Archive of Our Own

When Shane tells his parents that he is gay, Yuna is staring at Ilya.

Ilya arrives alongside this big news, and is now tied to it. Ilya knows what Yuna must hear: that Ilya’s a flashy goal-scorer with little defensive responsibility, lazy back-checking, too aggressive on the open-ice checks, an egotistic player. At the warm, sunny kitchen table, Ilya keeps quiet, conscious of his reputation hanging over them. He watches the Hollander family relationship heave under the weight of a decade of memories that must now be recontextualized. 

Ilya feels the weight of Yuna’s gaze, like she’s sizing him up.

Afterwards, Shane floats into the car, dreamily starts the engine.

“That went so well.” He tangles their hands on the center console. His face is radiant, and unseeing. “I’m so excited for dinner. I think they really like you.”

Shane’s watching the road, not him, so Ilya lets his expression slide into something rigid and nervous. Is Shane joking?

When Shane’s parents arrive for dinner that night, Yuna strides into Shane’s house with an unshakeable authority. She gives Shane a smacking kiss and heads for the kitchen, wielding various containers, barely glancing at Ilya. She flicks on lights without looking at the switches, pulls open drawers and cabinets without searching, as comfortable as she would be in her own house.

Shane has shirked a new layer of unease and is chattering away with her and David about his oatmeal recipe, his workout ideas, pink-eared, kicking his feet happily. Notably, he has shed some final barrier: he can talk about Ilya.

And Shane does. He tells stories. He makes references to meetings, to games, to past jokes. These small moments land in jolts. Ilya is part of Shane’s life. Delighted, Shane wields phrases such as for us… When we… 

They seem as much of a shock for Yuna to hear as they are for Ilya. She cuts her gaze over to Ilya at every mention, like she’s double-checking that he’s really there.

But she comes to grips fast. Ilya barely notices when Yuna guides them away from the present. She and Shane start to reminisce. All of a sudden, Ilya is listening to Yuna toss out flaunting references to Susan and Brian and Joe’s kids; Shane tries to give some context—my aunt, my CHL coach—but mostly allows the stories to stay stranded without context, forces Ilya to hang uselessly out of the loop, a stranger prying into this family’s home. Ilya nods along wordlessly and contributes nothing.

Whatever curl of warmth he feels when Shane uses us is swallowed up by the scale of we’s available to Yuna. She raised him. She taught him to skate. She’s watched all the hockey games, every game since the first one. We, we, we, we, all the way down.

A family like this, as tight-knit and well-interlinked as chainmail, is a foreign thing to Ilya. He’s unsure of the standard operating procedures. Should he be quiet, or should he try to be casual and funny? Maybe Yuna would be impressed if he acted businesslike.

They get to talking about summer.

Yuna perks up. “Shane, have you had a chance to read my email about that skills camp in Norway?” 

It’s a flashy and overfunded event. Players go for the publicity more than the program. Ilya watches Shane’s face scrunch. Yuna continues.

“You should confirm your spot soon. I think this year they’re running an emphasis on—”

“Mom, I’m probably not going to go,” Shane cuts in.

Her face goes blank, taken aback.

“What do you mean you’re not going to go? You’ve gone every year since…” She lets out a nervous chuckle.

Shane shakes his head, looking pink. “Mom, to be honest, I was only going to that camp because Ilya showed up too.” Shane cuts a shy glance to him. “So we could see each other a bit more. Now that we’re together, we don’t need excuses or anything.”

She stares. 

“But Rozanov didn’t even show up every year.”

Shane looks flustered. “Yeah.”

Ilya tries to keep as still as possible, hoping they forgot that he’s sitting there.

“That can’t have been the only reason. It’s hockey.”

Shane shrugs angrily. “It’s actually kind of a shitty program. The director sucks and no one even tries. It’s like AAA drills half the time. I’d get more done training myself, or with Ilya now. You know we work out together?”

Barely. Between bicep curls, Ilya takes Snapchat videos of the sweat stain on the ass of Shane’s shorts. He has the foresight not to voice this. Yuna is not pleased.

“It’s still time on the ice.”

“Shitty time on the ice.”

“It’s good exposure. Especially for European fans.”

“I’ll—let’s just do another ad cycle with Moët then.”

“Where is this coming from?”

Shane puts his hands down on the table, glaring.

Yuna says, “I just hadn’t realized.”

“Hadn’t realized what?”

Her eyes cut between Ilya and Shane’s faces.

“Is there anything else like this?”

Shane’s brow furrows. “What do you mean?”

“Just, you know. With…” She gestures unhelpfully. David puts a hand on her arm. “With—with. Nevermind. Okay, yeah, nevermind.”

As Yuna retreats, she and David exchange a look. She slumps back in her chair.

Beside him, Ilya can see Shane shrug the hostility off as he picks up a new thread of conversation.

It’s unbelievable how easily Shane can let an uncomfortable thing go; how willing he is to skip away to some harmless topic and leave the details of this current one forgotten.

Ilya can’t get settled after the sharp exchange. He watches, sick, for a revival of this snippy anger all night, but it never comes.

Yuna cooked green beans and cut up a salad; David roasted a chicken in lemon and garlic. They settle around the table. Shane adds salad onto Ilya’s plate without asking. Ilya flicks his gaze around the table. “He nag me already.”

A miscalculation. Yuna’s face is scrutinizing.

“You don’t need to eat the salad, Ilya.”

He needs to die.

“No, I do.” Ilya picks up the fork. “I do very much. Thank you.”

Shane looks between them. “Mom,” he whines playfully, “Lay off. Ilya eats like a dude. Lots of meat.”

Yuna watches Ilya as he crams kale into his mouth. “A dude.”

Ilya fumes. He looks down as he chews. Did Shane just imply that Ilya thinks he eats girl food? Well, Ilya does, but he’s not going to fucking say it in front of Shane’s parent, Jesus Christ. When he looks up, Yuna has already looked away, whispering something to David. Ilya feels his stomach cramp.

But, the rest of the dinner follows without any notable incidents. David’s comments are tame and paternal. Yuna occasionally spears a question to Ilya.

Shane looks so happy. He’s flushed and shining. His gaze darts around the table, taking it in, the two halves of his lives melting together. His bare knee brushes Ilya’s. When Ilya talks, Shane hopefully glances between him and his parents.

Thank God for hockey. They talk a lot about the season, the Centaurs, the Cup. Yuna asks Ilya what he is thinking about for his contract conditions, his retirement plans, any future property investments. Ilya stalls out, uninformed. 

“Retirement is relax,” Ilya smiles. “I relax.”

“Would you move back to Russia?” Yuna asks.

