Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

July 12, 2023

There was glitter on the floor. It was from last week, Svetlana was pretty sure, when her auntie Carol (no relation) had hired a fake fireman to strip down to his gold lamé G-string in her mom’s hospice room. The guy was younger than Svetlana by a few years, with toned golden brown skin, an excellent sense of rhythm, and enough emotional intelligence (or acting skills) to seem completely unfazed by the prospect of shaking his glittery ass in a dying woman’s hospital room for an audience of half a dozen loud-ass post-menopausal women—plus one token white boy–hooting and hollering and clapping along to “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me).” Svetlana had hidden behind her cell phone camera recording the party from the doorway, experiencing all possible emotions and none at once. That was a good day. Ilya had even been able to cajole her mom into eating half a piece of over-frosted grocery store sheet cake by flirting and nagging as only he could.     

The little girl with bobble-elastic braids who still lived inside Svetlana had hoped they might get a bunch more good days after that. And they had gotten a few. But now, six days later, the room was eerily silent as Svetlana sat alone with her mother’s body, staring down at a faint smear of body glitter residue on the institutional linoleum floor. 

I will remember this forever, Svetlana thought. The glitter, the echoes of tears and laughter, the smell of disinfectant. The way her mom’s emaciated body had transformed from a person into an object in a moment. Svetlana should probably get one of the nursing staff, but she wasn’t ready yet. She clung to her mother’s hand, withered but still impeccably manicured, and visualized her mom as she had been: compact and curvy, with strong arms and stronger hands, dark skin glowing with health. Svetlana had her mom’s cheekbones and plush mouth, and they had similarly shaped eyes even if Svetlana’s were green instead of brown. So Svetlana might be tall and scrawny and obviously mixed, but no one ever missed the family connection.   

Eventually, Svetlana couldn’t bear to stay still anymore. She stood up, smoothed down her skirt with shaky hands, and walked to the row of windows on the opposite wall. Ilya and Shane had gone behind Svetlana’s back to get her mother a private room with access to morning light and fresh air, and Svetlana hadn’t complained because the surely stupid amount of money they’d paid was worth it. She was especially glad to be able to methodically open each window now. She knew–knew–that her mom’s spirit wasn’t in that husk anymore, but she couldn’t imagine it just ceasing to exist, and she couldn’t stand the idea of her mom stuck haunting this place, even if they’d had some good times here.

That done, Svetlana got her mom’s favorite everyday wig out and did her best to put it on as straight as she could get it without cooperation from its owner. Mom’s eyes were already closed–she’d gone in her sleep–so Svetlana just had to apply a coat of MAC Ruby Woo lipstick to her mother’s lips. It was silly, really. Svetlana knew that the funeral home people would apply a full face of make up later to match the reference photo her crazy mother had provided when she planned out her own funeral down to the canapes and red-velvet-lined casket after they found out that the cancer had come back and spread to her lymph nodes.

Gloria Johnson (formerly Vetrova) never went anywhere without her hair did and a bold red lip on–after thirty-one years of being the woman’s daughter, Svetlana was pretty sure that included the hereafter.   

~

SVETLANA: she’s gone

SVETLANA: i haven’t told anyone else yet

ILYUSHA: oh svetochka ((((((

ILYUSHA: we are coming. shane is on his phone buying plane tickets already

ILYUSHA: where are you right now?

SVETLANA: mom’s townhouse. i didn’t know what else to do with myself. maybe i’ll go on a walk? i’m twitchy

ILYUSHA: ok, do not go anywhere yet. i called cliff and he is on his way over

SVETLANA: . . .

ILYUSHA: i do not want to hear about “complicated”! you should not be alone right now and the earliest flight out of ottowa is not until tomorrow morning

ILYUSHA: that big idiot loves you. let him take care of you until we get there at least

SVETLANA: all i want to do is sit in front of the tv and veg out and i don’t even really want to do that

ILYUSHA: WELL. you currently have the best excuse you will ever get to make marly watch whatever you want

ILYUSHA: beyonce visual album, buffy, documentary about soviet national team, ANYTHING

ILYUSHA: milk this dead mom thing for all you can get

SVETLANA: 🙄

SVETLANA: ok fine

SVETLANA: he’s already seen lemonade        

ILYUSHA: he has???? put a fucking ring on it already

SVETLANA: leave me alone. i am grieving. 

ILYUSHA: no ❤️‍🩹

-

Ilya needn’t have scolded Svetlana. She didn’t have the energy to resist the comfort Cliff Marleau offered that night. 

He showed up on the doorstep of Svetlana’s (second) childhood home holding a margarita pizza from her favorite Italian restaurant in one enormous hand and a bottle of wine in a basket in the other massive paw. Svetlana opened the door to him in plaid pajama pants and an Ottawa Centaurs branded hoodie. She took one look at his stupid earnest face and burst into tears.  

“Hey, hey,” Cliff said, depositing both wine and pizza on the entryway table, nearly knocking over a bowl of stale potpourri in the process. Svetlana allowed him to wrap her up in a full-bodied hug while she soaked the front of the obnoxious muscle-T he had on with her tears. “I’ve got you, Sveta-girl. I’m here.” 

After a minute or two in that configuration, Cliff hoisted Svetlana up so she was clinging to the trunk of his body like a heartbroken koala bear and kicked the front door closed behind him. It felt so good not having to carry the weight of her own damn self that Svetlana didn’t even make any cracks about cavemen or Tarzan or big lunkheaded hockey players with more muscles than brains. She just let him carry her into her mom’s over-stuffed living room like she weighed nothing at all. 

Instead of dumping Svetlana on the aggressively colorful chinz sofa in a heap like he might do on some other day, Cliff sat himself down with her still attached to him like a limpet. Svetlana took the opportunity to straddle his lap and bury her face in the long strong line of his throat, only a little scratchy from his everpresent stubble. Cliff insinuated a hand under the thick material of her sweatshirt so he could rub his warm palm up and down her back in soothing strokes. He did this over the thin layer of T-shirt Svetlana had on underneath and something about that–how chaste and respectful he was being–made Svetlana think that if she wasn’t already crying she’d definitely have started in the face of such tenderness.

Cliff started softly singing the tuneless nonsense-song he’d made up about her back when she was just his teammate’s best friend.

