignore the fine print.”
“Is this really worth being competitive over?”
“Can you not?”
“Can you not?”
Daddy murmurs something too low for Sonya to hear. Papa laughs and pecks daddy’s cheek.
“I will call them tomorrow,” says papa.
Daddy groans, “This is such a drag.”
“Happens.”
Sonya blinks and blinks and slips into sleep. She dreams of cats on skates meowing her a song she can somehow understand the words to. She opens her eyes for a few seconds to feel papa carrying her in the hallway, and then she’s walking through the woods near the cottage. Babushka’s cross necklace transforms into the Excalibur—we need to save Anya—she tells the murder of crows she’s befriended—she’s in the old castle. They nod and caw at her. The cut of the moon is silver, and she scavenges until she finds gold.