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Yuna isn't expecting anyone when she hears the ring ring of the doorbell, two short, efficient presses. She looks up from her tablet where she’s answering sponsorship emails. “Are you waiting for a package?”
“No,” David says. “I looked at the online tracking this morning. The roomba hasn’t shipped yet.”
David has been swearing up and down that a roomba will change their life. Yuna knows David will never stick with it. Vacuuming is his job, and he finds it too relaxing to give up. Maybe in ten years, once their backs are worse, they’ll need one, but certainly not for now.
David puts down his crossword and stands up to get the door when they can hear it opening and shoes being taken off in the hallway. That means it’s either Ilya or Shane, the only people to actually have keys. They both ring the doorbell before coming in even though Yuna and David have told them they don’t need to. David thinks they’re being polite. Yuna thinks they’re being demonstrative about wanting Yuna and David to do the same when they drop by. David thinks this makes Yuna uncharitable. Yuna doesn’t care, she knows she’s right.
“Mom? Dad? Are you home?” Shane calls as he comes down the hallway.
“Yes, in the living room!” David calls back.
Yuna and David exchange a look. Shane doesn’t just unexpectedly drop by. Yuna isn’t surprised that he’s in town, but she did expect him to go straight to Ilya’s house after the incident with the Centaurs’ plane a couple of days ago.
When Shane steps into the living room, it’s immediately clear that something happened. There’s an agitated glint in his eyes that’s very unusual for him, and he overall seems less put-together than he normally does.
“Are you all right, honey?” Yuna asks, getting up. He’s still her baby, and when he looks like this, she wants to protect him and make everything okay.
Shane distractedly runs a hand through his hair. “Yes, yes, fine.”
David is already getting up and he comes back with a ginger ale, while Yuna gets Shane sitting down on the sofa next to her. David hands Shane his ginger ale and takes one of the armchairs. “You look different from usual,” he observes.
“Everything with the plane must have worried you so much,” Yuna says. Truthfully, she and David had been shaken up as well, thinking of what could have happened to Ilya. “Are you in town to check on Ilya?”
Shane nods. “Yeah, kind of. He isn’t back yet. I wanted to see you guys before going home.”
It’s hard, even after years, whenever Shane refers to home as anywhere except this house. Yuna loves Ilya, loves how happy he makes Shane, is so grateful they found each other. But their house always feels empty when Shane’s not running around smashing pucks into the walls like he was when he was a little kid.
Shane right now, almost thirty in the blink of an eye, is playing with the tab of his can of ginger ale. He hasn’t taken a sip yet.
“I’m going to marry Ilya,” he says.
“Well, yes,” Yuna says. “Obviously you are.”
“Yes, but I mean now,” Shane says.
David frowns. “Are you boys eloping? Are we all going? I wish you’d said, I’m due for a haircut.”
“No, Dad, Jesus,” Shane says. “We’re not eloping. I mean I’m proposing, once he gets home today.”
“Oh, Shane,” Yuna says. She might actually cry. Shane has hardly ever seen her cry. All the times he did, it made him profoundly uncomfortable.
“Mom,” he says, scooting away.
“I’m not going to cry, don’t worry.”
“She’ll save it for after you’ve left,” David says.
Yuna carefully blots the moisture from the corners of her eyes. She knows David is absolutely going to cry later, too.
“Do you have a ring for him?”
“Yeah,” Shane says. “Here.”
He takes a ring box out of his pocket and opens it. He touches is delicately, like it contains the greatest treasure in the world. Yuna remembers David proposing, nervously looking at her over a chicken curry in the tiny kitchen they had back then. He’d been just as reverent as Shane looks now.
The ring is simple and elegant, gold with black, and very fitting.
“And is yours the same design?”
Shane hesitates. “I didn’t buy one for myself.”
“Shane! You need one as well!”
“Yeah, I know.” He’s quiet for a moment. “I only, um. What if Ilya says no?”
Yuna and David speak at the same time.
“That’s impossible.”
“Of course he’ll say yes!”
Shane looks down. “I put him through so much. He’s been so lonely. We had that fight, and of course we made up, but what if it’s not enough? What if he’s worried I’ll do it again? I didn’t realise how much he was struggling, and I should have, and he thought I wouldn’t give up hockey for him, but I would. I just want to make him happy.”
