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It was just after the end of the season, when the box arrived. Shane and Ilya had been spending the day packing up their Ottawa home to head to the cottage, Ilya’s favourite time of the year. He had found a new kind of love for hockey in the past few seasons, in a way he hadn’t before, skating for the Centaurs and now alongside Shane. But that didn’t mean he didn’t love the peace of the off season.
He was still seeing Galina, and the medication was helping. He still had episodes, dark weeks or months when the cold crept into his bones and wouldn’t shift. But they were less, and Shane was always there, all sunshine and warmth to drive the darkness away.
Today was a good day. They were escaping to the peaceful solitude of the cottage and Ilya was so ready to be away, just him and Shane and Anya in his favourite place on earth.
He was with Anya at the door when the delivery van arrived, the driver jumped out and Shane went to greet him as Ilya returned to his task of getting Anya into her car harness. Shane took the boxes and stacked them in the boot of the car, on top of Anya’s crate.
“It’s mostly stuff I ordered for the cottage, I’ll sort through it when we get there” He said as he approached the door, “we're already running late and I want to get the car unloaded before we have to leave for my parents tonight.” Shane continued, the edge of stress at the thought of being late starting to creep into his voice.
Ilya scooped Anya up into his arms and leaned over to press a gentle kiss to Shane’s lips. “Don’t stress, we have plenty of time.”
Shane took a deep breath in and nodded. “I know, I know.” He picked up the car keys from where they sat on the side table, “let's go.”
They made it with just about enough time to unload the car and go change before they needed to head to David and Yuna’s. He could see the tension on Shane’s face, and so he shooed his husband away upstairs to get dressed whilst Ilya moved all their stuff into the house. Shane would hate the mess, but Ilya deposited the boxes on the kitchen island in a pile, they could sort them tomorrow.
The dinner at David and Yuna’s was lovely, as always. They had welcomed him into their family with open arms since finding out about him and Shane, and it meant more to him than Ilya knew how to explain. Their support and their love was unconditional, and Ilya had felt for the first time in years that he had a family who wanted him for who he was, not just the cash in his pocket.
His only regret was that his mother couldn’t be here to see it, to see Ilya as he was now.
Ilya and Shane got home late, stomachs filled with food and an evening of fiercely fought board games behind them. The Hollanders were nothing if not competitive.
The boxes lay forgotten on the table.
~
They got up lazily in the morning, rising late in the day and immediately taking Anya for a long walk, in apology for her very boring morning whilst they had slept in.
They ate lunch together on the deck, enjoying their first day of blissful peace that the cottage brought. Ilya was sitting in that peaceful silence with Shane, the late afternoon sun now streaming through the large windows, when his husband started going through the pile of packages.
“What did you order?” Shane questioned, studying the top of one of the boxes on the counter. Ilya’s brow furrowed as he looked up from his phone. He hadn’t ordered anything. Shane slid it across the counter towards him, “It’s return address is Moscow, I think” He said, pointing at the neat cyrillic stamp in the top corner.
Ilya’s blood ran cold, he felt like he might be sick. The return address was Moscow. In fact it was Ilya’s old apartment, where Andrei lived with his family. He swallowed, the air felt thick.
Shane came to stand beside him, “Are you okay? What is it?” Shane asked, bringing a hand up to stroke Ilya’s back as he moved between studying his husband’s face and the labels on the box.
“That’s my old address. My brother lives there now.” He said quietly, voice barely above a whisper. He hasn’t heard from Andrei in more than five years. He’d half expected that he might after he and Shane were outed. He'd expected to be on the receiving end of some homophobic tirade or speech about how Ilya had disgraced their family, disgraced their Father. It never came.
Shane blinked, eyebrows raising as he turned back to the small brown box. He knew how long it had been since Ilya had had contact with his family. “Shit.” He said quietly, and Ilya just nodded. “Do you want to open it?”
Ilya nodded. “It might not even be from him.” He swallowed again, anxiety prickling the back of his neck. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, this was silly. “Sorry” He said quietly, “I didn’t expect- I don’t know why this has freaked me out.”