🎶Svet Svet Svet, she’s the best! Svet Svet Svet, she’s the scariest girl in tow-ow-own. 🎶

A sob turned into a snicker in her throat, and Svetlana spluttered. Sounds were just coming out of her any which way, apparently. She sat up and managed to enunciate: “You are such a fuckin’ weirdo.”

“There she is,” Cliff said easily, leaning back into the flowery upholstery of the sofa. 

“Ugh. Don’t look at me,” Svetlana mumbled, wiping at her eyes with the cuffs of her sweatshirt. “I must look like a freak.” She had avoided her own reflection in the bathroom mirror earlier, but she knew how red her eyes always got on the rare occasions she cried. She knew her hair was frizzing out from the way it had felt when she’d put it up into two poofy pigtails after she got back from the hospital. She knew she probably looked small and vulnerable and wrecked in a way Cliff had never seen before. Even before they’d started this on-and-off thing, he’d seen her sick; he’d seen her hungover; he’d seen her strung out and exhausted from pulling all nighters during finals week. But this was different. Svetlana felt raw.

“I won’t lie, you look a little rough,” Cliff said with a soft smile. “But you are always the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” It was unbearable, how much he sounded like he meant that. 

Svetlana poked him in the center of his chest and frowned. “I will take a glass of that Chianti now.”

“All right,” Cliff said, gripping her hips in his hands and lifting her off his lap. “But you have to have at least one slice of pizza. I promised Roz I’d make you eat, and he’s demanding photographic evidence.”

“Ugh,” Svetlana said as she watched Cliff lope off to collect the pizza and wine. He put both offerings on the coffee table, leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead, and then walked off again, returning a couple minutes later with paper towels and two cut-glass goblets.  

“These look like some Game of Thrones type shit,” Cliff observed. “Fuck. We need a corkscrew, huh?”

“Drawer to the left of the sink,” Svetlana said. It was a little weird, being waited on hand and foot like this, but she couldn’t be bothered with asserting her independence right then. 

When Cliff returned with the corkscrew, however, Svetlana mustered up the wherewithal to uncork the bottle herself. This day was horrendous enough–she didn’t need to be spitting out bits of disintegrated cork all night on top of everything. Once that task was done, Svetlana poured a healthy measure of red wine into each glass. 

“These are for dessert wine,” she told him, gesturing to the glasses. 

Cliff raised a thick black eyebrow at her in a mannerism he’d definitely picked up from Ilya. “Oh no. Someone call the wine police.”

Svetlana side-eyed him and raised the glass to her lips. The wine was good. There was no way that Cliff had picked it out himself–he was a beer man through and through and even with that he wasn’t choosy. She imagined him at the liquor store asking the salespeople for help picking the right vintage to buy for one’s grieving situationship and almost felt a butterfly flap its metaphorical wings inside her chest. Just almost though–Svetlana was too fucking sad and too fucking tired for that. She had to admit though, at least to herself, that this was one of his most irritatingly good qualities–Cliff Marleau was not a man afraid to ask for help. 

Svetlana set down her glass with a clink. “I don’t want to talk,” she said.

“No problem,” Cliff said. “Wanna watch something stupid?”

“No,” Svetlana said, tucking her socked feet under Cliff’s thick jean-clad thighs. “I want to watch the best show ever.”

“And that is . . .?”

“Buffy the Vampire Slayer, duh.”

“You got it. Where’s the clicker?”

It was a risk Svetlana might not have taken if she hadn’t so desperately needed the comfort and familiarity of characters and dialogue she knew like the back of her hand. What if he liked it too much? She was running out of excuses to keep Cliff at arm’s reach: he wasn’t Ilya’s teammate now; she hadn’t had to keep Shane and Ilya’s secret for years; she didn’t work for the Bears anymore; he didn’t really qualify as a fuckboi any longer (and neither did she). They did live in different countries since she’d accepted the Head of Analytics position with the Centaurs, but Cliff kept making noises about retiring at the end of next season when his contract expired. Would he stay in Boston? Go home to bumfuck Saskatchewan? Come to his senses and settle down with an excessively blonde WAG-type who’d be happy to provide him with a full litter of pink-cheeked babies? 

Svetlana scowled and cued up the Buffy pilot.   

They made it through the first three and a half episodes of season one before Svetlana passed out with her head pillowed in Cliff’s lap. She roused a little while he carried her bridal-style to the guest room that used to be covered in pop punk band posters when it was still officially Svetlana’s room. 

Cliff tucked her in under the patchwork quilt that had been on the bed since Svetlana was a teen. “I’ll take the couch,” he whispered. 

“No,” Svetlana grumbled. “You will be my big spoon.”

“Okay,” Cliff agreed. The click of his belt unfastening sounded loud in the somber dark, as did the thump of his jeans hitting the hardwood floor.

While Cliff was stripping down to his boxers and sliding under the covers beside her, Svetlana thought about getting up to brush her teeth but found it very difficult to prioritize dental hygiene. She felt around for the silk scrunchie and satin bonnet she had stashed in the bedside table, making a triumphant grunt when she located both items. She didn’t need light to take out the pigtails or pile the mass of her hair on top of her head or tuck it all under the bonnet for safekeeping. Good enough. One night without brushing wouldn’t rot the teeth out of her head.

“You ready for some Grade A spooning?” Cliff asked once she was done with all that. 

Instead of answering his question out loud, Svetlana flopped onto her side and allowed Cliff to envelop her in his meaty arms. The heat of his chest against her back felt good. Too good.

“But no funny business,” she warned.

“Jesus H. Christ, Svet. As if I’m gonna try and get my dick wet right now. What the fuck?” 

“I know. Sorry, I know.” Svetlana did know. He wasn’t like that at all. 

Svetlana woke up for no reason twice that night. Both times she jerked awake in Cliff’s arms and for a few blissful seconds didn’t remember what had happened that day. 

She accidentally kicked Cliff’s shin the first time, somewhere around three AM. 

He grunted and exclaimed, “What the fuck, Rozy?”

Svetlana giggled despite everything. “Something you want to tell me about you and my best friend, Marleau?”

“Huh—uh, what?” Cliff sounded groggy and growly and confused, so Svetlana decided not to tease him further. Not right then anyway.

