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Ilya knew their relationship with Shane was based on rivalry, and he enjoyed it. It had been that way since they were young, rookies in the league. Who would be drafted for a team first, who would win the game, who would lift the cup, who would come first, who would get from this tree to that tree fastest, who could hold their breath underwater the longest? Everyone around them hoped that as they got older, this thing would fade, but even though the situations they competed in changed, Ilya and Shane didn't. Time passed, they fell more in love with each other, and they kept waking up to a new competition every day. They were playing this game the long way.
And for a while now, the subject of the competition had been very clear. Alana's first word. Would it be Daddy or Papa? Bets had even started circulating. Yuna had bet David $100 that she would say papa, and Hayden would donate to the Irina Foundation if she didn't say any variation of daddy first. Ilya perhaps wanted to hear the word papa even more because he knew it would piss Hayden Pike off. He liked to think that his daughter would grant him the gift of making Pike upset.
Alana's meaningless baby babbling had actually started turning into meaningful words for some time now. It had all started one day when Ilya was having a tea party with her and her dolls on the play mat. The little girl's golden curls had slowly grown longer, and Shane had tried to gather them into tiny ponytails on either side of her head that morning. The strawberry patterns on her white dress were stained with pinkish marks from the real strawberries the girl had eaten, stains that wouldn't wash out. Ilya's legs stretched out, wrapped around the girl sitting on the floor like a tiny snowball, and together they were feeding tea from Lego cubes to a baby and a teddy bear sitting between them. Anya had rested her head on one of Ilya's legs, half-dozing, half-watching them. Alana was chatting with Ilya in her own baby babble.
“Delicious, is the best shop we visited. Right, Mr. Bearender?” Ilya asked the little bear in his hand and found himself waiting for a moment for the bear to answer.
“What you think, lady?” He turned his gaze to the baby doll in his other hand. After he made the doll’s head nod with the hand he was holding it, Ilya turned with a smile to his daughter.
“Oh, Alyona, the customers are very happy with their tea. Is a wonderful coffee shop. We will be coming here more.” Alana replied by spitting out saliva from her lips, blowing raspberries. Ilya smiled. That was enough approval for him. Then, well then, the really interesting thing happened.
She looked at Ilya first, then when her father blow her a little kiss and she placed a tiny baby smile on her lips, one of those sweet smiles showing her two little bottom teeth that Shane kept photographing and sending to Hayden and Jackie, then the little girl held out one of the Legos in her hand to Ilya. Ilya, who had gotten used to the game that had been going on for a while, bent his head to a point where the little girl could reach it and slurped and smacked his lips as if drinking tea from the red square Lego in her hand. The girl laughed happily, put down the red Lego, picked up a yellow one, and turned to the dog resting on Ilya's lap. She held out the Lego to him. When Anya looked at the girl without reacting, she turned to her father, disappointed. Ilya felt compelled to explain himself in the face of his daughter's disappointment.
“Alana, Anya is dog, baby. She can't play games like this with us. She might not understand." Alana listened to her father as if Ilya were revealing one of the world's greatest secrets to her. So Ilya continued.
“A dog. Woof woof. Dogs don't drink tea. Fathers and daughters and teddy bears and dolls drink tea. Anya doesn't drink tea.” And then…
“Anna,” said Alana. “Anna. Hof hof.” Then she looked at Anya and repeated, “Anna.”
Ilya froze at first. He placed the bear and the baby in the small space between them. On his face was that expression again that Shane would tease him about for a while but secretly admire. Shane called it the “Alyona Expression.” Whenever Ilya gazed admiringly at Alana, his eyes would soften and sparkle. His eyebrows would furrow slightly, his lips would part, but his face would have an extremely relaxed and peaceful expression. Shane knew this expression by heart now, but he had no idea how to explain it to anyone else. This was “Alyona expression”. It was the expression Ilya had when he looked at her little girl Alana with love, admiration, almost longing. Ilya had never told anyone this, and he never would; this secret would go to the grave with him but he knew that if he could have taken Alana inside him, deep into his chest, next to his heart, and carried his little girl with him always, he would have done it. He wanted to make her part of himself.