Shane shook his head, pulling Ilya round into a hug. “No, it’s fine if it caught you off guard, you haven’t interacted with anyone in Moscow in a long time.” Ilya nodded against Shane’s shoulder, sucking in another deep breath. “Come on” Shane said, taking Ilya by the hand to lead him down the short steps to sit on the sofa. He bent down to kiss Ilya on the forehead before disappearing momentarily.
He returned with the box in one hand, and a glass of water in the other. “Drink” He said, holding it out. Ilya drank.
Shane set the box on the table in front of him. He didn’t say anything else, just moved to sit beside Ilya on the sofa, his warm steady hand once again finding Ilya’s back to stroke gently up and down. Ilya relaxed into the touch.
After a few moments he found his resolve, it probably wasn't even from Andrei, it was probably just a package that got sent to his old address. Briefly fear flicked in his mind that the box contained something hateful, some kind of homophobic attack that he could have expected at his door regularly had he stayed in Russia, he stamped it down.
He slid his fingernail through the tape that sealed the end of the box and pulled it open. His heart skipped another beat. Out of the box slid a handwritten note in cyrillic, unmistakably Andrei’s chicken scratch handwriting.
Shane couldn’t have known whose writing it was, and yet his hand found the base of Ilya’s neck and squeezed gently, the way Ilya did when Shane was having a panic attack. It grounded Ilya, and he took a deep breath.
He picked up the note.
Sasha asked about her Grandmother the other day, and I remembered a box of old childhood footage I took from the house before Polina destroyed it all. After I showed Sasha I had it all copied. I have seen your charity in her name, Mama should not be forgotten.
The page blurred below Ilya’s eyes and he felt gentle hands remove it from his own, before his wet tears could smear the page. He was pulled sideways to lean into Shane, tears pouring silently down his face. He cried silently for a few moments, his heart squeezing with the lonely ache of his lost family.
The note was short and to the point, no love for Ilya from his brother was scrawled into the familiar letters. But there was love for their mother there, and there was the fact that Andrei had sent it at all.
He didn’t miss Andrei and his constant pleas for money, his constant reliance on Ilya to fix things and plan things even though Ilya was the younger sibling and Andrei was a grown man, a father, a police officer. He didn’t miss his bitching wife with her snide remarks about Ilya and his lifestyle in the states. But they were family. He missed the brother he had had when he was small, united by their mother before their father could drive them apart. He missed his niece, bright eyed and innocent in all this.
“Ilya” Shane said quietly after a few minutes, pulling Ilya from his thoughts. Shane didn’t read cyrillic, Ilya realised slowly as he was pulled back to reality. Only one clear thought formed at the surface, there were videos of mama in that box.
Ilya spoke in Russian, “It’s from Andrei. He-” he swallowed and scrubbed at his eyes. “I thought my father destroyed everything of her. She used to have this little video-recorder, she liked to film me and Andrei when we were small.”
Shane swallowed and cradled Ilya a little tighter, understanding what he was looking at now even through Ilya’s half formed sentences. He knew Ilya missed his mother dearly, knew that he had little more than a dozen photos of her, of them as a family. It broke Shane’s heart. “Do you want to watch them now?” He asked quietly, carefully.
Ilya nodded in his arms before suddenly moving to sit up, reaching for the brown box as his hands shook ever so slightly. He tipped it up and a singular black memory stick slid out into his palm. The tears were falling out his eyes again and he squeezed them shut, curling his fingers around the black plastic at the same time.
He felt warm hands cup his cheeks and wipe away the tears. “Wait one moment” Shane said quietly, “Let me go get my laptop.”
Ilya watched as he left. He didn’t know how he felt. He knew he was crying, but there were so many things swirling in his chest he almost felt dizzy with it. He missed his Mother, he missed his family, even his brother, his father.
More than anything he wanted to see her. Hear her voice. Those videos were the closest he was going to get.
He ran his hands through his hair again, the build up of emotion making him restless. He wanted a cigarette, but he had been doing so well at stopping recently, so he settled for a glass of vodka instead, moving through into the kitchen to pour himself a glass.
That’s where he was when Shane returned. “Want one?” He asked, and Shane nodded, coming to stop in front of him on the opposite side of the counter. He was watching him.