“Nothing, zaichik. Go back to sleep.” Svetlana pressed her thumb into the furrowed crease between his brows, trying to erase the stress she knew she was causing him.

When Svetlana’s eyes popped open again at five AM, Cliff was already awake enough to be embarrassed about the fact that he’d been holding onto one of her boobs in his sleep like it was a comfort object. 

“Shit, sorry,” Cliff said, removing his hand like Svetlana’s tits were on fire. 

Svetlana started laughing again, her usual alto chuckle at first but getting a little hysterical as she forgot what had set her off in the first place. Cliff rocked her from side to side and notched his chin above the top of her head, deflating her bonnet a bit as he squeezed her tight. 

“My mom is dead,” Svetlana choked out. “It’s not fair.”

“I know, baby,” Cliff said, exhaling audibly. ”It fuckin’ sucks.”

-

Cliff: [photo of Svetlana with a half-eaten slice of pizza held out towards the camera in one hand while she flips off the photographer with the other hand.]

Cliff: the proof you demanded

Roz: good work, marly

Roz: this is stupid question, i know, but how is she?

Cliff: uh, somehow both prickly and super cuddly?

Cliff: there was some waterworks at first

Cliff: to be expected, i guess, but hard to watch

Roz: this is v good 

Roz: she is letting herself feel emotions

Roz: you are a good man, marly

Cliff: could you tell her that?

Cliff: sorry, forget i said that, not the time

Roz: she knows

Roz: she is just scared

Roz: we did not grow up w/ great examples of love & romance

Cliff: ok, heard

Cliff: i’m not giving up

Roz: good

-

Cliff: you guys need me to pick you up from logan?

Roz: no, but thank u. renting car. shane’s choice, unfortunately ((

CLIFF: whatever, man. don’t think you could get hold of a lambo or whatever at the fucking airport anyway

ROZ: lambo no, but porsche probably. gloria would approve! she loved bold beautiful things. she made sveta, after all 💖

CLIFF: ok, well. you can park gloria’s car in. i’m not letting svet drive herself anywhere. still kinda pissed she did it yesterday before i got here

ROZ: sveta’s uncles there? 

CLIFF: nah. svet texted the family group chat before we went to bed last night tho

ROZ: the 2 loser uncles who live in boston probably do not want to do work. youngest one is good but he lives in seattle 

ROZ: do not worry! we will be there soon. shane has big notebook

CLIFF: ??

ROZ: plane is almost boarding!

CLIFF: ok, see you soon, brother

CLIFF: wait. what does zay-chick mean?

ROZ: 👀

CLIFF: don’t be a dick. just tell me!

ROZ: so sorry, little bunny, do not want to miss flight! 

CLIFF: why would she call me a bunny????

ROZ: bc ur cute & fluffy obvs

ROZ: relax. is common russian pet name

ROZ: bye bye for real now

Chapter Text

CLIFF: [photo of Ilya stuffing an entire chocolate glazed donut into his mouth, Dunkin’ Donuts to-go cup in his other hand.]

CLIFF: ya think it would tank your citizenship application if i posted this?

ROZ: nyet. canada wants me soooooo bad

CLIFF: nah, that’s just hollander, but he’s our crown prince and we like to keep him happy

ROZ: 1) fuck u 2) is good u were born canadian & do not have to take test bc technically william is crown prince. his big eared papa on loonies soon 3) montreal did not get this memo

CLIFF: 1) 🖕2) 🙄 3) is it fair to blame the whole city of montreal for the metros being a homophobic trash fire organization? it’s a wicked gay city

ROZ: r u secret french canadian spy?

CLIFF: rozy my guy, my last name is marleau

ROZ: yes, but ur from sus-ketchup-won, i thought? 

CLIFF: my dad’s from quebec city. i got aunts and uncles and cousins there

ROZ: after all these years there r still things i can learn about u 🩷

CLIFF: svet knew

ROZ:  oh did she now 🤔

~

Svetlana woke up alone in a bed that smelled faintly of cocoa butter and Cliff’s spicy aftershave. Predictably, her mouth tasted like ass and her eyes felt sandy and swollen after yesterday’s crying jags and dental negligence. She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling for a while. The fading remnants of a dream wafted around in her head. She and Ilya had been little kids again, bundled up in sweaters and coats for skating on a frozen lake. Irina and Gloria were there too, holding onto each other by both hands as they spun around and around, so fast. Svetlana couldn’t remember anything else–just that they’d all been laughing. 

Male voices in multiple registers rumbled from a couple rooms away. Her boys were here! And by the smell of it, someone had made coffee. That was motivation enough for Svetlana to haul herself out of bed. She stepped into a pair of fuzzy pink slippers and ducked into the bathroom to brush her teeth. 

She had all her essentials here already, thank god, electric toothbrush included. Svetlana had been in Ottawa for a few months when Gloria finally told her daughter that the cancer was back. With her Boston condo already rented out by then, Svetlana found herself living with her mom for the first time since college—and she’d been at Ilya’s half the time back then. Before that, mother and daughter hadn’t cohabitated fulltime since the divorce when Svetlana was twelve. At least Svetlana hadn’t found her own place in Ottawa yet, so she’d just emptied her shit out of Shane and Ilya’s best guest room into her suitcase when the Centaurs front office gave her permission to work remotely from Boston for as long as needed. 

Svetlana had been spitting mad when she figured out that Gloria had already known she was sick when Svetlana was deciding whether to take the job in Ottawa or stay in Boston with the Bears (and her mom). 

Gloria was unrepentant when Svetlana confronted her about withholding information. “You needed to go somewhere they’d appreciate you for the genius you are, baby, instead of trotting you out for diversity points and then making you bend yourself backwards trying to be heard. I wasn’t gonna give you the chance to make that kinda sacrifice for me or anybody else.”

“It’s my life, mom!”

“Yeah, and you’ll always be my baby girl,” Gloria had said, punctuating that pronouncement with an affectionate swat to Svetlana’s butt.

The most annoying part was that Svetlana was grateful. Boston would always be her home as much as or more so than Moscow was, but being the “Bear Princess” with no true authority or consistent professional respect had been driving her slowly nuts. Gloria had been right again, damn it. And now she was gone, and her home was infested with well-intentioned professional hockey players. 