Ilya feels Shane stiffen next to him. He’s immediately frustrated, hot and panicked, that Yuna would say something that upsets Shane. Shouldn’t she know what comments to avoid?

To undo the damage, Ilya says, “No. I stay here.”

He probably means it. At his father’s funeral, he made a big thing about cutting Alexei off. And after he comes out with Shane, the publicity might be hard to navigate, even though Ilya knows the rules are looser for men as rich as himself. Regardless, Shane bumps his ankle against Ilya’s, satisfied.

Yuna says, “Where? In Boston? Montreal?”

Ilya gives Shane another glance. “Erm. Montreal?”

He’s unsure enough that it gives everyone a pause. Ilya says, weakly, “We figure out later. Sorry, I’ve really never thought about retirement.”

“Oh,” is all Yuna says. 

Her manicured fingers curl around her fork. Ilya stares at the movement.

They walk Shane’s parents to the door. Kisses for Shane. Yuna turns to Ilya. She studies him without disguise. Ilya feels the corners of his mouth begin to tremble. She puts a cool hand on his arm. All she says is: “It was nice to meet you, Ilya.”

Ilya’s heart is pounding.

She’s smiling, placid. Her eyes flick over his face. After a second, she sighs, “Okay,” and drops her hand and walks out the door.

He feels Shane turn to him. He fixes a smile on his face before he asks Shane, “Good dinner?”

Shane looks dopey. “Perfect.”

Ilya presses his mouth against Shane’s, so that Shane’s eyes will fall shut. They trade a few kisses, until Shane pulls away. His eyes are starry.

“Really, Ilya,” Shane says. Ilya tightens his hands around Shane’s waist, trying to feel his way back to a kiss; Shane leans back. “This is so special to me. I love them so much. And I love you.”

Ilya jolts. It’s only the fourth time Shane has said this to him. He lets Shane continue.

“Seeing the three of you together is…”

There’s a lump in Ilya’s throat. It feels too strange for Shane to put Ilya in the same category as his parents. What do they have in common? Shane finally allows the kiss.

That night, Alexei calls. 

Ilya watches it ring and ring and ring. The last time they talked was the funeral, four months prior. He hovers his thumb over the green Accept button, but doesn’t pick up. He waits for an angry text. Alexei does send one later, a text, but it isn’t angry. It’s a video of his daughter at a piano recital. 

Ilya watches it twice, his head hurting as he searches for the cruel intent. He doesn’t respond.

The season starts. Ilya’s last year in Boston. Whenever he can, during every break longer than forty-eight hours—which barely happens—Ilya flies to Montreal. Ilya flies more this season than he has ever flown in his life, and it still feels like he sees Shane for three hours a month.

It will be better when Ilya is in Ottawa—this is what he tells himself.

And Ilya keeps having dinner with Shane’s parents. Yuna keeps revealing long-standing assumptions of Shane that prove to be false, keeps asking Ilya personal questions that he doesn’t have the answer to. When Ilya is forced to talk to Yuna or David, the conversation is an excruciating scramble for things to say. Traffic, weather, the season. Blank back-and-forth questions that are answered in a second and then float dead in the water. Ilya begins to excavate anecdotes from the week, ready to employ in emergencies should he ever find himself alone with either of them. 

Shane is happy. Shane grew up in a happy family. He only registers something as a fight if there is literal yelling. He sees no reason to consider that things may be wrong. He babbles about his parents, he daydreams about joint vacations, and baselessly assures Ilya that they really like him!

Ilya grew up in a surveillanced, wire-tripped house. Ilya grew up with a humiliated and powerless father, with a sick mother and a vengeful brother. He can sense the changes of affection as plainly as reading a book.

So, hidden in the dullness of the dinners, Ilya can see what Shane is blind to. 

Yuna doesn’t like him.

This is what Yuna must see: that Ilya drinks too much, drives too fast, smokes too often, skates too sloppy, misses too many goals, gets in too many fights; his accent is thick, his teeth are shoddily fixed, his interests are distasteful, his cars are gauche, his clothes are tacky, his brand image is disorganized, his property is poorly chosen, his money is ill-stored. He is uncaring, unserious, undisciplined, and unfit to be with her son. He is an intruder into their home.

Ilya is no match for Shane. Which he knew. But it’s a different kind of pain to recognize the feeling in someone else.

Ilya gets a stomachache during the drive to Shane’s parents. Ilya is silent with relief during the drive back. He only has to do this once every three months—that’s how frequent they can manage these dinners against four schedules. Once every three months.

Ilya and Shane text each other news articles. They phone call before bed. Ilya hunches over his laptop arranging his moving plans, furniture shipping. He dreams and dreams and dreams about his new life in Ottawa.

Alexei’s been calling, too. Once every couple weeks. Ilya let the first few ring out. Then, Alexei catches Ilya during a lonely morning and Ilya picks up.

It’s civil.

Alexei’s voice is suspicious and careful. The conversations are empty, but exhausting. They talk about nothing. Alexei talks about his daughter. Ilya talks about the fucking weather. They never, ever talk about Papa; they never talk about hockey, or Shane, or money. And they absolutely don’t talk about Mama.

But somehow, the more they step around it, and the more dinners that Ilya has with Yuna, the more that Ilya is reminded of her. His mama. All the time. His mama. He’s reminded especially of her miserable final years.

As his final season in Boston draws to a close, Ilya thinks especially about the sharper details.

He thinks about the carousel of doctors. He thinks about how he used to sleep in her bed. Her smell. He thinks about the pill bottles in the cabinet, all of them full.

For as long as Ilya could remember, his Mama couldn’t bear to be alive. She spoke plainly about this. Frequently, she attempted to set these plans in motion.

Papa was no fucking help. His responses were brutish and unpracticed: he mostly insulted her.

In the final years, it was up to Ilya—Ilya, and Alexei. 

Alexei was two years older than him. Through example, Alexei taught Ilya how to talk Mama down.

Ilya does not have many young memories, nothing before the age of six. This is one of his earliest: Mama’s glazed-over face, cold, informing the boys that she was going, giving them housekeeping information like the code to the storage locker, to call Grandma every month, as the two of them followed her around, crying, pleading her to stop.

Mama, in her bedroom, a suitcase open on the floor. She would fill it with clothes.

Papa had made it abundantly clear that, if Mama were to leave, he would never let Ilya or Alexei ever see her again. Most of the time, this was enough to keep her latched into place. It held enough weight to tip the scale to stay for another week, another month.

But sometimes not.

Life in their house was very difficult for Mama. Papa’s job wasn’t as important, the maid had left or been fired, the money was thin—and her brain was very, very sick. It made her lifeless and far-away. It made her want to do bad things to herself. So, on a bad day, she could lose sight of the bigger picture. She could get caught up in the excitement of an escape.

