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“What was your mother’s favorite book?”
The question doesn’t come out of nowhere, Yuna’s been making an effort to know him since they started working together on the charity, asking him about his life, both in Boston and in Russia, and, most importantly, about his mother, trying to learn who the woman that gives a name to their charity was beyond her tragedy and motherhood.
Ilya’s honestly grateful for that. Grateful that she cares about his mom’s thoughts on flowers, about her wishes and desires, about her favorite jokes and her preferences in color palettes.
Still, it’s bittersweet to realize how many questions he can’t answer. To realize that most of his memories of his mother have him as the central character and her firmly in the role of ‘mom’.
Would Alexei know those answers?
Maybe.
For all his faults, his brother did love their mother.
Ilya remembers seeing him bring her flowers he’d picked in the park once and the smile that bloomed on their mother’s face when she accepted them. Remembers how he tried to imitate him the next day and got in trouble when he was caught about to cut the best roses out of a nearby garden. The memory hurts now, but it’s a dulling ache that’s almost comforting, and at least it allows him to answer with certainty that his mother’s favorite were wild flowers, weeds, really, but pretty and easy to gather.
But really, what’s the point in wondering? Even if Alexei knows, it’s not like Ilya’s going to ask him.
(Would Alexei answer him if he did?)
(When he learns of the Irina Foundation, will he approve of what Ilya’s trying to do, or will he see it as an insult to their mother’s memory? Will he think Ilya’s revealing her weakness to the world? Will he correctly guess that Ilya’s using her tragedy to safeguard a love that her faith would consider a sin? Is this charity honoring her or is Ilya hijacking her story for his own convenience, making himself the center of it, once again?)
“Ilya?” Yuna prods him.
She does not pronounce his name right, she uses the English way: I-ly-a.
Ilya knows she’d correct it immediately if he told her but it’s been too long now. She’s been saying it like this for months and would be horrified to realize it was wrong. And anyway, Ilya’s grown so accustomed to how Americans say his name that it’s basically become just another nickname to him.
“If you don’t know it, that’s okay,” Yuna tells him softly. “I’m pretty sure Shane doesn’t know mine either.”
Ilya smiles but shakes his head.
That’s not the problem.
He does know.
He’s known for as long as he can remember.
I named you after a brave and strong hero, Ilyushenka, so you don’t need to be afraid of anything.
What about me, Mama? I want to be a hero too!
You I named for my favorite character of my favorite book, Alyoshenka, a handsome officer capable of charming anyone.
Ilya had wanted to be charming too, though he’d been fine with being a brave and strong hero. He used to play at it, fighting dragons and ‘saving’ his mother from imaginary threats, earning a kiss on the cheek for his courage.
Alexei had scoffed at him, though he’d picked up a branch and humored him more than once, parring his strikes easily and informing him that, as a cavalry officer, he outranked Ilya and could thus order him around.
Ilya had been happy back then, he realizes with a jolt. He’d loved his mother and he’d liked that Alexei. That Alexei that teased him but also played with him, that was careful not to hit him too hard with his ‘sword’, that ordered him to grab him and mother a glass of water from the kitchen and then tousled his hair and told him good job when he did so.
That Alexei that liked Ilya.
“Анна Каренина,” he answers, before he’s silent for so long that Yuna has to ask him again. “That was her favorite book.”
She’d carried a copy around and read it constantly, sitting on the stands with a thermos of hot tea while she waited for their practices to be over so they could all walk home together.
Alexei had his own copy too, bought with the money he’d saved from his birthday and New Year. He’d read it carefully and would point out passages to their mother, asking her to clarify things just to hear her rambling with a spark in her eyes.
Ilya had also attempted to read it but, at twelve, it had been too hard a book for him. He’d powered through and understood the words and the broad scope of the story but failed to get why his mother liked it so much. Much to his chagrin, he found himself agreeing with Father that it was a silly book, filled with idiots with too much free time and too little sense.
One thing stuck to him, though, or more precisely, one character: Seryozha.
For some reason, he’d found his mind returning to the son that was left behind again and again during sleepless nights.