Svetlana completed her ablutions by splashing her face with cool water and slathering on moisturizer. Time to face this fucking day. 

As soon as Svetlana trudged into the kitchen, Ilya stood up from where he’d been leaning against the counter and crossed the distance between them in two big steps, wrapping Svetlana up in a crushing hug. 

“Welcome to the worst club ever, malyshka. Is objectively terrible, but we have donuts.”

They sure did. The table in the breakfast nook was host to a dozen box from Dunks plus a box of munchkins and one of those ten-cup coffee dispensers ubiquitous to conference rooms across the US of A. Seated before this unhealthful bounty was one Shane Hollander sipping a cup of coffee and fiddling with a ripped open packet of collagen protein “creamer.”

“Hi Sveta,” Shane greeted her softly. “I’m so sorry about your mom.”

“Spasibo, Shanya.” Svetlana detached herself from Shane’s husband and joined him on the diner-style bench, nudging Shane’s hip with her own until he moved over to make more room for her.

When Svetlana peeked over at Cliff, he nodded at her and said, “Mornin’ Svet,” as if she hadn’t had a mental breakdown all over him last night. He was dressed in yesterday’s jeans and a fresh but faded Bears T, sitting up on the counter beside the sink, his long legs almost reaching the floor. He really was built on a different scale than everything else in this house. 

Rather than dwell on that, Svetlana opted to pour herself a coffee and doctor it with cream. “I have to go to the funeral home this afternoon to fill out the death certificate,” she said. “And bring them clothes to dress her in, I think, maybe? I talked to them on the phone yesterday, but it’s all a little hazy.”    

“Actually,” Shane said. “They already have an outfit for her. Gloria had Ilya bring it over the last time he was here.”

Svetlana swiveled her head to stare incredulously at her two friends. Ilya, who had sat himself opposite Svetlana and Shane, nearly choked on a big bite of french cruller as he worked to swallow it down so he could defend himself.       

“She told me not to tell you! Said she didn’t want to bother you with it.” Ilya pressed his hands together in a praying gesture and implored, “Forgive me, Svetka, but I could not say no to her.”

Svetlana sighed. “You never could, even before.”

“So I am forgiven?” Ilya had lethal puppy-dog eyes, no lie.

“Of course, Ilyusha,” Svetlana said, reaching across the table to cover his hand with hers and give it a squeeze. “Well, that’s one less thing. I know she made all the arrangements months ago, but there’s got to be stuff I need to take care of in the next couple days all the same. I guess I’ll ask the funeral director. Lara? Laura, maybe?”

“Lauraine,” supplied Shane.

“Right. That’s it,” Svetlana agreed, and then did a double take. “Wait. How do you know that?”

Shane’s uncommonly symmetrical face squished into a sheepish expression as he pulled a three-ring binder out from somewhere. It was neatly covered in vintage floral wallpaper. Svetlana would recognize her scrapbooking-obsessed mother’s handiwork anywhere. 

“Blyat,” she cursed.   

“There’s really not that much to do before the service,” Shane rushed to explain. “Gloria was really thorough. I mean, eventually you’ll have to do her taxes and talk with lawyers and figure out what you want to do with the house and her share of the business and all her stuff, but none of that is immediate, and–”

“Fuck.” 

“–and the rest is all in here,” Shane continued, patting the binder. “Contact list, menu, obituary draft . . .”

“She wrote her own obituary,” Svetlana said flatly. Her eyes shifted to focus on Ilya as she slipped into Russian. “I was birthed by a madwoman.”  

Ilya shrugged. “Da.”

Svetlana’s brain chose that moment to unearth a long-buried memory of Gloria raging after Irina’s funeral, growling about the sea of white lilies when Irina loved color, the impersonal eulogy read by a man who had never met Ilya’s mother in life, the stiff formal dress Grigori had picked out for her to wear in the casket, and, of course, the way that Irina’s wild, golden curls had been pulled back in a tight straitjacket of a bun.

“He is the reason Irochka is dead,” Gloria had hissed. “And now he tries to erase who she was–pays the undertakers to turn her into the wife he wanted.”

Twelve-year-old Svetlana had hidden at the top of the stairs, shocked and scared, as her papa tried to get her mom to calm down, very unsuccessfully.

“You can not say these things!” Sergei had insisted. “She was his wife.”

Not too long after that, Gloria was bidding her daughter a tearful goodbye at the airport. “I’m so sorry, baby. I wish you could come home to Boston with me, but–” A sharp look from Svetlana’s Russian grandmother had stopped Gloria from finishing that sentence. Gloria pasted on a grimace of a smile and said, “You’ll come in the summer and we’ll have a great time, okay? Be a good girl and look out for Ilya. He needs you.”

What about what I need? Svetlana had wondered. But even then, some part of her had known that Gloria couldn’t stay in Russia. Her mom had never wanted to move there in the first place and the language hadn’t come easily to her. Plus, none of the other mothers were very nice to her besides Ilya’s. Svetlana’s memories of what their life had been like when she was little and her papa still played hockey for the Bears had faded some, but she’d known that her mom had been louder and brighter back then–happy like she only was in Russia when no one else was around besides Irina and their kids.

And what would Svetlana have done if she’d been asked to choose between her mom and her best friend? Because that’s what the choice would have really been–Svetlana loved her papa but he was always gone doing important things with important men. She really didn’t understand why he’d insisted on primary custody. 

Instead of saying any of that, Svetlana had wrapped her skinny arms around her mother’s full hips and whispered, “Ya tebya lyublyu, Mommy.”

Less than a year after that, Svetlana had a new stepmother who was younger, quieter, and infinitely whiter than Gloria. 

Almost twenty years later, Svetlana realized that she had totally checked out there for a while, and someone was saying her name insistently and probably not for the first time. 

“Sorry, what?” she asked the room in general. 

“We are supposed to take you to Wash & Go to get your hair done this morning,” Ilya informed her. “Maria and Shoshanna closed the place down today except for family.”

Svetlana let out a theatrical wail. “Oh my god, don’t tell me Gloria left instructions for what my fucking hair should look like at the funeral too.”

Shane, bless him, started to open the binder he was apparently in charge of for some reason, but Ilya stopped him with a touch to his forearm. “No, moya lyubov,” Ilya said, smothering a laugh. “Is nothing in there about that.” 