Free from this family, Mama would have nothing holding her back. She could go on long drives and look at mountains, and then kill herself. She could sit in glamorous restaurants and order everything off the menu, before killing herself. She could go to the theater, wear expensive clothes while in the best seats, and then kill herself. An escape was an ever-present allure, and at-times-irresistible alternative option to the choking life at home. It was a difficult thing to argue against.

But Ilya and Alexei had to argue against it. They were babies, and they needed Mama here regardless of whatever the right thing to do was. Scrappy and terrified, Alexei battled against Mama’s plans. Ilya has quite a few memories of that. Alexei fighting as Ilya watched. Alexei’s voice rising, his face reddening, trying to put his body between her and the suitcase, or pulling the suitcase away, trying to close it, like this is all dependent on the suitcase. It could probably be very funny to someone else.

🌙

Ilya is lounging on a bench in the bitter cold of the backyard porch, playing a game on his phone. Shane is on the couch inside, doing something important on his laptop.

Ilya’s phone rings. When he looks down, he sees that it is Alexei. He thinks for a second, then picks up and presses the screen to his numb ear.

He hears Alexei breathe. Neither of them speak. The phone crackles and sighs. Finally, Alexei says, “Polina is seeing a new boyfriend.”

Ilya lets Alexei talk shit for a bit. He doesn’t encourage him, doesn’t discourage him. There are painful, lagging pauses between topics.

“Are you training in Valencia again?”

Ilya rolls his neck. That camp is in June. He only went for two years, and those were probably the worst years of his life. “No. I’ve got my off-weeks blocked out.”

“Vacation with your boyfriend?”

Ilya says: “Yup.”

Alexei swears. Ilya shuts his eyes. He’s smiling a bitter smile, a sad and bitter smile. He thumbs at the corner of his eye. “How’s Masha?” —Alexei’s wife.

“A total fucking bitch.”

Hah. Ilya feels his mouth wobble. “You chose to marry her.”

“Before she became crazy.”

Ilya could say, like Mama?, and ruin their relationship for another six months. Instead, he says, “My boyfriend isn’t crazy.”

“Okay, fag.”

“My boyfriend treats me great. He buys me gold jewelry."

Alexei sounds disgusted. “Don’t tell me about it. Jesus.”

Ilya lets his head fall back. “I’m not serious.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m not gay.”

“Ilyuhka,” Alexei tries. “Just shut up. You really piss me off.”

But neither of them hangs up. The conversation continues in splutters and chokes, pitching forward then tangling back to a halt. Ilya’s eyes are burning. It’s not like it’s pleasant to talk to Alexei. It’s not like they share any good memories. Alexei made Ilya’s life worse for a long, long time.

All the same, there was a time when Ilya dreamed that Alexei would protect him. The battleground of their childhood was difficult to weather alone. They had each other, technically. Quite often, when Mama was in a mood and Papa was looking for someone to blame, they were forced to join their efforts. In some universe, this teamwork could have gone further. They could have taken care of each other. 

It’s an unformed daydream, clumsy and childish. Ilya doesn’t let himself retreat there often. The what-ifs spiral too quickly: what if Alexei had helped him. What if Mama had been happy. And that’s too foreign, too ungrounded of a thought. Ilya’s entire life has been built around Mama’s sadness. To shift these details would re-arrange everything that he knows now; it throws everything up in the air. Hockey would be different. Shane would be different. The jagged chasms that Ilya has rooted his entire life in would close and reappear elsewhere. The Ilya that lives in that world would be a stranger.

When the call ends, Ilya looks to Shane, perched stiffly on the couch. They meet eyes as Shane conspicuously cranes his head to peer through the window. He’s worrying his lip as Ilya slips inside and climbs into his lap.

Shane’s eyebrows are pinched; he cups his hands around Ilya’s waist. “Was that…”

Ilya keeps his exhale noiseless. “My brother. Yes.”

“Oh.”

Disconnected, Ilya waits for Shane to continue.

“How is he?”

Ilya shrugs. “Terrible. Embarrassing.”

“Did he upset you?”

Ilya has an urgent itch to make fun of the question, to sever this conversation. He swallows it, then surprises himself when he answers: “Yes. He does. I guess.”

Shane stares at him, a wrinkle deepening between his eyebrows. “I really don’t get why you still talk to him.”

Ilya looks away. 

“He’s my brother, you know.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Shane shake his head. “No, sorry, I guess I don’t. Didn’t he… I mean, didn’t you say you were cutting off contact?”

Ilya has told Shane a little about Alexei, enough to get a smudgy idea. He’s skipped the brunt of it and he intends to take the details to his grave. There’s just no need, no need to talk about those years.

Ilya shakes his head back. “No more money. Promise.”

“That’s not—that’s not what ‘cutting off contact’ means.”

“He’s my brother. He’s my mother’s son. We grew up together.”

“But he was awful to you.”

Yes. Ilya doesn’t need to be reminded. A caustic retort would be very easy right now, but Ilya once again doesn’t do it. Beneath him, Shane’s thighs bunch and relax. 

Ilya runs his fingers through the hair on the back of Shane’s head. He tilts his face in for a kiss. Shane is unhappy, his mouth stiff, barely reciprocating. Ilya pecks and nibbles at his bottom lip until Shane starts to move against him. They hump each other a little bit on the couch, then break away for lunch. Shane starts to talk at length about his new nutritionist. He seems to have forgotten the conversation topic beforehand. Ilya still feels troubled about the call, but is grateful Shane has lost track of that line of questioning. They have a nice day afterwards.

🌙

Alexei started playing hockey first. He was put into lessons when he was five. Ilya joined a year later.

Alexei was big and aggressive, weak on offense but a formidable defender. He was not a coachable player. By the time he was twelve and Ilya was ten, they were playing on the same team—Ilya on the first line and the powerplay, Alexei on the third. 

Hockey lessons stopped for Alexei that year. Papa made no attempt to disguise the reason: money was tight, Ilya was better. 

Alexei hadn’t seen the decision coming. Following it, he grew nasty and distant. He made new terrible friends at school. He never forgave Ilya.

And Mama got exponentially worse. Her delusions grew crazier, sicker. She insisted that her boys follow strange habits to protect themselves. She unscrewed the lightbulbs and put tape over the sockets. She didn’t pick up the phone for anybody, said there were demons on the other line. She had sobbing fits every night, sobbed herself to sleep.

Ilya and Alexei talked her down. They assured over and over that they loved her, that no one would come to kill her. Papa avoided her, and when he did talk to her, scared her and told her things that made her worse.

