Chapter Text
December 23, 2024
“Emi, look! Santa came!”
Shane trailed behind Ilya as they entered their house from the garage. When they had left two days ago, it had been a completely normal house. Now, it was a winter wonderland. The lights were off, but he could see perfectly well thanks to the approximate three billion white twinkle lights wrapped around a tree that had to be at least twelve feet tall. Stockings hung from beneath an evergreen bough lining the fireplace, and a giant wreath hung in the spot that was normally occupied by a photo of the kiss that followed Ottawa’s first Cup win. Buffalo plaid throw pillows were scattered across the couches and chairs. The house smelled of vanilla and sugar, and Celine Dion chante Noel played through the house’s audio system.
“Mom? Dad?”
His parents emerged from the office, his mother looking as if she were about to head into a board meeting and his father wearing a pair of faded jeans and a sweatshirt he still had from his McGill days.
“Oh, you’re here! I wasn’t expecting you for another thirty minutes.” His mom went straight for the kitchen, talking as she went. “I wanted to have dinner ready when you got here, but I miscalculated. It’ll be another twenty minutes or so. The lasagna needs to finish baking, and I’m going to throw together a salad.”
“Mom.”
“I changed all the sheets. I know Amalia does it every Friday, but I wanted you boys to come home to a crisp, clean bed.”
“Mom.”
“I also made sure to disinfect the crib and changing table in the nursery. I know she’ll be staying in a bassinet in your room at first–”
“Yuna!”
Yuna froze, eyes going wide. He wasn’t sure he’d ever called her Yuna out loud before.
“Come in here and hold your granddaughter,” he said. “Everything else can wait.”
She tried to hide it, but he saw. Her lip trembled and her hands shook. She had always known what to do when Shane got overwhelmed because she had been in the same place so many times herself. She wanted–needed-this night to be perfect. What she didn’t realize was that it already was.
“Mom, come over here. The house can’t get any more beautiful and inviting, and you said the lasagna isn’t quite done yet. You have time to come meet your granddaughter.”
She rolled her lips and nodded once to herself before making her way to where David was leaning over the carseat in Ilya’s arms. He was mumbling something about tiny fingernails and long eyelashes, which Shane absolutely understood because Emi did have tiny fingernails and long eyelashes.
The tiniest fingernails.
The longest eyelashes.
He had sat in the backseat with her the whole drive home, and he wasn’t sure he’d blinked the entire time because he was so obsessed with those tiny fingernails and long eyelashes.
“Come look, Yuna,” David said. “I think she has Shane’s nose.”
Ilya smiled his brightest smile. “That is what I said! Shane’s nose and my chin.”
“You know, I think you’re right, son.”
“And I think you both know that it doesn’t work that way,” Shane said, trying to sound put-out but failing.
His mom looked uncharacteristically timid as she moved in beside her husband and looked at her granddaughter for the first time. A single tear tracked down her cheek. “Oh, she is beautiful.”
“Just like her Gramma.”
Yuna narrowed her eyes at Ilya. “No.”
“Nana?”
“No.”
“Mimi?”
“I don’t understand what you have against me being called Grandmother.”
“Because it will make her sound like a serial killer!” Ilya said loud enough that Shane worried he would wake up the baby. “Grandmother, might I have that butcher knife?” he said in a creepy voice before making the Halloween stabbing noise. At that, Emi did wake up with a cry.
“Oh, sweetheart. It’s alright,” Yuna said, taking her from the carseat. She maneuvered Emi to her shoulder and patted gently on her bottom while swaying from side-to-side. She did it all naturally, like she’d done it a hundred times before. Shane guessed that she probably had thirty-three years ago. “No one is going to think you're a serial killer. They will think you are a sweet girl who loves her grandmother very much.”
Emi snuggled into the crook of Yuna’s neck and rubbed her face against the soft sweater she was wearing, and everyone in the room knew that was her way of saying her grandmother was right.