To Svetlana, Ilya said, “You should go, Svetochka. Let your mama’s friends love on you. Should be happy-sad time, you know? Cliff and I will come get you in time for your meeting. And Shane can boss us around for Gloria while the ladies make you beautiful.”

Cliff spoke up for the first time in awhile. “I do take direction well.”

“Yes, Sveta does like that in her men,” Ilya said with a shit-eating grin. “With the girls, she likes them a bit more dominant.”

Svetlana rolled her eyes. “Stop talking, Ilyusha.”

“Right,” Shane said. “Our bags are still in the car. Ilya insisted that we didn’t need to get a hotel room, but are you sure about that, Sveta?”

“As long as you don’t mind sleeping in Gloria’s room,” Svetlana told him. “The cleaners have been in since we moved her to hospice care, so.”

Ilya and Cliff went outside to get the bags and, Svetlana suspected, to smoke not-so-sneaky cigarettes. Ilya hardly smoked anymore now that he and Shane lived and worked together, and Cliff had only ever been a social smoker, but a lot of things went out the window when someone died. For her part, Svetlana was determined not to have a relapse, considering how proud Gloria had been when she’d quit smoking. There was also the fact that she had just lost her mother to cancer. 

Svetlana dropped her head to rest on Shane’s shoulder. He responded by gently touching the side of his head to the top of hers, and Svetlana flashed to how he was always bonking helmets with his teammates on the ice. Shane Katsuki Hollander, the hockiest of hockey boys, always. 

“I really am so sorry,” Shane said. “I didn’t know Gloria as well as Ilya, obviously, but she was a wonderful woman from everything I’ve seen and heard.”

“She was pretty great,” Svetlana agreed. “Also a fucking lot sometimes.”

Shane chuckled. “Yeah, I wouldn’t know anything about that.” 

“I don’t know what you’re implying,” Svetlana said, removing her head from Shane’s shoulder to smirk at him. “Yuna Hollander is exactly enough–in that she is my everything.”

Shane closed his eyes briefly. “Oh God, I didn’t mean to awaken your weird crush on my mom.”

“It’s not weird,” Svetlana insisted, finding comfort in the familiar argument. “She’s a lesbian icon.”

“How. She’s not a lesbian.”

“Neither is Lucy Lawless or Joan of Arc, and yet.” Svetlana poked Shane’s right tit for emphasis.

“Ow.” Shane rubbed his pec where she’d made contact and narrowed his eyes at Svetlana. “As far as I know, my mother has never picked up a sword, if that’s part of the criteria.”

Svetlana clapped her hands together. “Look at you, Hollander! Recognizing a pop culture reference. I’m so proud.”

“Fuck off. You’re the one who added Xena: Warrior Princess to my Queer Studies syllabus,” Shane pointed out.

“I didn’t expect you to actually watch it though.”

Shane smiled ruefully. “I’ll admit, it was mostly Ilya who watched it while I was also sometimes physically present.”

“Sounds about right,” Svetlana said, smiling back. 

This silly banter felt so normal. It was a massive relief. Svetlana really didn’t know how to deal with the mournful looks and euphemistic language she got from a lot of people when the topic of her mom came up. Gloria hadn’t “passed away;” she fucking died. Ugh. At least the boys were treating Svetlana like she was still herself.   

Shane pressed a hand over Svetlana’s mouth. She did not lick his palm–she wasn’t gross like some people. 

“Anyway, icon or not, I must insist that you not seduce my mother at your mother’s funeral, no matter how sad you are,” Shane said sternly. “It’s my responsibility as your friend to prevent you from making poor decisions in your time of grief. For your own good.” His serious face cracked and he added, “Also, I think you’d break Cliff’s heart–not to mention my dad’s.”

The second Shane removed his hand from Svetlana’s mouth, she was ready with a retort. “I notice that you seem to think I could seduce Yuna. I will be taking that as a compliment.”

“Well, I notice that you didn’t acknowledge the Cliff part,” Shane said, jostling her lightly with one of his massive biceps. “Also, you are a menace.”

Svetlana sniffed. “Says the man who voluntarily married Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov.” 

“Uh huh, and you’ve been his friend, for what? Twenty-five years?”

“Well, I did not have much choice about that to begin with, since our moms were best friends. By the time Irina died, we had already imprinted on each other.” Svetlana paused. “Is he . . .? This must be bringing stuff up for him.” She bit her lip. 

“Don’t you worry about that,” Shane scolded mildly. “He’s doubled up on his appointments with Galina, and they can do Zoom while he’s out of town.”

“Okay,” Svetlana said, knowing she would probably worry some anyway. Out of habit. 

“And you know he’s a nurturer,” Shane added. “It’ll help him to help you right now.”

“You are also helping me,” Svetlana said, pointing at the funeral binder. “What’s going on with that?”

“Oh,” Shane said, running his fingertips back and forth along the edge of the notebook. “Gloria gave it to Ilya, and you know me–I love a list and a plan.” She did know. And from that perspective, the binder started to look like a shield Shane could use to ward off uncertainty and disorder. 

Still. “I just–it’s supposed to be my responsibility, right?”  

Shane cleared his throat. “Like I said before, Gloria really took care of most of it. Also, you are still going to have to do the hardest part.”

“Which is?”

“Every single person who comes to the funeral is going to look at you, and probably try and talk to you. You’re going to have to have variations of the same intense or awkward conversations over and over again.” Shane shuddered. 

Svetlana felt a little sick. “That’s probably why widows used to wear veils, I bet. To avoid being perceived.”

Shane hummed. “That makes sense.”

Svetlana’s brain supplied her with an image of six-foot-tall, 200lb jock Shane Hollander wearing a black veil fit for Queen Victoria over his athleisure, with Ilya alive and well and peacocked out in slutty club wear on his arm. It was a very entertaining daydream, but Svetlana had a real question for Shane she didn’t want to lose track of.   

“Hey, Shane,” she said.

“Yeah?”

“Do you know about the whole center of attention thing from personal experience? Well, obviously you do, like, in general, but I mean specifically at funerals.”

Shane looked down at his lap. “Sort of. I watched both of my parents deal with losing their parents. My dad has a bunch of siblings so it wasn’t all on him, but my mom is an only child like me.”