Ilya’s only hope was hockey. The only good thing in his life was hockey. He dreamed about it. He felt so free and safe under his helmet when he was skating fast, dodging players, stickhandling through the zones. He was good, he could get pucks where no one else could, he could read the other players’ bodies. He knew that when he made it to the KHL, he would make enough money to afford Mama the best doctors, and they would cure her for good.

Alexei had no relief. Life had been crueler to him. He couldn’t escape to practice after school, to tournaments on the weekends, to summer training camps.

Once, Ilya came home to Mama acting brittle and icy. She was upset, clearly, and had been for enough time to work herself up. She was jerkily moving between rooms, searching for something. Ilya understood where this was heading. He was scared, and ran to get Alexei.

But when Ilya pushed over his door and went to his bed, Alexei didn’t respond. Ilya had to roll him over, only to discover blown-open and glassy eyes, spit-slick lips. 

“Lyosha.”

And there was no response. Alexei was vacant, didn’t even seem to be awake. Ilya hit him on the chest, on the face with clammy palms.

“Lyosha, what the fuck is happening?”

It takes a long time for Alexei’s melting face to wake to attention, to point towards Ilya. He’s grinning, distant and dumb.

“Did—are you—?”

“Mam won’t take pills,” Alexei slurs, pleased.

Ilya knows his mouth has fallen open. “What the fuck?”

“Even though they’re sooooo great.”

“Are you fucking stupid? Papa will kill you.”

Alexei seems to swell even further at this. A mean and assured certainty emerges. “Probably.”

Ilya’s heart pounds in the base of his throat. 

“Mama is freaking out. You need to come.”

Ilya watches the shutters slam closed on Alexei’s face. 

“No.”

Ilya’s breaths are hitching. “What do you mean, no? Lyosha, Lyosha, please, come.”

”Fuck off. Fuck off.”

“I need—You need to help. Lyosha, you need to come help me.” Ilya feels panic grip his chest. “You…”

Alexei’s waving a clammy hand. “You do it. You’re fine.”

“Lyosha.”

“You don’t need me. She listens to you. She loves you.”

Ilya thumps Alexei’s arm, as hard as he can muster. “You need to come. I don’t want to do it.”

Finally, a faint ripple on Alexei’s face, a stirring deep below the surface. “I’ve had to do it a lot more than you have. I’m older. You didn’t understand anything for so long. You still fucking don’t, you baby, you fucking baby. Go do it, I’m not, I’m not going, I won’t see her. She listens to you, her fucking angel, right? Her baby.”

Ilya’s entire body is trembling like a live wire. “You’re her baby too.”

Alexei’s face is twisted. 

“Go away. You’re wasting time.”

And Ilya had finally slipped off the bed, numb and disbelieving. 

He went and dealt with it, and it had gone fine. He didn’t need Alexei in the end.

And so followed the months, the years, all more of the same: she heard voices in the pipes and messages on the street signs and every misplaced item was a nefarious plot and every dream was an omen of death. She got lost in the house, paced the length of the kitchen, went grocery shopping twice a day in her pajamas, in a classy skirt with heels, in her bathrobe—always humiliating, but better than the weeks she wouldn’t get out of bed at all. She watched the news, let it upset her. She packed the suitcase and unpacked it and packed it and unpacked it. Her and Papa had screaming matches, throwing plates at the wall. Ilya marveled that she always made plans to kill herself when either him or Alexei was home to talk her down. Maybe some part of her wanted to be stopped, which wasn’t a thought that could carry momentum for long. She was miserable. She was so sad, all of the time, and it filled the house like a poison.

Nothing could fix her. No one even tried anymore. All their efforts were spent to just keep her from dying.

🌙

“Do you have any plans for Christmas?” Shane asks over the phone. Ilya is cuddled up in bed, his warm phone screen centimeters from his nose, Shane’s blurry pixels swarm.

“Russian Christmas is different time, January seventh.”

Shane lifts his head. “Really?”

“Yes. We do the, ah, the other calendar.”

Shane hums happily. “I didn’t know that. We can do two Christmases then. What do you usually do on the twenty-fourth?”

Ilya shrugs. “Just hang out.”

“With Svetlana?”

“Just whoever.”

Shane lets the pause stretch for a second, before telling Ilya, in a gentle and satisfied voice, “You should come spend it with us.”

It feels like Ilya’s insides are getting pulled out slowly. He doesn’t respond. Shane continues.

“You don’t typically go back there for the holidays, right?”

“No.”

“Would you, if you could?”

Ilya scratches his face. “Maybe no.”

Shane’s face is growing serious. “Your family…”

Ilya injects some humor into it. “You know, is no fun to see them.”

It’s about as mild as Ilya could put it, but still his Shane looks upset. 

Shane’s frowning. In the foreground, Ilya can see how Shane’s fingers curl around his pillow. Ilya can tell that Shane is thinking, thinking hard, frustrated at whatever conclusion he’s reaching. For Shane, whose family is so central to the way he approaches his life, to hear about Ilya’s fragmented home must make him feel uncomfortable, and sorry. He might have the thought that Ilya deserved something better. 

Ilya squeezes his eyes shut. He buries his head into the fold of his arms and rocks himself back and forth.

It’s no good to think about things like that. Too raw and out of place. It only hurts.

Ilya says, “I will come with you to Christmas.”

🌙

Christmas at home was a formality, a time of stiff dinners. 

Mama had to get dressed to attend the parties. She would put curlers in her hair, put makeup on her eyelids, pull on heavy sequined dresses, clasp gold pendants around her neck. She was glamorous, silent, as beautiful as a movie star. 

This is what the years were composed of. Against her will, they dragged her miserable corpse around the city. Even as she pleaded that life had been nothing but torture, that it was cruel and sick to force her out of bed every morning, to make her eat her breakfast and drink her tea, to dress in clothes and stand in corners of the house as guests mingled, to keep her there every day as some strange prisoner, some sadistic joke, some dancing pet, they kept doing it. They kept her alive, bitterly alive, imprisoned in life.

There were nights where she left, took the car and left, she really left, and then she would reappear a few days later, unscathed and unwilling to say where she had been. Soon, this became routine too.

She got worse in the winters.

When she freaked out, Ilya would stand with his hands braced against her bedroom doorframe to prevent her from leaving. He stared listlessly past her as she cried. She accused him of hating her, of plotting to kill her; he had no energy to respond.

By the end, Ilya offered her no comfort. He didn’t touch her—not to hold her or to beat her. He would stand like a tin soldier. He would think about other things, like girls or hockey, as she shook crazily, saying things like she wished she was never born. 