“Do you want me to give you some space?” Shane asked, quietly, patiently.
Ilya did not want that. He blinked at Shane a few times. “Why would you do that?”
Shane’s eyes softened, recognising the slight shake of Ilya’s voice, “I know how meaningful this is to you Ilya, I just wondered if you wanted some time alone to watch them.”
Ilya shook his head, looking down into the crystal clear glasses in front of him. “No.” He looked back up, meeting Shane’s eyes with all the sincerity he could muster. “I wish every day that you could have met her, I want you to see her.”
Tears pooled in Shane’s eyes then, but he didn’t break eye contact with Ilya. “I wish that too.” He said quietly.
~
Ilya sat stiffly on the sofa as Shane put his laptop on charge and plugged in the memory stick before coming to sit next to him. He picked up his glass and leaned in so his shoulder was resting against Ilya’s, not overbearing, not overwhelming, just there. Ilya loved Shane more than he knew how to express.
Ilya took a deep breath and opened files to view the contents of the memory stick. There were eleven videos, none of them labeled, just numbered. Ilya knew they had been labeled once, he remembers the neat curve of his mother’s handwriting that littered the shelf of home tapes. Between his father’s deterioration and Polina’s vengeance almost all had been lost.
He swallowed and clicked on the first file.
The camera came into focus on a large bedroom, Ilya’s childhood bedroom. There in the center of the frame was Ilya, he looked small, no older than five, dressed in a dark blue suit.
His small hands were fumbling with a tie, trying once, then twice to tie it before he looked up towards the camera, his tiny eyebrows furrowed in annoyance. “Mama!” He called.
A soft voice filled the speakers of Ilya’s laptop. “Yes Ilya.”
“Please help.” He asked, lifting the ends of the tie towards the unseen voice.
Ilya’s heart felt like it was being ripped in half at the way his mother said his name, the gentle cadence of her voice, the fluency of how the syllables rolled off of her native tongue. It sounded like home. He was crying again.
The camera shook as if it was being placed down somewhere, and a gorgeous young woman moved into frame. She was wearing a long dark skirt and a matching blouse, her blonde curls pinned back behind her head beneath a lace veil.
“We’re getting ready for church” Ilya said, ignoring the way his voice croaked with tears.
On screen Irina had reached the tiny Ilya and was kneeling in front of him, tying his tie.
“For Christmas Eve?” Shane asked quietly, “It says the sixth of January.” Ilya’s eyes found the date stamp in the corner, 06/01/1995. His throat tightened even further at Shane’s casual knowledge of the Russian calendar, the care his husband had taken to understand Ilya’s childhood, even when he would rather forget most of it. The fact that Shane even spoke enough Russian to follow what they were saying tugged at Ilya's heart strings. He just nodded.
“Mama I tied my tie all by myself” Another small, but undeniably smug, voice began off screen.
“Well done Andrei”
The other child stepped into frame, wearing a matching suit to Ilya. He stopped beside his mother.
“My brother.” Ilya said quietly, Shane hummed softly in acknowledgement. Ilya found his hand and squeezed it. Shane squeezed back.
“Papa said every man must know how to tie a tie.”
Irina shook her head, and for a few seconds the room was silent. “Papa is right Andrei, but remember Ilya is younger than you, he’s still learning.”
The small Andrei huffed and lost interest, wandering through the room and escaping the frame again on the other side. Irina straightened Ilya’s tie one last time.
“There you go, malen'kiy medvezhonok, very handsome.” She said, pressing a kiss to his forehead.
“Little bear.” Ilya whispered into the silence, his hand coming up to rest over his tattoo. Shane’s heart twisted in pain.
Ilya beamed, “Thank you mama” he said, and Irina reached forward to tuck a small curl back into place behind Ilya’s ear.
Irina turned to face the camera for the first time then, her smile bright. Her eyes were the same brilliant blue as Ilya’s and the gold of her crucifix glinted on her chest, shining brightly against her dark outfit.