“And me,” Svetlana said. “Unless you count Ilya.”

“I don’t think we should, because, you know, incest.” Shane wrinkled his nose. 

Svetlana flapped a hand. “Eh.”

Shane changed the subject. “You have not eaten anything.”

Svetlana mimed clutching her pearls. “Are you, Mr. Performance Diet, suggesting I ingest these sugar bombs?” She gestured to the donuts.

Shane didn’t take the bait. “Not if you’re willing to eat something else. Do you have any eggs? Bread?” He nudged her with his thigh, asking to be released from the bench. 

Svetlana sighed and stood up to let him out. “I guess I could try some toast. With marmalade?”

“You got it.”

While Shane bustled around like a mother hen, Svetlana contemplated his reputation as a socially awkward “hockey robot.” Shane was certainly . . . unique, but it hadn’t taken him that long to get comfortable with her once he realized that she was not a threat to his relationship with Ilya. She hadn’t realized, however, just how unusual it was that Shane welcomed her into his personal space until after the boys were outed and she started spending time around Shane with more people present besides his parents, Ilya, and the Pike family. She’d been accelerated into his circle of trust, apparently. Maybe as a sort of extension of Ilya? At least at first. She and Ilya had been companion planted as seedlings, after all. Cross-pollinated or whatever.    

But the thoughtful, slyly funny, sometimes kinda bitchy guy Svetlana felt privileged to know was starting to show up in Shane’s media appearances now that he’d settled into his role as assistant captain of the Centaurs. And, of course, now that he was no longer hiding so much of himself all the damn time. That probably helped a lot too.    

Shane was telling Svetlana about Japanese Buddhist funeral rites while he supervised her laborious consumption of the toast he’d made for her when Ilya and Cliff trooped back into the house laden with luggage after being gone for at least fifteen minutes and, yep, smelling of smoke. Ilya shot Shane a guilty look and ushered Cliff to the master bedroom. 

Svetlana and Shane’s conversation paused briefly so they could focus on watching the big strong men carrying large suitcases.

“Damn, kid. How much stuff did you guys bring?” Svetlana asked.

“Oh,” Shane said. “Ilya hasn’t bought a return ticket for himself yet. So he brought a week’s worth of different kinds of clothes, depending on if you want his help sorting through your mom’s stuff or ‘drowning your sorrows at the club’ or uh, ‘crying into a tub of ice cream on the couch.’ Those are direct quotes, by the way.”

Svetlana smiled wanly. “I think the ice cream thing is supposed to be for break ups.”

“Hmm,” Shane said. “Anyway, my suitcase has another smaller suitcase inside that’s mostly empty, so I can take some things back to Ottawa for you if you want.”

“Oh Shanya,” Svetlana whispered. This time the tears just slid down her cheeks, no sobs or gasping involved. “You are the sweetest boy. I’m so glad Ilyusha found you.”

Shane grabbed a Dunks napkin and gently dabbed at the wetness on Svetlana’s cheeks. “Huh. I seem to recall you threatening my life the first time we met.”

Svetlana submitted to Shane’s ministrations like a child having her face cleaned by a licked maternal finger. “Yes, but I did not know you yet. And Ilyusha deserved someone being protective of him.”

“Yeah,” Shane agreed. “He does.”   

The sweet moment was abruptly disturbed by Ilya rushing out of the master bedroom clutching a framed photo and babbling in frantic Russian. “How have I never seen this before, Sveta? What the fuck.” He turned the photo around to show Svetlana and Shane but kept holding onto it.

“Oh,” Svetlana whispered. It was one of those things that had just existed in her mom’s house for so long that she’d stopped really seeing it. And it stayed in Gloria’s bedroom, anyway, hidden from visitors.  

In the photo, Irina and Gloria stand side by side with their arms around each other and their cheeks pressed together. They are grinning, looking so young and so incredibly nineties: light-wash mom jeans and loud prints, Irina’s curls barely tamed by a brigade of butterfly clips and Gloria with a shoulder-length jheri curl going on.

“Wow,” Shane said reverently, flicking his gaze between the photo and his husband. “That’s got to be your mom, right? She looks so much like you.”

“Other way around, but yes,” Ilya answered, blinking rapidly. He carefully placed the photo on the table and then attempted to sit on his husband’s lap, but there wasn’t enough room between the bench and the table to stack two large men. Ilya settled for sitting thigh to thigh with Shane and threading their hands together under the table.

“You’ve really never seen it before, Ilyusha?” Svetlana asked once he’d settled. 

“Maybe long time ago? I don’t know. This is at dacha, yes?” Ooph, Ilya was losing his articles. 

 “Yeah, I think so.” Svetlana said. “The trees behind them look right.”

“Was cottage owned by mama’s family,” Ilya explained to Shane. “Real cottage, not Canadian mansion.”

Shane rolled his eyes, but gestured for Ilya to continue. 

“Ah, yes. Was small but nice. Our mamas used to take us there in summer before . . . well, before. Lyosha came too until he was too cool for us. Sometimes our papas came for weekends, but mostly no.” There was another sign of Ilya’s discomposure–he almost never used diminutives in reference to his brother anymore.

“Huh,” Shane said. “And here I thought you were strictly a city kid, scared of loons and all.”

Ilya glared at his husband, spirits revived by the teasing. “Russian birds do not make such terrible sounds.”

“It wasn’t as remote as your cottage, Shane,” Svetlana interjected. “But we loved it.”

The doorbell rang, startling Svetlana into a minor fight or flight reaction. Cliff was already up, hovering just outside the kitchen, so he immediately assured the seated trio that he’d get it. Before he went to answer the door, however, Cliff quickly emptied his hands of what turned out to be two glass-encased devotional candles, plonking them down on the table beside the photo of Gloria and Irina. 

Svetlana gasped when she saw the “saint” emblazoned on both candles. One of them featured a photoshopped version of the cover of Whitney Houston’s second studio album Whitney that covered up the sexy white tank top from the original photo with “saintly” robes but left intact Whitney’s wide-smiling face surrounded by a riotous halo of fat, juicy brown curls. The other candle adapted the art for Whitney’s last album before she died; on this one, Svetlana’s mom’s idol looked just as beautiful but more somber and careworn, her shoulder-length hair tamed and highlighted to a degree somewhere between Rachel from Friends and a particularly classy PTA mom. Or maybe Svetlana was just reading too much into it because she knew how that story ended. 