The thought of Shane being willing to give up hockey is shocking. She doesn’t know how he’d survive, but she can’t say that. He doesn’t listen to her how he used to, and he will have thought about it thoroughly.
So she says, “You do, Shane. It’s normal that things get tough on occasion, but you make him so happy. It’s obvious to anyone who’s around you.”
It’s so obvious that Yuna sometimes wonders how the whole world isn’t seeing it. That sometimes, in the part of her brain that manages Shane instead of raising him, despising herself for it, she sees it as a risk factor.
“He almost fucking died before we could talk it all out in person,” Shane says. He sounds winded. “I keep thinking -” He swallows and shakes his head a little. “I can’t lose him. I can’t. I won’t.”
“Of course you won’t,” Yuna says soothingly.
Shane, though, barely seems to hear her. His eyes are glossy with unshed tears. He makes a frustrated noise and wipes at them. “He’s so amazing, and sometimes it’s like he doesn’t even see it. He deserves everything. I’m going to give him everything, if he still wants me to.”
David calmly gets up and walks over to one of the living room shelves, returning with one of the big photo albums he and Yuna make together for special events and holidays. This is one of their most special ones, only rivalled by the one containing Yuna and David’s wedding pictures.
David simply holds it out to Shane, who frowns but takes it and opens it. David, beautiful David who always knows exactly what to do. Yuna tried to be a good mother, still tries, but David was born to be a parent. David feels things, knows them on some deep level that Yuna thinks she might simply not have access to.
“Oh, Dad,” Shane says, looking down at the album. He flips the pages slowly, his big eyes that have been so expressive all his life drinking in the details.
Shane and Ilya sitting on the dock at the cottage, not even looking up, arms wrapped around each other and snuggling in the sunshine, their legs dangling into the water.
Shane, looking at Ilya holding out a can of ginger ale to him like he’s holding the whole world in his hands.
Ilya, lying on the grass of his backyard, grinning up at Shane with sparkling eyes, his mouth open in a teasing joke, his face turned towards Shane as if he’s the sun.
Shane, huffing at Ilya winning a video game against him, looking annoyed and tender and in love while he tries to yank Ilya’s controller out of his hands.
Ilya, holding onto Shane’s hand, trying to wrap himself around him at the fire at the cottage while Shane laughs. Ilya is completely ignoring the camera, laughing at Shane who’s batting at him with his free hand. They’re turned towards each other like they’re the only people in the world.
“Guys,” Shane says. He sounds shaky. “I had no idea you even took these.”
“Of course we did,” Yuna says. “We missed so many years of your relationship, we’re making sure to record everything now.”
Shane laughs. “Trust me, you did not want to see the first few years of our relationship.”
Yuna smiles, remembering Ilya’s awkward description of how he and Shane had built up what they have. Shane is definitely right on that one.
She catches David’s eye, and he grimaces around his own smile at Shane’s bashful expression.
“So,” Yuna says, getting things back on track. “What’s the plan?”
“I bought lots of candles. I’m going to put them all over his living room. He talked about something like that once. That he was going to do that if he proposed to me some day.”
“That sounds lovely,” David says.
“Take our fire blanket,” Yuna says. “I’m not sure Ilya has one in the house.”
Shane rolls his eyes. “I bought electric ones, Mom.”
Yuna smiles. She’s so proud of Shane every day. David laughs.
She has to ask, though. “And the plan beyond that? You can’t keep a marriage secret. Those records are going to be accessible to people who look for them.”
Shane waves his hand in a dismissive, extremely un-Shane-like motion. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except this.”
Yuna nods slowly, exchanging another look with David. He shakes his head very slightly, the movement barely noticeable, and she knows he’s right.
Shane gets up, and pockets the ring. “I’m going to get going. I want to make it perfect.”
Yuna thinks of herself turning over her chicken curry while scrabbling to kiss David across their rickety little kitchen table.
She thinks of Ilya walking into a room of painstakingly arranged electric candles.
Naturally, she’s biased, but she knows it will be perfect.
Shane hugs them both. The door closes behind him.
David stretches as he stands up. “I’m going to order a new album online,” he says. “We can get that ready for the wedding pictures.”
Yuna jumps into his arms to kiss him. If that display of youthful energy messes with their backs, well, the roomba is hopefully shipping soon.