Then, once the initial shock had passed, Ilya began to laugh. He tried to hold back so as not to frighten his little girl, but the laughter escaping his lips was almost manic. Excitedly, he picked up his little girl and hugged her. She was still looking at the dog and saying, “Anna.”
“Yes, yes, moy rebenok. Anya. Friend.” Ilya sat with Alana on his lap for a while, unsure of what to do. Then it occurred to him: Shane. Shane should hear this too.
“Shane!” He called out toward the kitchen. His husband had been in the kitchen for a while, preparing lunch for their girl. “Shane, you need to come here right now!”
“What? What's wrong?” Shane ran out of the kitchen and looked at the scene on the floor from the doorway.
“What happened? Are you okay?” Of course, judging by Ilya's face, which was beaming like the sun, there didn't seem to be a problem. But Shane couldn't help feeling worried when his husband yelled his name, worrying something had happened to either one of them.
“Alyona. Shane, Alyona is talking!” Ilya was practically shouting happily at his husband who was standing like a puppet at the door. The little girl in her arms looked between her parents with a mixture of surprise and confusion. One of her tiny hands was trying to grab Ilya's mole on his cheek, as she always did whenever she spotted it.
“What?” Shane entered the room in shock and sat down on his knees beside them. “She's talking? What?” There was a hint of disappointment in Shane's voice. If he had missed his daughter's first words while trying to puree some damn broccoli in the kitchen, he would sit down and cry, and no, he wouldn't be ashamed of it. Did she say “Daddy”? What did she say? What did he fucking miss?
“Look now,” said Ilya. “Alyona, woof woof.” Ilya pulled his head back slightly and tried to look into his daughter's eyes. The girl understood that she was being spoken to, and upon hearing the woof in the sentence, she excitedly turned her head toward where Anya was now, excitedly trying to climb into Shane's lap.
“Anna!” She reached out to the dog with her tiny hands.
Shane let out a maniacal laugh similar to Ilya's earlier and placed his hand on the cheek of the girl in Ilya's lap in shock.
“Oh my God, Ilya!”
“Anna, Anna, Anna!” The girl, as if realizing that this was the reason for her father's joy, began to repeat the dog's name as fast as she could. Now she was laughing too, along with her fathers. Anya, excited like everyone else, began to bark and circle around the trio. Was everyone turning mad after a mispronounced dog name?
So, in short, Alana wasn't completely silent. She could say “Anya” (she still said “Anna,” but no one should get hung up on formalities). When she wanted water, she made a sound like “Woo,” similar to the sound of the wind. When she was hungry, she had developed a new habit of clicking her tongue against her palate. Some claimed (Yuna) that she said “Nu” when she saw her grandmother. (This was unproven) (David even claimed Yuna was getting old and her hearing was failing, but according to Ilya, Yuna just wanted Alana to talk to her) (She also insisted to call her Lily, Ilya couldn’t yet solve the cause)
So the truth was, Alana's first words wouldn’t be either “papa” or “daddy”. No, unfortunately, Anya had won that race. The issue was which father she would call first. Since the Anya incident, for about three weeks now, Ilya had been trying to teach Alana to say “papa” at every opportunity. When Shane wasn't around, he would whisper quietly to the little girl, showing her the mouth movements, making sure to include the word “papa” in every sentence. But he knew his rival was tough. Shane was doing all the same things; God knows, there might even be a secret book on those boring bookshelves called “How to Teach Your Baby to Say Daddy” that Ilya didn't know about.
Thus the rivalry between them was, how should one say, heated? Even now, on Alana's birthday, they couldn't control themselves. They had to leave the house, they had to hurry. Everyone would be waiting for them. But they were bickering over the little girl in the entry way, trying to put her little shoes, each foot on one dad’s lap while they were chirping ‘papa’s and ‘daddy’s like birds.