“I gave these to her a few Christmases ago,” Svetlana said, rolling the glass cylinder protecting youthful Saint Whitney between her hands. The candle wicks had never been lit. Svetlana didn’t know if she had any feelings or thoughts about that.

Shane looked intently at the stationary candle like it was a puzzle he might decipher if he stared hard enough.

Ilya detangled his hand from Shane’s so he could sling his arm over his husband’s shoulders. “Tell the truth, solnyshko,” Ilya teased. “You have no idea who is on the candles, do you?”  

Shane sighed. “You know I don’t.”

Ilya clucked his tongue and nuzzled his nose against Shane’s cheek. 

Before anyone could enlighten Shane about the cultural significance and vocal virtuosity of the late Whitney Houston, Cliff returned carrying a large bouquet of vivid orange tiger lilies. He handed them to Svetlana and said, “There’s a note. I didn’t peek.” He squeezed her shoulder and asked, “Do you want me to get you a vase from somewhere?”

“Above the sink,” Svetlana replied absently, sticking her nose into the blooms for a sniff. “Thanks!” she added belatedly. 

Cliff brought back a tall clear glass vase filled three quarters of the way up with water and a pair of kitchen shears that lived in the same drawer as the corkscrew from last night. He fished the card out of the bouquet’s wrappings and handed it to Svetlana, raising his eyebrows at her in question. She nodded and released the bouquet into his keeping, watching in a daze as he efficiently cut through cellophane and tissue paper, dumped the included packet of flower food into the water, and trimmed the the ends of the lily stems before plopping the prepped flowers into the vase.  

Cliff had multiple sisters and a mother, and he had ex-girlfriends who still talked to him. He was thirty-five years old. Svetlana shouldn’t keep being surprised that he could perform basic tasks and follow logic. Maybe she could have trusted him to open the wine last night. For some reason, she kind of liked the idea of him knowing what to do with flowers but not wine, however.

Svetlana made the mistake of making eye contact with Ilya while Cliff fussed with the flowers, and he waggled his eyebrows at her obnoxiously. Ilya looked too delighted by half, and also like he should have a bucket of popcorn at the ready. He didn’t say anything about Cliff’s irritating competence though, just kicked Svetlana under the table and told her to read the note. 

Cliff slid onto the bench beside Svetlana while she opened the small envelope. It was a print-out, a few short lines of Cyrillic. Svetlana read them once, twice, then a third time.

Svetlana looked up at the three men seated around her, feeling like she was floating somewhere on the ceiling. “They’re from my papa.”

“Are orange lilies typical in Russia?” Shane asked. “When someone dies, I mean.”

Ilya and Svetlana both answered him in overlapping “nyets.”

“Jinx,” Svetlana said, holding out a crooked pinky finger to hook with Ilya’s. She looked to Shane and elaborated, “Funeral flowers in Russia are similar to here. Lots of lilies and roses, usually white, or red if it’s a military funeral. But Gloria loved tiger lilies . . .”

“My mama too,” Ilya added, his pretty blue eyes gone wet.   

Svetlana nodded, remembering. “So not typical, no, but appropriate for my not-at-all-Russian mom.”

“Wait!” Ilya cried out. He futzed with the flowers in the vase, counting under his breath in Russian. “Ten stems total,” he announced. “So that part is traditional Russian.” 

“Odd numbers are for the living,” Svetlana explained to Cliff and Shane. To no one in particular, she added, “He addressed the card to her, not me.”

Svetlana needed to do something with all these fucking emotions before she dissolved into a puddle on the floor, or maybe drifted away into the ether? She had no metaphors to explain how she was feeling. So she snapped her fingers briskly and asked, “Which of you stinky smokers has a light? We have the beginnings of a glorious shrine here.” 

~

SVETLANA: i think i know why my mom went full funeral-zilla

ILYUSHA: yes? because she loved you and wanted to make things easier for you

SVETLANA: yeah, of course. but also she really, really hated your mom’s funeral. i think she wanted the exact opposite of that.  

SVETLANA: maybe she never got over having no say in how irina was publicly mourned? so she went control freak about her own funeral.

SVETLANA: she was so pissed at your papa. it was crazy. 

ILYUSHA: i did not know this, but i am not surprised 

SVETLANA: yeah, she was really out of control angry. blaming Grigori for her death, yelling at my papa. he almost didn’t let her go to the funeral at all.

ILYUSHA: why didn’t you tell me?

SVETLANA: ilyushka, you were a child. i was a child. and your mama had just died.

SVETLANA: when we got older, i kind of blocked it out? 

SVETLANA: things hadn’t been good between my parents for a long time, but i think your mom dying was the last straw. neither of them ever really told me the details, but she did leave like two months later or something like that

ILYUSHA: oh. i did not realize

SVETLANA: you were a little busy at the time. 💔

Chapter Text

Hollanov Updates @hollanovupdates  

Hollanov sighted in Boston! Multiple fan photos taken with the First Husbands of Hockey, together and separately, at Logan International Airport this morning.  1/? 🧵

Hollander 4eva @hollanderism24

Ugh. Shaney looks SO GOOD 🥵

 

Anya Hollander-Rozanova @shilyamatters

wtf are they doing in boston rn?? aren’t they usually holed up at the cottage this time of year?

 

Marleau Fever @bostonbabe

idk. maybe visiting marly or svetlana?

 

Anya Hollander-Rozanova @shilyamatters

but svetlana works for the cens now, right?

 

Marleau Fever @bostonbabe

yeah, but she’s FROM boston and it’s the off-season

 

Anya Hollander-Rozanova @shilyamatters

i thought she was russian?

 

Hollander 4eva @hollanderism24

Who is Svetlana?

 

Marleau Fever @bostonbabe

@hollanderism24 www.reddit.com/r/HockeyRPF/wi4fh33/svetlana_vetrova_woman_myth_legend/

r/HockeyRPF ᐧ 6mo ago

u/HRPFhistorian

Svetlana Vetrova: The Woman, the Myth, the Legend

Svetlana Vetrova is a sometimes controversial but popular figure in Men’s Hockey RPF about Ilya Rozanov (former captain of the Boston Bears, current captain of the Ottawa Centaurs).