She’d tire herself out. She would promise that she wasn’t going to leave, but her promises meant nothing. Ilya would wait until she was asleep. Then, he would turn off her lights and shut her door. He went to his own bedroom and fell asleep. In the morning, they wouldn’t talk about it.

They had been doing this dance for years. It was only logical that eventually the alarm ebbed away. Ilya had been exhausted into vacancy. There was no undue panic. It was only a matter of time. Happiness was a ghost. 

Anyway, he knew Mama had a short memory for good and bad things both; one night would not leave a mark. And indeed, nothing did in the end, only that she outgrew the constraint for it to be done away from home. When Ilya walked into her bedroom a few months later and saw the cold and stiff slump of her body—he knew instantly, didn’t need to take another look.

Death was a brother to Ilya and Alexei. Ilya could recognize it anywhere. 

🌙

In Russia, the primary gift-giving day is on New Year’s. This year, Ilya buys presents in early December to have them ready for Western Christmas.

For David: new golf clubs. For Yuna: luxury Bvlgari pearl-drop earrings. For Shane: a new rowing machine with customized dampers and an ergonomic handle. And, only half-joking, also a giant vibrating dildo.

Ilya did think about each gift, quite a lot. He wants to impress them. He wants to show that he can be a good son.

For Christmas Eve, Yuna and David’s house is aglow with orange light. The fireplace crackles. The smell of salty food drifts through the air. Jazz music is playing from the speakers overhead. Shane has a glass of wine before dinner, and is very cuddly.

It all looks like a very happy affair. They seem so excited to be here, and are laughing often, and touching each other frequently: a hand on the shoulder, hugs in greeting, presents and sentimental cards from smiling neighbors.

Ilya knows that here, he is a loose cog, an extra puzzle piece. Ilya needs to show them that he can mold himself in. That he can make this fit.

He doesn’t curse. He dresses tastefully. He says please and thank you. He helps cook, helps tidy up.

Shane finds it funny. “You’re so stiff,” he says as he pinches Ilya’s shoulder. They’re intertwined on the couch. “You can relax. Have some wine.”

“I am relax. Is okay.” 

And it’s true. Ilya is just conscious. He’s being careful.

Ilya responds to a text from Alexei. Ilya says that he is celebrating Christmas and sends a picture of the tree. Over his shoulder, Shane watches him type in Cyrillic.

“How is he?” Shane asks, his discontent poorly disguised.

Ilya turns his head to nuzzle Shane’s cheek, turning his phone off. “Who cares.”

“Hm. What are you talking about?”

“Russian holidays. I sent money for my niece, for her present.”

“Ilya.” Shane pulls away, looking grave.

He waves his hand around. “No biggie. My choice. Centaurs will give me pay raise, you know?”

He sees Shane start to protest, so he shoves him down onto the cushions with as much force as he can. They grapple for a bit, then stop once Shane comes close to knocking over a ceramic vase. Despite his nagging and hand-wringing, Shane is very easy to distract. Ilya pushes a hand up the back of Shane’s shirt and pets the ridge of his spine. Shane lets out a happy sound, pulling Ilya closer.

Ilya knows Shane will never understand his relationship with his brother. Shane wants him to be righteous and selfish, to sever all conversation, to leave them all behind.

What Shane doesn’t understand: the glut of good reasons to do so isn’t enough. Hatred is heavy; Ilya lets it slide out of his grip. It is more tolerable to live this way, to not hate Alexei, to not hate Mama. Where would Ilya be if he did? Stranded, countryless. A wanderer.

Alexei is an access point. They have shared history. Alexei knows parts of Ilya better than anyone else ever will, even—and maybe especially—Shane.

It’s a terrible intimacy. Ilya sees the coke and the parties, the strippers of course, screaming at a half-dead and drooling Papa, the dried vomit in the toilet bowl. But, mostly, Ilya remembers the young years. He remembers Alexei peeled open and tiny, begging and bargaining, pulling away the suitcase.

Ilya doesn’t talk about those days. He presses his face into the bright smell of Shane’s sweatshirt. The Hollanders are a happy family. They wouldn’t know what to say. 

Ilya wants it this way. He wants them ignorant. He wants them to keep folding him into their happy lives, lives of mundanity and steady routine, of board games and one glass of wine with dinner, lives spent watching sit-coms and football in the backyard. Ilya wants it so badly. He wants to be so ingrained in Shane’s family that it would creep back into the past and rewrite his own childhood, rearrange the details and alter the photos; that it would erase every fractured memory and every spoiled dinner, every screaming fit exchanged for a family beach trip, every socialite humiliation replaced with a visit to the shopping mall. A good life, like a life from a picture book.

Ilya wants to devour from Shane every golden moment he can, and maybe Yuna can see it. She’s shrewd. Maybe she did what Ilya intends to do, wielded David like a weapon and shook off some terrible past; maybe, she recognizes the pitch of hunger in Ilya’s voice, the scheme in his eye. If Ilya was her, he wouldn’t want a stranger in their home either. He would protect Shane, and David too. He would be smart and suspicious, would never turn his back, would sleep with one eye open.

Dinner begins.

The meal is expansive, but home-cooked. Dishes are crammed over the table, ham and roasted sweet potatoes and pea soup. Ilya loads his plate and gets to work. It gives him a good excuse to not talk, to only have to listen to the friendly back-and-forth. Christmas adds a glimmer over the domesticity of the meal.

They discuss the new woman that David’s brother just married, his third in ten years. They talk about a prodigal cousin on Yuna’s side. More prodigal than myself, she clarifies, her voice a strange cocktail of humor and bitterness. Hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey, as well. 

David asks, “Ilya, are there any fun Russian traditions for Christmas?”

Ilya is pleased to be asked this. He talks about kutia, a sweet porridge made from barley, and blini, thin Russian pancakes. He shares a story of his cousins playing games in the snow.

“Did you have a big family?” David asks.

“No, but my father was close with other families,” Ilya says carefully. “We had holidays with them.”

“He worked in politics?” was the easy response. How simple it sounded in David’s words.

Ilya nods. “Yes.”

“Like you, Dad,” Shane smiles. 

Not really, but Ilya lets it go.

“What did your mom do for work?” Yuna asks as she gathers up the last bites of her salad on her plate. 

And it hits Ilya that he doesn’t know.

His stomach plummets. He doesn’t know. She was too sick to work by the final years—but had she worked before? Probably not, probably was just Papa’s full-time wife, but he knows they were married when she was twenty-three. She must have done something in the years before. 

Ilya wracks his brain, sick. He has no guess. He knows she did ballet when she was young. Did that mean after school, or was she actually a dancer? It sounds too picturesque. Probably, she was a secretary somewhere. She’s never mentioned anything, but there’s a lot she didn’t talk about.

