Chapter Text
"Truth or dare?", the burly guy already growing a beard named Marlow asked. Ilya furrowed his eyebrows, "Truth." His voice came out clipped and richly jagged almost like a mischievous growl. He was still shy, at the beginning of developing the bravado and untrained by PR.
"If you could talk to anyone at any point in history, who would you have dinner with?"
Ilya looked around at the lanky builds and acne freckled faces. These were the other boys his age, on trial for a hockey team test run in Canada. Each one of them wanted to make it big. That was a relatively tame question for truth or dare, Ilya thought. His answer populated immediately in his mind, Mama.
He lied and ran his tongue along his teeth before replying, "Dwane Johnson." It earned a couple nods of approval.
The boys were given a chance to mingle after spending time together at dinner. Ilya chose to leave and walked home, back to the temporary apartment he entered a day ago. The sunset in Canada was more windy than cold. Ilya was past the point of caring. His breath did not create a puff of dragon smoke exhale like it did in Russia.
He stepped over his bags unceremoniously dumped on the floor.
Ilya knew he was no longer a child now, he was 16 and his father made sure he was aware of what being a young man meant. None of his toys or blankets or childish things of that manner were packed with him. Glancing at the bare, white walls, he briefly entertained the thought of covering it in hockey posters like back home. But since he didn't know how to transport posters without getting the large paper all crinkled up, they were left peeling in his room.
When he rolled his suitcase out the front door, Alexei didn't say a word about how he would miss Ilya to skate at the pond with, or that he was glad to have the TV channels all to himself. Ilya didn't say anything either before the door shut. Svetlana slept over the last night he was in Russia. She made them watch The Princess Diaries again, for the like seventh time. Ilya swore by this point he knew the dialogue by heart too.
She pet his hair and he held her because somehow even though he hadn't really said anything out loud, she knew he was terrified of failing. At the cusp of this potentially life changing opportunity, the depth of his choice teetered between inventing a new version of himself who made it to the NHL or returning home to the walls that witnessed a lot of angry yelling from Papa.
"I don't want to leave you here Svetlana." he murmured, shoulders sinking down. But Svetlana shook her head. "Ilyusha you are my best friend. No distance will change that. None of that. If I was in your shoes, you'd urge me to take this opportunity, yes?"
Ilya nodded. He would just miss the person who practically had a front row seat to how bad family got and loved him in spite of it. She'd seen him show up on her doorstep late, on nights when he just could not take the irritable moods of his father clashing with Alexei's rebellious phase. Svetlana knew. And never once judged or turned him away for it. "Show them who you are.", she told him before they both fell asleep.
Everyone believed in his ability, he had to succeed. Papa would not be able to work forever. He had to make it work in Canada.
The one luxury he afforded himself was his "mom in a bag". It was a ziplock bag with his favorite items of Mama, obviously not counting her golden crucifix hanging around his neck. There was a printed photo of Alexi, himself, and his mama, squatting down to reach their face level at the park. Alexei hoisted Ilya on his back for a piggy-back ride.
This image was burned into his memory. The shade of yellow in her billowing long skirt. Her mole right below her right eye. Her wedding ring glistening in the sun. In this photo, her teeth showed and she was beaming and squishing Ilya's cheek. Usually Irina had a wispy, lips curved up but-not-similing-with-her-eyes in the photos that lined the walls at home.
There was also a yellowed receipt Ilya found in the back of the family coat closet. It was a donation covering a beeswax candle for Divine Liturgy remembrance service. The thin paper was timestamped and dated, it must've belonged to his mother, hastily shoved into her winter pocket during mass.
Ilya wouldn't admit it ever to Alexei or anyone, but when he missed Mama he would push his nose into the soft wool and inhale. When he was small enough to fit, he would shut himself inside of it when Papa was not home.
Ilya recalled holding his mother's hand until it got sticky and warm and being shushed gently at church. He would swing his feet dangling off the pews back and forth, the interior candles casting grand shadows dancing on the wooden and golden statue lined walls. He loved whispering stories with his brother about what shapes saw in the shadows. But then Papa would get angry and sit in the middle of them.
The last item in the bag was Irina's scrawl across a post-it note reminding Grigori that dinner was in the oven as she was responsible for attending the boys' school open house night. It was written very clinically, matter of a factly. A disclaimer, a warning to cover her from her husband's future disappointment if his needs were not met.
Ilya tried to keep tidbits of his mother's touch left in the house. It made Papa angry to be reminded. He would throw it out if he knew about the bag. Ilya thought about taking Irina's perfume bottle he found while cleaning out the bathroom cabinets, but the travel liquid limit would not allow for it.
He barely had enough room in his suitcase to pack for the season. His entire life, condensed in one gray suitcase. The perfume bottle was safely buried in the corner crack of his bed and the wall, wedged in the space beneath.
Ilya's phone went off, breaking him out of the trance. He didn't know why his brain made him think about his mother right now anyways. He was in a completely new country, the furthest he'd ever been away from her.
It was an email from his hockey supervisor, reading that Ilya would be introduced to his Canadian host family, the Hollanders, tomorrow for lunch. Ilya exhaled. He was always more quiet than Alexei when it came to meeting people. There were no missed texts from anyone else.
Sometimes the pang in his heart demanded to be walked down memory lane. For moments where he needed advice and his brain would not let him think about anything other than how life would be better if she was here, Ilya had a little trick.
He opened the contacts on his phone and found his own phone number. The apartment was draped in darkness, other than the stovetop light illuminating a small sliver of warm light. His phone was so bright it made his eyes hurt a little.
Then he would change the contact name to Irina or мама. The final step in this act was to send himself a message of something he wish Mama would say to him.
What did moms in Canada here say? "I don't know..." Ilya mumbled out loud to no one in particular. Probably like what the moms in movies said when their kid was stressed, they asked do you want some ice cream?
The texting curser blinked at him. His thumbs moved on their own accord, spilling out, "I love you my sunshine!" He clicked send, shut his eyes, the emotions surging up and slammed his thumb on the lock screen.
It was easier to pretend this way, that for a moment the text really was real. By all means of visual appearance it was. His phone buzzed, he swiped the screen to see the text staring right back at him.
One text from Mama, reading the household simplistic phrase of I love you my sunshine. His brain began to mix the excitement and belief, before with the crash down seconds later reminding himself it was a simulated text.
As he closed his eyes to sleep, he tried remembering what her voice sounded like. He was very scared of forgetting the tone.