Ilya brought his hand up to touch it where it hung around his own neck. The metal was cold, exposed to the air where it sat on the outside of his shirt. To Ilya the icy contact burned. He tucked it inside so it rested against the warmth of his skin.
“She’s beautiful Ilya.” Shane whispered, arm still wrapped tightly around him. All Ilya could do was nod. He was still crying.
Irina pointed at the camera, placing an arm around Ilya to gently move him to face it head on. “Smile my love.” She said, leaning in to rest her head against Ilya’s, where she was kneeling she was only slightly taller than her son.
They both smiled for a second, before Irina turned to kiss him on the forehead again. “Come along then Ilya, we’ll be late.” She said, standing gracefully from the floor to move towards the camera, picking it up and switching it off.
The video cut out.
Ilya was crying, silent tears streaming down his face as he clutched Shane’s hand in his.
The silence was like a crushing weight, bearing down upon Ilya and his sorrow. The gaping lonely hole in his chest burned like fire, suffocating Ilya under the weight of his sadness.
“I had almost forgotten the sound of her voice.”
He hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t ever wanted to admit that to anyone. It was Ilya’s greatest sin, to forget his own mother. A violent sob tore itself from his chest.
It shocked him, the noise escaping without permission into the quiet of the cottage. He hung his head over his lap, suddenly unable to stop his tears. “I’m so sorry.” He whispered into his own chest, “Mama I’m so sorry.” He repeated it again and again, as if the apology would fill the gaping chasm of his grief.
The arm around him tightened, and Shane pulled him backwards to lay against his chest, bringing one hand up to stroke through Ilya’s hair as the other wrapped around his middle.
Shane was warm behind him but Ilya’s chest felt cold and hollow. It burned. He would do anything to have his mother wrap him in her arms again.
Ilya cried for a while, in great heaving sobs, leaning all his weight back into Shane, his solid presence and gentle hands the only thing tying Ilya to reality. He felt that if Shane let go he might drown in his own tears.
“I just miss her so much” Ilya whispered eventually, hating the wet sound of his own voice.
“I know Ilya, I know.” Shane whispered into his ear, and Ilya knew he was also crying. No matter how hollow, how lonely he felt, Shane would not let him be alone.
After a little while Ilya’s tears slowed, the initial shock and sorrow of seeing his mother, of hearing her voice, dissipating slightly.
He swallowed, mouth dry, and reached for his glass of vodka on the table. He drained it in one sip and wordlessly reached for the bottle where it sat on the table in front of him. Shane didn’t try to stop him.
He sat back, fresh glass in hand, leaning into Shane’s shoulder once more. After a moment Shane spoke, “How do you feel?”
They were honest about their feelings, at the cottage, that had been the rule since the very first time Ilya had lain on this sofa.
“Empty.” Ilya said. Shane didn’t speak, so Ilya did. “She’s so whole there, so alive. That’s not-.” Ilya took a stuttering breath in “I haven’t thought of her that way in years. I love her.”
Shane nodded, he couldn’t pretend to understand what Ilya meant, how he felt. But he would listen to his Husband talk forever if it helped. But Ilya stopped talking, simply staring at the black screen in front of him.
“Do you want to see more?” He asked softly.
“Please.” Was the only word Ilya could find.
Ilya stayed against Shane’s chest as the rest of the clips played, a mix of different snippets of Ilya’s childhood, his mother’s life. Their family at new years, footage of Ilya on his birthday, one of Ilya’s mother and father dancing in a large and elegantly decorated living room as Ilya and Andrei sat silent on the sofa.
Ilya’s father wasn’t in many of the videos, but where he was the atmosphere was different, more poised and proper. More ‘Russian’, in the cold and unforgiving way Shane had thought of it once, before Ilya had told him the stories of Moscow that made him call it home.
One clip was of Ilya and Andrei playing hockey for their local youth team, both stormy eyed and determined as they pushed out onto the ice.
As Shane watched he could see the raw talent in Ilya even then. The way he flew down the ice in total control, reading the game in the way Shane had seen him do hundreds of times as Boston’s Captain, and now as the Centaur’s. He was in his element out there, even then.