What kind of a son is Ilya, that he doesn’t know this?

“Hey.” Shane’s palm warms the top of Ilya’s thigh. It stays there, heavy. He glances at his parents. Everyone looks embarrassed. “It’s okay, let’s talk about something else. Um, Dad, you mentioned earlier that…”

And he said something boring, and David responded with something boring, and Yuna’s eyes were still on Ilya. All Ilya can hear is the rasp of his own breathing. What a shitty son he must seem like, so careless, so unloving. He wants to beg. He wants to say: I took care of her. I kept her alive, for so long.

The distance of the years only sharpens this pain. It hurts so much that Ilya could know so little about someone who meant so much to him.

Yuna taps the table lightly. “I’m going to tidy up a bit.” She rises to her feet and sweeps along to the kitchen. Ilya watches her go. After a second of deliberation, he gathers his plate and stands up to follow.

She’s stacking pots in the sink. She gives him a smile in greeting, but says nothing. Ilya puts his down with as little noise as possible.

“Sorry about dinner.” Ilya nods his head towards the dining room.

She pauses, her brow furrowing. 

“No need to apologize. Sorry about—” She pauses, then grimaces in reference. Ilya shakes his head.

Yuna pauses, deliberating. Then, she says: “I wish she could be with us today.”

It lands like a welt. What the hell is wrong with Canadians. Ilya digs his blunt nails into his palm. He takes measured breaths. When he trusts himself to speak, all he says is, “Me too,” even though he doesn’t really mean it.

He doesn’t. Mama was bad during the winters and had such strange delusions by the end. She would have said something upsetting. The picture card perfection of the Hollanders would have stressed her out. They would have spent the whole meal dancing around her. 

“Thank you for Christmas,” Ilya says, in a weak voice.

Yuna frowns. “Yeah, of course. We like having you.”

Ilya’s upper lip is starting to sweat. “I like being here.”

“Well… good. You’re always welcome.” 

She says it blandly. The furrow is still in her brow. Ilya waits her out. Eventually, she yields.

“Sorry if I come across as—” she waves a hand around, “I don’t know. Too much.”

Ilya shakes his head insistently. “No.”

Her sweater looks soft and worn-in. “I know I can be cold. I’m just always thinking and worrying about him. The both of you.”

“You’re not cold.” 

Ilya shifts futilely against the weight of all he wants to say. “I’m sure Shane was… very happy kid.”

Yuna’s bark of laughter is surprised and sharp. Ilya stills. But her face isn’t turned to him. She’s looking down at the dishes. Her smile is growing bitter.

“Oh, well. No. Not really.” Her eyes are sad. “I guess you wouldn’t know. Things were—things were difficult, when he was little.”

Ilya swallows. 

“I am sure that is not true.”

Her brow pinches. A manicured hand rests on his counter, tapping it absent-mindedly. “Shane didn’t talk until he was three. You know? And he would cry…”

Ilya nods, unsure.

”He would cry. Scream and scream for hours, about anything. He didn’t like anything changing, totally freaked out. Daycare didn’t work, it just didn’t, he couldn’t do it. I had to quit my job. All those tantrums, and he wasn’t talking so he would just hit things, he would hit me. He was so stressed as a baby, he was chronically constipated. It sounds funny but it wasn’t fucking funny. His belly distended. Months after he was potty-trained, he would still soil his pants. I mean, fuck!”

Yuna flinches. “Sorry. Fuck. All the moms hated me, they thought I was doing something wrong. Like I was abusive. I had no friends anymore. Shane wasn’t even my friend. He would act like I was murdering him if I tried to get him to eat a vegetable, or to take a bath, or take a shit. Every day was torture. It was just torture. Nothing ever went well.”

Her hand rubs her face. “Nothing. And then we put him on skates.”

Ilya nods. 

The information feels precious.

David knew about hockey. Yuna knew about the rest. She knew how to get him in the car. She knew what to tell him to say in the interviews. Shane outgrew David’s coaching advice, but Ilya sees how Shane never needed to overgrow Yuna’s competent hand, Yuna’s razor-sharp and implementable advice, Yuna’s forceful direction. Yuna made his life into a well-oiled machine. 

She gave him so much attention, since the beginning. The thought makes Ilya want to cry. So much time, so much money, so much effort, so much direction—so much love. 

But she looks haggard. Exhausted even by the memory.

“I didn’t understand him then,” Yuna whispers. “And I don’t understand him now.”

A jolt of panic. “No, is not…”

“It is true.” She rubs her face. “I didn’t even know about you. And now you’re all he talks about. So how much did I not hear? I never knew him. I never understood him.”

Ilya flames with humiliation, with terror. He was right; he is hurting this family. “No, he loves you. Ms. Hollander—he loves you. He was happy baby.”

“He didn’t feel like he could talk to me.”

Her voice is growing thick, ridged with tears. Ilya takes a panicked step forward: finally, her eyes fly to meet him as she continues. “He didn’t feel like he could talk to me. I don’t even know him.”

“It wasn’t that,” Ilya pleads. “He was very scared about hockey.”

“I know about hockey. I could help.”

Fuck.

“No,” Ilya whispers. “It is me. Me. I tell him not to say anything. It is my fault.”

She blinks. Her gaze sharpens, focuses in. She’s suddenly boring down at his face, studying the pores of it. Ilya feels his expression morph and cycle in panic, trying to find something to settle on. But still her face is falling.

“Ilya,” she chastises softly.

He feels himself grow mute in panic. Does she not believe him?

Instead of answering or explaining, she rests a cool hand on his arm. Ilya doesn’t know what the gesture is supposed to mean. 

“Don’t be angry with Shane,” Ilya croaks. “He is good son.”

Something resigned and exhausted seems to settle on her as she takes him in, a distant realization dawning. Her brow is folded.

“That’s nice of you to say, Ilya.”

Ilya pleads, “He loves you.”

Her laugh is self-deprecating. “Don’t worry. I love him. All that I do is for him. All I think about is him. Before, and now. My job, my pleasure is him.”

Yuna suddenly seems so small and so tired. She looks ordinary. To make Shane happy—of course. Ilya had, once again, overestimated his own importance. She was focused on Shane; Ilya was getting in the way.

Ilya wets his mouth, then carefully says: “I will help too. I promise to work very hard for you. And for Shane.”

Her eyes shift to him.

“You’re sweet.”

Ilya insists, “I love Shane. I will help.”

“I know. You’re moving to Ottawa.”

Ilya nods, glazed over, unable to speak. He’s moving to Ottawa.