They had decided to celebrate Alana's first birthday in Ottawa, at the cottage. Now, it might not sound very logical, of course, a little girl's first birthday party on a winter day, in a summer cottage by a lake in Ottawa. But Shane was so enthusiastic about this birthday that Ilya would swear he wasn't this enthusiastic about their own wedding day.
The house had been in preparation for a week. Yuna and David had been practically bragging to Shane for months about what they were going to do for their granddaughter. Since Ilya and Shane were practically almost always busy these days, hockey or baby, they were more than happy to let Yuna and David to prepare the party for them. Almost too excited, too enthusiastic for a baby birthday.
“Mom asked if we should hire a magician or a clown for the other kids at the party,” Shane had asked four days ago. Yuna kept calling and texting them about the details of the party for days now.
“No. Absolutely not, clown. Magician, I don't know. But I don't think is necessary.”
Shane laughed at Ilya's quick reply and quietly approached Ilya from behind at the counter where he was chopping vegetables for dinner. He wrapped his arms around his husband’s waist. Shane leaned his head over Ilya’s shoulder and kissed his husband's cheek as he chopped vegetables.
“Absolutely not, clown. Hmm...” He repeated Ilya's words with a smile. Ilya shrugged his shoulders grumpily and tried to push Shane's head away. Was Ilya scared of, clowns?
“Excuse me, Mr. Hollander-Rozanov, but may I ask the reason for your firm decision? Personally, Alana and I might want a clown at our party.”
“No. You don't.” Ilya continued chopping vegetables indifferently.
“Oh, really? Says who? I love clowns. Look, I even married one.” As Shane finished his sentence, he started poking Ilya's waist with his finger. Now unable to hold back, he laughed at his husband's reactions, making no secret of the pleasure he took in teasing him. Ilya put down the knife in his hand and turned toward Shane on the counter to avoid his fingers. He took his husband's hands and switched places with him. Now Shane was leaning against the counter, Ilya was pinning him down, but Shane was still laughing shamelessly.
“Disgraceful. Our daughter is sleeping inside, and you're calling me a clown, is that it? That wasn't nice at all, Hollander.”
“Mmm, not my last name. But wasn’t it? It wasn't?” Shane raised his head and looked defiantly into his husband's eyes, eyebrows raised with a playful shock.
"No, it wasn't. Now this clown husband with his big red nose is going to stick his nose into all your business. See what happens when you squeeze the nose." Ilya, still holding Shane by the wrists, touched his own nose to Shane's and made a ‘beep’ sound with his mouth. Shane almost let out a giggle, but he didn't give up his game.
“How can I forget that my husband, my giant hockey player husband, my daughter’s father, is afraid of clowns?”
“It help if I remind you that if you don’t forget you won’t see the rabbit coming out of this clown’s hat tonight?” Asked Ilya, annoyed by the fact that his secret fear was out, but joyful because he got to play with his husband a little.
Shane frowned and pouted now that his game turned around. “Why did I even marry this clown. I don’t this clown now, his jokes aren’t funny at all.”
Ilya had to take matters into his own hands, so to speak, to put an end to the clown issue that day. Shane got to pet the rabbit? Maybe Ilya should’ve made that joke then and there. But in the end, there was no clown, thank God. Yuna and David would have to find other fun things to do if they really wanted to. Ilya trusted their, at least Yuna's, excellent planning skills.
And what Ilya saw clearly confirmed this. The house... The house had taken on a completely different atmosphere. Colorful balloons all around, a table full of food that Yuna had surely prepared with great care, a huge cake, gifts piled up in a corner. Ilya looked at their home with his mouth almost open, smiling. Everything looked wonderful. When Shane entered the house with Alana in his arms, Ilya saw a reflection of his own expression on Shane's face.
Almost everyone was there. Nearly the entire Centaurs team, their partners, some of their children, oh, and Hayden and JJ. Ilya chose to be the bigger person (as always) and greeted Hayden. Ilya was sometimes quite mature. Sometimes.