It flickered a spark of joy in Shane’s chest, to know the boy in that video was the same legendary player that had achieved so much, that Shane had had the pleasure of watching throughout his career.
He wished Ilya’s mother, who was watching that little boy from behind the camera, could see the man he would become. He wished she could have seen everything he achieved, meet the Ilya that Shane had fallen in love with.
Shane knew that she was proud. He didn’t dare say it to Ilya now, blurry eyed and so vulnerable as he leaned on Shane’s chest in pensive silence, but Shane made a resolution to say it more often.
The hockey clip ended, and as Ilya clicked on the final clip a brilliant blue filled the screen.
There was a huge lake, iced over and frozen under the cold winter sun. A figure was weaving across the ice with practiced ease. Irina had her hair down, brilliant blonde curls falling over the shoulders of her dark blue woollen coat as she danced and spun across the frozen surface.
“Okay Mama!” A voice rang out from behind the camera. “It’s filming, go!”
It was Ilya, no debate about it, but he sounded older than in the other clips.
Irina skated backwards on the ice a few feet, “it’s been years Ilya! I might be rusty” she called out.
“No! Try it, you always tell me to try, now I’m telling you!” Ilya’s voice was bright and determined, but the edge of mischief that Shane knew too well still threaded through his voice.
Irina on screen smiled softly at Ilya. She shook her head with a smile and pushed back even further, drawing round in a wide arc before launching into a beautiful high jump.
Shane knew enough about skating to recognise them, Toe-loop, Salchow, flip, lutz. All gorgeous, high, jumps. She carried herself with a grace that seemed to make her float across the ice, light and elegant like the snow that danced in the air.
“Well done! But you missed one!” The young Ilya called out, grin audible in his voice.
Irina laughed, “So demanding Ilya!” She called out with a smile, but she circled back out into the distance again to line up for another jump.
She came back towards the camera and launched into an Axel. She looked ethereal as she flew through the air, but she overotated, coming back down to the ice she slipped, falling sideways onto the cold surface. She was still.
“Mama!” Ilya shouted, voice breaking in audible terror. It was a horrifying sound.
It made Shane’s heart twist. He couldn’t help but wonder if that was how Ilya had sounded, the night he found Irina laying cold in her bed. That desperate and broken sound of terror the likes of which he’d never heard from his husband’s voice before. He swallowed down the sick feeling and focused back on the video.
Ilya had deposited the camera on the ice and was racing towards his mother in the low angle of the shot. Suddenly the distinct bright sound of her laughter rang out through the speakers. Ilya came to a stop beside her, face afraid, but Irina was laughing still, laid flat against the ice looking up at the sky. After a moment Ilya joined her in her laughter, the sound was bright and full of joy.
The video ran for a few more minutes, showcasing Ilya and Irina messing about on the ice, smiles wide and laughter loud through the tinny speakers of Shane’s laptop, more carefree and expressive than in any other video. Irina pulled Ilya into a hug, burying her face in her curls. Her voice was only just audible. “I love you Ilya”
“I love you too, mama” he said.
There was a few moments of peaceful silence before Irina spoke again, “Race you!” she called out, and suddenly the pair were racing towards the camera, stances low and strides wide as they shot towards it. Ilya got there first, face split by a wide grin.
The footage shut off. Silence filled the room.
Ilya wasn’t crying anymore. They’d been watching for almost an hour now, and his tears had run dry. He loved that memory, it was one of his favourites on his mother. He told Shane as much.
“I loved that day.” He said quietly, looking up at Shane from where he had moved to lay in his lap. “It wasn’t long before-” His eyes suddenly burned again, tears threatening to spill. He swallowed it down and changed tactics. “I’m twelve there.” He said.
Shane nodded, understanding. He stayed silent, letting Ilya speak.
“Andrei was fourteen, and dad had taken him to some police gala in St Petersburg. He already wanted to be a policeman then, and I had hockey practice, so I stayed with mum.”
Ilya twisted, suddenly feeling like he needed to sit up, and he reached for the bottle of vodka, pouring himself another glass. Shane’s was still half full.
“She took me out to this lake just outside the city in the afternoon, she never went anywhere like that by herself.” Ilya looked down at the floor, “I’d never even seen her drive before that.”