“I will help,” Ilya repeats.

She rubs her forehead. “Honey, come on. I think—there might not be anything to fix.”

It makes Ilya nearly sick to hear those words, even though he barely understands what she’s talking about.

“Miss…”

“I don’t know. It’s just the process, right?” She looks coaxing and miserable. “I’ll keep having less and less of him. He’s growing further away from me.”

Ilya can see the glimmer of tears in her eyes. “He’s someone bigger than my son.”

Ilya has been trying to do a lot with very little information. His brain hurts as he rearranges everything, lining it up with what she’s saying. It echoes what he suspected in the beginning: Yuna was Shane’s most important person for his entire life. Ilya serves as a threat to that. Ilya is proof that Shane is leaving her. 

Ilya’s breathing is ragged.

Yuna must know how it feels from the other side as well; to be a son leaving a home. The distance hurts from any direction. 

Ilya thinks about his parents, how he used to sleep in their bedroom. Maybe, what she doesn’t want to realize is that the reverse isn't a relief either. It feels worse to stay. There’s no way out unscathed.

“Sometimes,” Ilya says, “it still feel like all I am is my mother’s son.”

He shouldn’t be saying it. She couldn’t possibly understand what he means: Ilya hasn’t told anyone about any of it, any of his life, like the pain won’t leak out if no one knows the details.

But her eyes soften. Her hand turns over to cradle Ilya’s elbow, like it’s prepared to support weight.

“Yeah?”

She’s prompting because she wants to know more. But Ilya shakes his head, absolutely mute. There’s no universe, no universe where he can talk about this. He moved to America to forget.

After a while, she seems to understand. Ilya feels them both circle back to the previous topic, and then Ilya feels both of them resign it to be dropped. There’s nothing more to say; nothing will change or be fixed.

Just as Ilya is preparing to go back to the dining room, Yuna gives his arm a squeeze.

When he turns to look at her, he finds a soft and sad expression.

“Baby,” she whispers. “I get the feeling that you’ve been having a difficult time.”

Ilya freezes.

“I just hope you’re talking to someone,” Yuna continues. “Shane, or… You know we’re always here.”

Ilya’s ears roar. He doesn’t know what to say. How little time she’s spent with him, and already she’s managed to hook a claw into the surface.

“You and him will have a good life together.” She wipes her face. A small part of her must hate him as she says this. “You and him care for each other. I wish you both a lot of happiness.”

The lump in Ilya’s throat is hard and painful. 

“It came from you first. The happiness.”

This new family would drag Ilya ashore. He sees it now. The thought is red-hot, like rapture.

Yuna gives him a look, like he’s being silly. “Ilya. You make plenty of happiness yourself.”

🌙

Shane and Ilya drive home in silence. Ilya cradles Shane’s hand between his palms, tracing his fingers, the lines of his knuckles, the beds of his perfect fingernails. The road is dark and empty. The car feels like a private room.

At home, they fall into bed. Naked, quiet, the ache so sweet, they move together, lips parted against each other, joined so close that they had no need to speak. Ilya loves this body before him so desperately. He loved its curves and dips, its scarred plains, its firm lines. He loves the rough and tumble, he loves the kiss and caress.

Intertwined so close, Ilya can feel the brush of Shane’s eyelashes. He can hear his racehorse heart. They talk, slow-blinking at each other over the pillow.

It’s intimacy like Ilya has never had before, with anyone. Everything was funny, everything was genuine; humor could flow in and out of tenderness without distinction. They talked, and they listened, and then they were quiet. 

The silence was treated with as much gravity as speech. This was the kind of love that Ilya had now.

Maybe the hurting days were over.

Shane’s dark eyes are glittering, creased in the corners.

“Tonight was great,” Shane smiles. “Merry Christmas.”

Ilya pulls Shane’s hand onto his face. “Merry Christmas.”

“I can’t wait for you to open my present.”

A present for Ilya. He has no guess for what it could be. He will die if it is more expensive than the rowing machine.

Ilya tucks his face into the cradle of Shane’s palm. “I love you.”

For a second, he’s convinced Shane will laugh at him.

Of course, Shane doesn’t. He smiles and says, “I love you too, Ilya. A lot.”

Ilya nods, glassy. Shane hands out these moments so easily, like they cost nothing. Ilya imagines a house where love is traded freely between people, not quantified or counted, just thoughtless gifts, endless giving, serene in the certainty that it will make its way back to you. He couldn’t believe it could be true, he just couldn’t—but then, what was staring back at him, in this very moment? What kind of house did he find himself in? When he’s here, Ilya can barely trust the evidence of his eyes and ears, but there’s so much proof, so much of it, pouring from every moment, every detail, a feast of love, to the point where he’s lost track.

Ilya bows his head, pressing it against Shane’s cool forearm. “Shane…”

“What?”

“Shane.”

“What?!”

Ilya shuts his eyes. “I will do anything for you.”

He feels Shane hesitate. Then, a warm hand rubs the curls on the back of Ilya’s head. “Oh? Well, that sounds nice. I could get used to that.”

Ilya shakes his head. “Is no joke. Okay? No joke. Anything.”

There’s a pause.

Ilya says, “Anything.”

“Hey.” Shane nudges his shoulders, pulls Ilya up until he’s staring at Shane. That fucking tone.

Ilya’s gripping Shane’s arm, too-hard, digging his fingers in. “I will never give up on you.”

Shane touches Ilya’s face, alarmed. “No one’s giving up. Why are you talking like this? Hey, we’re okay. Nothing’s happening.”

Ilya shakes his head meaninglessly. Shane is touching his face. He croaks, “I just…”

“What?”

“I never want to lose you. I don’t want to go back.”

Shane’s eyes are starting to gleam with concern. “You’re not. You’re not, baby.”

Ilya bends his face down.

Ilya can feel Shane’s brain working, puffing as hard as it can. Finally: “Is this…” he tries. “This is about my mom? Did she say something to you?”

Ilya shuts his eyes. “No.”

“You guys talked for a while in the kitchen.”

“It was good talk.” Ilya swipes his thumb over Shane’s arm. “Good talk. She is good mother.”

“What did she say?”

Ilya lifts his head. He pinches Shane’s cheek, letting his voice lift up in a coo, trying to drag the conversation away. “She tell me about you, as baby. Very cute baby.”

No dice. Shane’s face is set in his frown.

“Did she mention GQ? I told her to drop that.”

Ilya shakes his head.

“Ignore her if she does. She thinks a lot about things that seem weird,” Shane insists. “But she means well. I know she’s intense. She’s good with money, but—but I have enough money, you know?”

Ilya says, weakly, “She just worries.”