Even at that age he could see that his parents’ marriage wasn’t a happy one. That his father was old and mean and his mother young and vibrant. What was stopping her from finding a handsome lover and starting a brand new life away from all of them?
Don’t be ridiculous, Ilyushenka, Alexei had told him one time when he’d confided in him, She has her Alexei already, and her Ilya too, she has no reason to leave to search for them elsewhere.
At sixteen years old, Alexei had seemed all-knowing to Ilya. And his certainty had reassured him that there was nothing to fear, their mother wouldn’t fall in love with a Vronsky and abandon them all.
He’d slept easier after that chat.
Right up until the day she had proven them wrong and left without so much as a goodbye, taking Alexei’s self-assurance and faith with her.
“I’m sorry?” Yuna asks, raising her eyes from her computer where she’s been diligently taking notes.
“Oh, nothing. I was just saying that Anna Karenina was her favorite book,” he says, attempting to use the English pronunciation of the name.
Yuna nods.
“Well, it is a classic, I guess,” she purses her lips in a way that lets Ilya know that what she’s actually thinking is that it’s a bit of a cliché.
Ilya hides a smile.
He’d had the same thought when he’d been sixteen and read the book again.
He’d hated it, hated that he could so clearly see his mother, his father, in it. (Hated that Seryozha still felt painfully familiar and he could not decide if he saw him in the mirror or ignoring him over the dinner table).
He’d declared that Betsy had the right of it and that she was the only one with any sense in the whole book.
He hadn’t understood a thing.
He hadn’t known passion nor love yet.
He’d thought he knew the suffocating feeling of being told to play a part but, back then, he’d liked the role he’d been assigned to. Liked to pounce around in his father’s stage, with all the lights pointing towards him.
He didn’t know the fear of losing it all.
Your country, your family, your friends.
Everything that had ever felt familiar.
And he hadn’t yet left anyone behind. Hadn’t made the choice to put his own happiness above his own flesh and blood.
On the tv screen, the commenters remind them that Shane’s game will begin in half an hour and continue to recount how the season had been going for him (exceedingly well, as always).
Shane’s playing in the playoffs again, aiming for his third Cup.
The screen cuts to a celebration of Montreal's latest victory, a 1-5 against Boston.
Hayden Pike, one of the very few people that know about them, jumps on Shane high on their victory, grin stretching his face and hair messy from the game.
Ilya hasn’t been on the ice in weeks. His own season was cut short by his team's inability to clinch a spot in the playoffs.
Dagenais joins in, hugging Shane so tightly that his feet leave the ice for a moment.
Ilya has only received a handful of texts since the season ended. His new team still doesn’t know where they stand with him and Ilya has to keep them at arm’s length, lest they figure out the secret he’s so jealously guarding.
(His old team wants answers. They are hurt, confused and feeling betrayed. They keep asking him for a reason, for what they did wrong. Ilya has stopped answering them altogether.)
“I’ll admit I never quite got Anna Karenina,” Yuna says conversationally. “But I suppose it is better in Russian.”
“Everything is better in Russian," Ilya answers with a playful wink.
Sixteen years old Ilya hadn’t understood it either.
Current Ilya, though, understands Анна frighteningly well.
He understands the fear of watching someone you love thrive while you feel stuck and isolated. The way you start wondering if perhaps you need them more than they need you. And if that’s the case, how long will they stick around for?
He understands the jealousy and need to keep the one you love near. The desperation that comes from knowing that if the person you’ve given up everything to be with walks away, you’ll be left with nothing.
And he’s starting to see how easily all that can turn into resentment if he allows it to grow.
But he will not, he vows to himself.
He made his choices and he doesn’t regret them.
He will trust Shane and will not burden him with baseless and, frankly, insulting insecurities. He’s Ilya Rozanov, sucky team or not, he will not allow himself to become a clingy and annoying lover.
It will be easy, he tells himself while David places a glass of good vodka in front of him and Yuna moves on to ask him about his favorite spot by the lake.
It will be easy because unlike Анна, he is not alone.