Shane was chatting with everyone individually to show off Alana, the girl of the day. Ilya stood beside him, trying to join the conversations, but his eyes were fixed on the enormous cake on the table. He had this fantasy of finding Yuna and asking if it was a chocolate or fruit cake, but Shane handed Alana over to him and started looking at something on Jackie's phone. Once the twins had ran off to play with some other kids of their teammates, Hayden turned to Ilya, holding Arthur's hand and with Amber in his arms and checked Ilya with Alana.
“Fatherhood doesn't look very bad on you, Rozanov.”
“Hmm,” Ilya nodded before answering and kissed Alana on the head. “Hollander-Rozanov,” he said just so he could say something snarky back to Hayden.
“At least don't do it with your daughter in your arms.” Hayden looked at Ilya, shaking his head with feigned disappointment, but Ilya had caught the twitch at the corner of his lips.
The day continued calmly, peacefully, beautifully. Ilya was filled with contentment that his daughters' first birthday had passed so pleasantly. He was chatting with everyone, showing off Alana and her sweetness. Whenever he caught Shane alone, he stole a few kisses. He was eating the cookies Yuna had made. He was joking around with his teammates. Ilya was happy.
Thinking about it made him feel strangely warm inside, but he was happy. Maybe not always, maybe not constantly, maybe not as much as it should have been. But Ilya didn't care because he was happy. He was very happy watching Shane photograph their little girl all over the house. He was very happy because the font of the words “Alana Liliya” written on the wall looked so much like a princess's signature. He was very happy when he heard Alana's laughter as Yuna chased Anya around the house with Alana in her arms. He was very happy when Shane caught him secretly trying to lick the frosting off the cake in the kitchen, and his husband licked the frosting off his finger before he could and ran out of the kitchen. He was very happy because Luca was so afraid to hold Alana that Ilya spent the whole day trying to find excuses to get Luca hold her, and every time Luca held her, he saw the expression on his face that looked like he was about to vomit out of worry. He was very happy because, while trying to turn the music playing in the background into a romantic dance song, Harris accidentally opened one of the Russian lullabies on Ilya's phone and Ilya realized that Hayden Pike knew the Russian lullaby by heart from hearing it so often in their house. And then he was happy because he knew Shane was watching them as he slow danced with Alana to the song Harris had finally played.
Ilya was very happy to be living this life they had built for themselves.
Then the time had come for Alana to blow out the solitary candle on her enormous cake.
One year old. Ilya couldn't help but think that no one could possibly be this early on in life. His little girl. She was growing up. Ilya couldn't stop himself from getting emotional. His Alyona. Ilya still remembered the first day they brought her home. Even before that, the day they chose her name. And after that, when she first got sick, how Shane almost lost his mind. That first summer day when the three of them came to this house for the first time. Ilya remembered everything, and remembering made him feel very strong. His daughter was growing up, Ilya was there for her, and he loved her very much.
They sat down at the table as a family, in a clichéd way. Shane and Ilya stood on either side of Alana, who was sitting at the table, and Yuna brought the cake and placed it in front of the little girl. First, they all watched and laughed as the girl tried to blow out the candle with her spit by blowing raspberries instead of blowing air, then Shane bent down and blew the candle to help his daughter. Alana applauded herself along with everyone else. David took the cake to cut it and distribute it to those in the room, and Yuna jumped around trying to take a picture of them. Ilya was going to ask her to do that himself but seeing how excited Yuna was about it made him more happy, and content.
The three of them stood side by side in front of the “Alana Liliya” sign on the wall. Ilya adjusted Alana's little party hat. Then he put on one of the same tiny children's hats himself. The flash went off from Yuna's camera.