“Ugh. I’m okay. I’ve been okay for a while.”

“She worries about you having boyfriend,” Ilya tries to inject a teasing note into it, but his voice wobbles.

Shane looks at him fiercely. “Well, that’s my business. You’re my boyfriend and that’s that.”

“What if… what if she is upset?”

“She’s not.”

“But, what if?”

Shane’s brow darkens. “Well, then she can deal with it!”

He suddenly feels miserable and exhausted. “Shane. No.”

Shane huffs, stubborn. “Even if she said she would hate you forever, I would still choose to be with you.”

Ilya turns away. “Don’t say this.”

“I mean it.”

“No, don’t talk like this. A mother is too important,” Ilya insists, and sees the moment when Shane’s frame softens. Shane reaches over a hand to rest on Ilya’s forearm. He says, “Hey.”

Ilya turns his face further away, hateful. He doesn’t like this new development, where every mention of any mother anywhere has Shane frowning, cooing and syrupy, like he feels so bad that Ilya’s an orphan, that Ilya has starved off scapes and begging at the table where Shane dines every night like a king.

Shane pulls him forward and studies him, overly close. 

A second later, Ilya can feel his anger collapsing. 

It makes Ilya feel desperately hopeful: that his anger can never last around Shane. Already, Ilya could count the ways that Shane was making him better, making him anew.

Shane’s face is serious.

“I didn’t think about how it might be difficult for you to hear about me and Mom. I’m sorry.”

Ilya has to force himself to not squirm away. “Is okay.”

“Is it weird?”

Ilya tells himself to be honest; he likes this character he can assume when they’re at the cottage. “I guess. A little.”

Shane nods softly. “You know you can talk to me about everything. I want to know what things were like for you. As a kid.”

Ilya touches Shane’s cheek.

What things were like. Well, there were happy memories few and far between: nice dinners, big laughter erupting at a good joke, a trip to the museum. These memories were swallowed up by the shadow of the bad nights, of the close calls. They didn’t hold any weight. 

Ilya runs his blunt fingernails through Shane’s smooth, short hair. His face is earnest and tender. Ilya has absolutely no intention of telling Shane about any of it. By design, Ilya himself doesn’t even remember many of the details. There was just no point. Ilya was in America, living in Shane’s cottage over the summers. Ilya had a different life now. It would do him no good to look back on those years. It would only hurt.

Ilya pulls him in and gives him a sweet, small kiss. Shane’s upper lip is scratchy with stubble. It is unbelievable, sometimes, how much Ilya’s new happiness is so huge and so white-hot, so intensely painful. Ilya could have never imagined this life for himself when he was a child: a thought that burned, then cauterized.

Shane pulls away, steadily focused, always so sweetly focused. “I’m serious, baby.”

Ilya rubs his thumb in front of Shane’s ear. He whispers, “I know.”

Shane’s eyes look glassy. “You know, I get the feeling that—that your childhood was really hard. I want to hear about it. I want to help.”

Ilya digs into his skin with a little more pressure. He feels a traitorous wobble in his bottom lip. “I know.”

“I want to help.”

Jesus Christ.

“I know.”

Shane wets his lip. “I’m your family now. I can be. We’ll make new memories.”

Ilya doesn’t dare to blink. He presses every detail of this moment into his mind, preserving it.

“We’ve been… together for five months, Shane.”

Shane’s dark eyes are hard and knowing. “And the ten years before that?”

The furrow in Shane’s brow has deepened. Ilya’s heart, too, the bottom of it is unfurling, so painful that it’s hard to breathe. Shane, dear Shane, Shane that has never been anything but loved. David has never raised his voice, Yuna has never packed a suitcase. Ilya feels his eyes burning. Shane has never had a day on this Earth where he has not been loved, and Ilya intends to keep it that way. 

Despite his best efforts, Ilya has been thinking about his childhood frequently over the last few months. His childhood of halves—mangled, vivid, disorganized. It probably shaped a lot of him. It’s a sad thought, that Ilya’s personhood is so dependent on his suffering that, without it, Ilya would be someone else.

Whatever could be said for his childhood, it still must be true that the pain had contorted Ilya into the person that Shane now loves. It wasn’t the only influence, but it wasn’t negligible. The pain made the person that Shane loves, so it must have been worth it. 

Shane could justify this. Ilya can see how Shane will justify this.

“Let me show you a picture of her.”

Shane’s unmoving, the way he gets when he’s being very careful with his words. “Yeah. I would love that.”

Ilya slips out of bed and pulls on a clean pair of boxers. He goes into the office to get his laptop. He knows exactly which one to show.

Sitting in the dark room, he opens his files and scrolls through the tiny thumbnail images. He hadn’t looked through these pictures in a couple of years. He could still remember this one clearly: her glamorous coat, her smoky make-up. It was taken at a friend’s dinner. Ilya knew that she looked regal, like a queen. It was his favorite picture of her for a long time. During his first years in America, he would look at it every week.

He finds the file and opens it. His eyes are fresh as he takes it in.

And after a second, his heart sinks.

It is different from how he remembered. She looks thin, gray, and dull. 

The picture had been taken less than six months before she died. Ilya stares at it until his eyes blurred with tears. She looks so tired. It hits him anew at how unhappy she had been. It hits him anew: she’s dead, and never coming back.

It’s been fifteen years that she’s been gone. Ilya can’t believe how fresh it feels; a wound that ages and sours, but never closes. The enormity of it still cracks his chest open. She’s gone. She really is gone.

She died and now stands still. He’s alive and must always keep moving. Every time Ilya looks back, she’s further away than before. He doesn’t have memories of her anymore: he has memories of memories of memories. He has pictures. They’re faded, they’re warped. When he arranges them up, it seems like so little, not enough, not enough to last the rest of his life. 

Ilya shuts the laptop and pushes it away. He lets his head knock against the steady wood of the table. No good, no good.

Shane is waiting in the other room. There was nothing else to do. His past, though he couldn’t leave it behind, mostly hurt to think back on. Carrying these suitcases of memory wore him out—though he knew he could never let them go. He would toil them forward for the rest of his life. Ilya stands and walks back with the laptop to Shane—Shane, waiting, warm in their sheets.

Ilya’s life kept dying and kept being reborn into these strange, new forms. His decades contrasted each other insanely. He has no guess for how the rest of it will go, no guess for what kind of person Shane will make out of him.

It is a new time. Nowadays Ilya drinks tea, and eats quinoa salad, and keeps blue-light glasses on his bedside table. Ilya takes vitamins and doesn’t buy condoms. Ilya dreams in English. Ilya looks at wedding rings. Ilya gets out of bed. Ilya kisses with his eyes open.