The gravity of that simple statement, of what Irina Rozanova had been through in her given role of the perfect upper-class Russian wife, was not lost on Shane.
“But she wanted to go and skate, she loved it.” Ilya exhaled shakily, “She was a figure skater, before my dad. She was going to go off and do tours and stuff, as a skater, but her parents wouldn’t allow it. They married her off to my dad for the sake of their image.” Anger was seeping into Ilya’s voice now.
Shane nodded, he knew why Ilya was angry, but he didn’t want his husband to focus on that now. “She looked so happy out there with you Ilya.”
Ilya smiled, swallowing the lump in his throat. “She was. She was never normally that… free” Ilya landed on the word after a few moments of thinking. “Russian culture isn’t loud like that, it isn’t so expressive. But out there it was just us.”
Shane nodded, “She loved you so much Ilya, you can see it in her eyes.”
“I know.” He said quietly. “I know and that makes it worse.” He closed his eyes, tears slipping out from under his eyelids. “Because that still wasn’t enough to save her.”
Shane felt hot tears fall from his eyes to match his husband’s. He would do anything to give Ilya back what the young boy in that video had. “That’s not how depression works Ilya you know that. look how happy she was with you, you were enough.” Shane said, putting his arm around Ilya’s shoulders.
His husband hung his head, still crying. “Sometimes I hate her.” Came a tiny fragile whisper, words barely audible behind the sad strain of Ilya’s voice. “We were so happy there and she still- It still wasn’t enough.”
Shane’s heart shattered, for Ilya and Irina both. “That’s okay. That’s okay Ilya.”
Ilya brought a hand up to his face, covering his mouth as he shook his head.
“She would forgive you.”
Ilya’s eyes slid shut again. “And if I never forgive her?”
“She would still love you Ilya. She would still be proud.”
Another choked sob escaped Ilya’s mouth and suddenly he was turning, diving onto Shane to bury his face in his chest. He was sobbing again, shaking hands curling around Shane’s back. “I love you so much.” He cried, “She would have loved you too.”
They laid there for a long time, Shane stroking his hands through Ilya’s hair, whispering soft reassurances. Eventually Shane coaxed him up and into bed, pulling Ilya straight back in to rest on his chest as soon as they had climbed under the covers.
Ilya’s chest was so empty, but Shane was so full of love.
~
Ilya did sleep that night, eventually. Like most nights, he dreamed of his mother.
Ilya could see her in front of him, skating clean, crisp figures into the ice and pushing off into high elegant jumps as she floated across the cold surface of the lake. All the while she hummed to herself softly, a gentle smile on her face.
Ilya isn’t sure how long he stood, just watching. She looked so peaceful.
Ilya’s body turned, and he noticed a figure standing on the bank of the lake. He watched them both calmly, never moving or looking away. A dog sat patiently at his feet, joining him looking out towards the ice. Shane and Anya.
Ilya didn’t feel fear, or desperation for his husband to rush out towards them, towards Irina. He simply stood, Shane watching him and Ilya watching his mother, Ilya himself the bridge between the two.
Ilya knew in this dream that his mother would not turn towards Shane, that Shane would not step out onto the ice. He knew he could not change that, so he watched in peace.
Irina looked up after a moment, face splitting into a warm smile. “I love you Ilya” she said, “You’ve done so well, little bear.”
“I love you too, Mama.” Ilya replied, watching as tears gathered in the corners of his mother’s eyes.
Suddenly everything was moving, Ilya was moving slowly backwards on his skates, not pushing or moving his feet, just sliding slowly away from his mother.
She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Her lips formed the words anyway, in silence. ‘I’m Sorry.’
Ilya was crying now. He had wanted for so long to hear those words.
Ilya slid back until reached the bank of the lake, beside him Shane reached out a hand. Ilya took it. His hand was warm.
For the first time in nearly as long as he could remember Ilya’s dream of his mother wasn’t of a cold, pale hand drooping over the side of the bed. He dreamed of Irina, bright and colourful and so full of life, skating in circles out on the lake as Ilya watched. That night Ilya dreamed of his mother.