Years later, when Alana looked at this photo, she would see this: she was so, so tiny. She glowed bright white thanks to the camera flash, in the red dress her grandmother had bought for her. Her tiny hands, reaching up to remove her party hat, were captured mid-air in the photo. She had a silly smile on her face, showing two teeth, because everyone in the room had called out her name to get her to look at the camera. And to her right, her daddy. Shane was leaning forward toward Alana, looking at her with a huge smile, and his hand, the one not holding his daughter's belly, was holding his husband’s waist next to him. And her papa, with his crooked, tiny party hat, blowing a kiss to the camera, his eyes sparkling, cheek to cheek with Alana. Years later, when Alana looked at this photo, she would see how lucky she was.
Ilya and Shane didn't want to open the gifts right away. According to their plan, which Shane thought was quite clever, they could keep Alana entertained for a long time by opening one each day. Their secret treasure, their hidden weapon. A free resource they could use whenever Alana got bored. So the party slowed down and a few people who needed to put their children to bed, a few who didn't want to further annoy their spouses waiting at home, and a few who didn't find a child's first birthday party exciting enough went home.
Both Shane and Ilya were aware that Alana was getting very sleepy too and perhaps they would have to leave their own party soon. Just as they were trying to find a polite way to leave their own party, Hayden Pike arrived with a package in his hand.
“I know you don't want to open the gifts today, but if we go home without giving this to Alana in person, Arthur will be unbearable.” Ilya noticed Arthur looking at them shyly from between Hayden’s legs and smiled and winked at the boy.
“Of course, I'm sure Alana wouldn't want to leave the party without opening Arthur's gift either.” Shane took the gift from Hayden and turned to Alana, starting to open the package.
Ilya couldn't have been happier that day he thought, especially by any scenario involving Hayden Pike, but he was clearly mistaken, because a tiny, plush version of Anya came out of the gift package.
“No way!” Ilya shouted excitedly, immediately securing his little girl to his waist and taking the toy dog from Shane's hand.
“No way, Pike! Arthur, this is an amazing gift! Perfect! Thank you!”
There, Ilya thought he couldn't be happier. Especially in a moment shared with Hayden Pike, but he was wrong.
“Papa, Anna!”
The entire living room fell into sudden silence. Ilya froze with a huge smile on his face, and Shane felt all the blood drain from his body. Quite dramatically, at that very moment, the string of one of the balloons in the room came loose and it let out a whisper-like sound as the air escaped. There was no sound in the room until Alana opened her mouth again.
“Anna, papa! Papa! Anna!”
And chaos broke out in the house. Everyone who had bet on Ilya jumped up and down with cries of joy, while those holding Shane’s side began to grumble. Amidst all the noise, Ilya's eyes found Shane. Shane first wiped the shock from his face, Ilya was kind of worried that Shane might’ve been a little upset by losing the game, but then he approached the pair with a smile at least as big as Ilya's own, and from the outside it almost looked like the three of them were hugging each other.
“Papa, Anna,” Alana said again.
“Yes.”
“Papa.”
“Yes, moy rebenok.”
“Anna, Papa.”
“Yes, sweetheart. Yes, moya lyubov. Anya.” Ilya answered Alana more happily each time, punctuating each sentence with a kiss on the girl's curls.
Ilya had won the competition. But Ilya felt very different, as if he had won the key to the world.
A single word from the tiny mouth of a girl who had just turned one. It had perhaps added years to Ilya's life. Ilya didn't know what to feel or how to show his feelings at that moment, but he rested his forehead against Shane's and whispered, “Thank you.”
For this life, for loving our daughter and me, for giving me not just one but many families, for being with me and allowing me to be with you, for this life, thank you. Shane should have understood; he was good at understanding what Ilya didn't say.
Then Ilya pulled his forehead away and rested his head on Alana's tiny head and repeated himself. “Thank you.”
For being our daughter and for being the first person to teach me what it truly means to be a father. Thank you for this life.
Also, for causing Hayden Pike to lose a bet.
There.
If the Hollander-Rozanov family kept a diary of their boring lives, this would be the first birthday of Alana, and the first words she muttered that Ilya would write about.