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"It wasn't easy but I did it." He said, holding on to the phone, as he glanced down at his feet, ashes spreading everywhere as he tapped the end of his cigarette out against the air.
"Do you need anything from me?" Shane whispered softly.
"Stay on phone with me please. I just want to hear you." Ilya mumbled timidly.
"Do you want to talk about anything or do you just want us to sit here?" Shane asked in a calm tone.
"I don't know. Tell me what you did today."
Shane proceeded to tell Ilya what he had done today; the boring basics. Took Anya on a walk, prepared meals for the week, did a few errands with Yuna, and scheduled a few meetings with Farrah. Ilya sighed and whispered a few accepting 'okay's' before he found himself back at his old doorstep at home in Russia.
"I do not want to go in." Ilya said suddenly after a bout of silence. "Is heavy like..."
"Like a weight in your chest?" Shane finished Ilya's sentence as he bunched up the pillow behind him, with Anya curled at his feet.
"Yes, but.. I am selling house. This should not be bad thing." Ilya murmured.
"Yeah-" Shane started to speak but stopped himself. He could hear Ilya sniffling on the other end, as muffled as it was he knew he was crying - he could sense it.
Ilya stayed silent on his end as he reached for the door knob, turning it twice but never pushing open the door. He desperately didn't want to return to the old memories of his childhood home.
"I... I can't do it." Ilya muttered, his hand pulling away from the door.
"So don't... Take your time, Ilya. You don't have to do everything today. You've done a lot already. The plane ride, finding a realtor, the bereavement councilor. It's a lot." Shane didn't have knowledge about any of what Ilya was going through in that moment, but he knew there was a weight there that couldn't be stripped. He remembered Ilya complaining about Alexei taking advantage of draining all Grigory's accounts before he'd passed - knowing that Ilya would have to return to take care of the hard part.
"Mama is in these walls." Ilya responded.
Shane could hear the clicking of a door hinge, as the sudden alert for a FaceTime video popped up.
"This room. We danced to so many Russian songs here. Momma taught me how to dance in this room." Ilya responded as he walked around the beautiful living room, ornate with a brown leather sofa and a beautiful maroon silk curtain hung from the window sill. The gold accents made the room shine as he walked around showing Shane the room. He noticed the small brass statues that sat across a table, and picked one of them up and shoved it toward the camera lense. It was a topless mermaid, sitting on a rock.
"Is one mama bought. Papa did not like this one. He said it was - impolite, he hid it until we were older. Mama was sad because she really liked it." Ilya breathed as he set it back down gently.
Shane could hear the wobble in Ilya's voice but he never said a word. Ilya walked into the kitchen, and smiled.
"Mama's favorite room in whole house." Ilya pined, absentmindedly picking up a wooden spoon, he sat the phone up against the window sill and began walking around - pacing, really.
"I can still smell Mama's breakfasts if I sniff hard enough." Ilya spoke with a feeble laugh, as he continued to walk through the kitchen, pacing in and out of the camera's lens.
"Did she ... Teach you how to cook?" Shane asked solemnly.
"Yes. She taught me lots of lessons here."
Ilya sat down at the silver table, with yellow and silver chairs, as he ran his hand across the table top placing his head down.
Ilya's mind went into memories, completely forgetting that Shane was on the other end of the phone, now. He was remembering when his mother taught him how to tie his shoes.
"No Ilyusha. Silly boy. Bunny ears!" Irina said with a laugh, as she put the shoe on the chair, showing him once more, as she sang a song to help remind him.
"Here's the tree and here's the Bun, under the branches to have some fun!" Irina sang.
"Oh! Okay mama!!!" Ilya remembered his voice being exuberant and excited when he realized what she was doing. He remembered how happy he was as he finally made his first knot with his shoelace.
"Mama! I did it! Look!"
"I see! Good job, Solnyshko!"
Ilya opened his eyes to find that the memory brought tears along with it.
"Is just memories now." Ilya choked as he got up from the table, walking back toward the phone, switching the camera's pov to the front facing camera.
"Hey..." Shane whispered softly.
"Is okay. They are.... Sad but good memories, now." Ilya whimpered through a choked sniffle.
Ilya stepped out of the kitchen, back into the living room and stopped just short of the stairs. He glanced down at the worn carpet that had gone through many years of traveling feet, up and down.
He couldn't bring himself to go up those stairs. Those memories were too hard. Too.... Raw.
"I must go now, Shanya. I need to be alone. I love you." Ilya croaked, swallowing a lump that was sitting heavy in his throat.
"Call me if you need me, okay? I love you." Shane responded softly.
Ilya hung up the phone and stared at the second story. He knew he needed to walk up the stairs, but he just couldn't bring himself to dredge up old memories from the past. Memories that made him queasy with anxiety and depression. Memories that were the reason he was - him.
He could hear his mother's voice in the back of his head, as if it Somehow became his conscience.
"Yes, it is scary but you are brave, Ilyusha." His mother's words were like a whisper of wind that sent shivers down his spine. As his hand shook, it reached up to the wooden bannister, and began to take one stair step at a time walking up the stairs taking a slow, steadied breath with every movement.
As he continued up the stairs, his head became dizzy with vertigo. Stopping at the top of the steps, he stood at the foundation of the second floor. To the left of him, was his brother Alexei's room. In the middle, His room and off to the right, was his parent's room, which never had both of them in it at the same time.
He refused to open Alexei's door, as that was his personal space, even though they hadn't lived in the house in over 15 years as children, Ilya knew that there were some rooms that were just off-limits. Ilya took two steps toward his door, and grabbed the handle feeling the familiar cold, heavy, brass doorknob against his skin.
Turning the knob, he heard the latch click, and the door swung open, with a light scream of the unused, antique door hinge.
His childhood bedroom.
Ilya was afraid of a lot in his childhood, but nothing scared him more, than seeing the bed he used to curl into at night surrounded by his blankets as he would cower and cry himself to sleep. His whole body felt like it weighed ten tons as he tried to walk forward. The smell of musty stale wind hit him from beyond the threshold.
His whole body shrank to the size of himself as a child again.
"Ilya! You must clean this room. It is filthy. Every room is clean, but yours. This is a house of cleanliness. You will have no food until this room is spotless!" Boomed his father's voice in deep accented Russian. He could feel his father's hardened blue eyes as he boared a hole into Ilya.
"Yes Papa. Sorry Papa. I will clean it Papa." came Ilya's meek voice, only rewarded with the sound of a slamming door behind him.
Ilya blinked back tears.
"Ilya likes boys! Ew!!!" Alexei shouted as he taunted his brother, watching Ilya grabbing a men's fashion magazine and shoving it under his pillow.
"Ilya's Gay! Look at him! He is like girl playing dress up!" Alexei kept at it.
Ilya swallowed, as tears filled his eyes.
"You will tell them this was an accident if they ask you. No one must ever find out. You understand me?" Grigory snapped as he walked out of the room, talking loudly to the coroner's lead.
Ilya's knees buckled and he fell to the floor. He stopped himself before falling to the ground completely.
"Blyat!" He called out, tears streaming down his face.
Suddenly, he heard a knock at the door, and he caught his breath. He stood, wiping his eyes with the pads of his hands, shaking them whilst rolling his shoulders, moving his neck around, trying to ground himself before grabbing the doorknob, slamming it shut.
He knew he shouldn't have come up here.
He quickly made his way downstairs and opened the front door to see a man dressed in all black, with a clipboard.
"You are Ilya Rozanov, yes?" The man spoke in Russian.
"Da."
"You are youngest son of Grigory and Irina Rozanov?" He asked.
"Yes."
"Good. I am realtor, I see you have put house up for sale. You have offers. I would like to take time to sort things out with you."
Ilya led the way into the living room and sat down, offering the chair next to him, for the man to sit.
"You have offers here I think you will be interested in. They vary in pricing, but I think you will be pleased with some of them. Look at this spreadsheet and give me an estimate." The man responded as he handed Ilya the clipboard.
Each offer was an outrageous price. He rolled his eyes at the thought of someone buying his childhood home because it used to belong to Grigory Rozanov - Head of Moscow police department. He scoffed when he noticed the ridiculous amounts.
Scanning each request his heart skipped a beat.
$30,000.000 with the name "Shane Hollander" next to the pricing.
His eyes welled with tears.
Shane wanted to buy the house.
"This one." He pointed to Shane's name and grabbed the attention of the man dressed in black.
"I will make offer to this one." Ilya responded through his fight with emotions.
"That is interesting, this particular investor is not even in Moscow." The man spoke.
"I do not care. Give him offer. Give him house. He will buy it."
A few moments of silence rushed by, with the man looking over things, giving Ilya a minute to renegotiate a different buyer, but Ilya Was determined.
"Is not highest price. We can get much more on the market if we go with this person." The man spoke
"No. It's Him or I do not sell to you and find different realtor." Ilya spat, his voice stern and determined.
The man in all black raised his hands and shook his head, defensively.
"Yes Mr. Rozanov. I understand. Thank you for your time. We will get in contact with you as soon as we get paperwork sorted." The man responded as he gathered himself together and stood from the chair walking with Ilya toward the door.
"Good night." Ilya spoke, as he left the man to his own way out.
Ilya grabbed his coat from the side of the chair and made his way out of the house, locking the door behind him as he meandered toward his car, getting in and looking at himself in the rearview mirror.
"Siri, remind me to call Shane when I get back to hotel." Ilya spoke aloud to no one.
Ilya's hotel was an hour and a half away in the town over from Moscow. He knew feasibly he could have slept in his home, but there was too much in his head while he was there alone. He couldn't do it. After parking his car, he got out and walked up to the hotel lobby doors, walking inside and immediately opting for the stairs. He didn't feel like conversing with anyone if they happened to be in the elevators, he just wanted to be back in his own secluded area - safe, away from the past.
After getting up to his room he placed his coat on the chair that sat adjacent from the queen sized bed and pulled off his shirt, and shoes, sliding into the covers, grabbing his phone.
He didn't need the reminder that was set. He opened his phone and dialed Shane's number immediately.
"Ilya?? It's - 3 am here, are you okay?" A sleepy Shane spoke softly.
"You made offer." Ilya responded.
"Off-..." Shane's voice was cut off immediately with a smile.
"You want to buy house." Ilya couldn't help but smile. His mouth was stretched into such a wide grin, it hurt his cheeks.
"It's not just a house, Ilya. It's your memories, and - we can make new memories, and now Svetlana can help you..... We can find a moving company that - can put everything in storage and... Make the house yours... So, whenever you or Svetlana are in Russia, you always have a place to go" Shane spoke softly as he ruffled himself under the covers, getting comfortable.
"You think a lot. Always thinking." was all Ilya could manage to say.
"I didn't want someone to ruin your memories. Your home." Shane said, as he glanced over to the clock.
"You need to sleep. I will let you sleep. I will be at airport in a few hours, then I will see you. I miss you. I just want to hold you." Ilya breathed.
"Soon Ilya. Soon." Shane whispered on the other end of the phone.