She is the daughter of former Bears goalie Sergei Vetrov and grew up with Rozanov in Moscow after her dad retired from the NHL. Svetlana attended Boston University when Rozanov started playing for the Bears in the 2010-2011 season and was regularly papped with him throughout his time in Boston. At the very beginning of Rozanov’s NHL career, the two of them would post pics of each other and interact a lot on social media, but that stopped pretty quick because people were being racist, sexist assholes and she was getting death threats from unhinged Rozanov fans. Svetlana still attended a lot of Bears home games in a Rozanov jersey though. Many people assumed she was his girlfriend, even though Rozanov got papped with lots of women during his time in Boston and a romantic relationship between the two was never confirmed. Regardless, no other woman ever appeared on Rozanov’s arm as often as Svetlana (or more than once or twice, really). Also, rumor was that all the Boston puck bunnies would pout if they saw Svetlana at the club with Roz because if she was there he wouldn’t go home with anyone else.

Prior to Rozanov’s relationship with Shane Hollander getting outed via Fanmail video (fuck you, Brad!!!) Svetlana was spotted a few times with Hollander in Boston and Ottawa (more than once at museums?), leading to some (very funny in retrospect) speculation that Hollander had stolen his rival’s girl. Since the outing, there’s been a lot of strong evidence that Svetlana was one of the few people to know about Hollanov pre-Fanmail besides the Hollanders and Hayden Pike. When Shane and Ilya got married in July 2021, Svetlana served as Rozanov’s “best woman” at the wedding.     

After she graduated from BU with a degree in Data Science, Svetlana worked in luxury car sales for a few years before she was hired by the Bears front office. At the beginning of the 2022-23 hockey season, Svetlana left the Bears organization to become Head of Analytics for the Ottawa Centaurs.

Why is Svetlana controversial? Well, she is a woman in the orbit of a much thirsted after male sports celebrity. She’s also a WOC who works in hockey, one of the whitest North American sports. A lot of jealousy and predictable misogynoir has appeared on hockey twt and in Rozanov-centric rpf fics. Accusations that Svetlana got her NHL jobs via nepotism or sleeping her way to the top, that kind of thing. An actual controversy that’s not just bigotry involves debates about whether or not Svetlana is enough of a public figure to be fair game for rpf because she’s not an athlete or model or actress, etc.        

Svetlana used to show up in a lot of smutty threesome fics with Ilya Rozanov and Cliff Marleau (current captain of the Bears). Since the Hollanov reveal, Shane/Ilya/Svetlana fics are not uncommon. There’s also a small but dedicated faction who ship Svetlana with actress Rose Landry, who used to date Hollander and is friends with Shane, Ilya, and Svetlana. There is also at least one fic on AO3 in which Yuna Hollander (Shane’s mother!) cheats on David Hollander (Shane’s father!) with Svetlana (Shane’s husband’s bestie!). Rule 34 and whatnot. 

tl:dr - Svetlana Vetrova is Ilya’s Rozanov’s childhood friend and rumored former fwb. Used to be called the “Bear Princess” because she is the daughter of a former Bears player and was the regular plus one of another. She is volcanic levels of hot, works for an NHL team, and according to THE Shane Hollander, she “knows everything about hockey,” so hoes mad. Despite all that, she appears in hockey rpf more than almost any other WAG—including the figure skaters!–and she’s not even a WAG.

⬆️3.4K ⬇️ ᐧ 💬256

u/Bears_Forever ᐧ 6 mo ago

she’s a wag now! she’s dating cliff marleau. or at least going to ikea with him and i can’t think why she would do that to herself otherwise.  

u/LesbianPicard ᐧ 6 mo ago

i need her carnally

u/pucked-up-105 ᐧ 6 mo ago

Ilya is the GREEDIEST bisexual, goddamn.

u/WollstonecraftsMonster ᐧ 6 mo ago

respect for calling out the misogynoir but it's a lil weird that you use Rozanov and Hollander's last names but always refer to Vetrova by her first name :/

u/Bears_Forever

i hear what ur saying, but svetlana's kind of a mononym in the fandom. like beyoncé, u know?  (bitchin username, btw.)

u/virtue-moir-supremacy ᐧ 5 mo ago

Speaking of figure skating WAGS, check out my tessa/svetlana fic: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8510289

u/vetrovas ᐧ 22 min ago

Time to update this post! Roz just posted on IG saying that his mom and Svetlana's mom were best friends. 

@IlyaRozanovOfficial ✅ on Instagram

[1) a digital scan of a color photo of two women in their late twenties standing up and embracing cheek-to-cheek in front of a blurred background of green foliage; the woman on the right is slim and tall with pale skin, blue-green eyes, and chin-length curly golden blonde hair messily held back from her face by many butterfly clips–she is wearing cut-off denim shorts and a white cotton T-shirt printed with abstract neon geometric shapes; the woman beside her is shorter and curvier with rich medium-dark skin, brown eyes, and shoulder-length glossy dark hair treated with jheri curl home perm-she is wearing light-wash mom jeans and a black Whitney Houston T-shirt from the 1992 “I’m Your Baby Tonight” tour; both women are smiling broadly.

2) a digital scan of a blurry color photo of the two women from the previous image; they are wearing the same clothing as before but have moved to an indoor location where they are seated on the floor in front of a prominent fireplace each with a small child in her lap; the children appear about seven or eight years old and are wearing matching dinosaur pajamas; the smaller of the two kids has light brown skin, a missing front tooth, and dark brown hair braided into cornrows that culminate in a high side ponytail–she is sitting between the knees of the blonde woman; the other child is white with blue eyes and a halo of blonde curls–he is asleep and possibly drooling on the Whitney Houston T-shirt worn by the woman with a jheri curl.        

3) a cellphone selfie of Ilya Rozanov and Svetlana Vetrova taken by Ilya Rozanov; Ilya has one arm around Svetlana and is leaning down from his greater height to press his cheek against hers; the photo depicts them from the waist up; Ilya is smiling wide and looking at the camera while Svetlana rolls her eyes and mock-glares at him, a slight smile on her lips; Ilya’s overgrown mop of shortish dirty-blonde curls are pinned up haphazardly with silver double-pronged curl clips; he is wearing a tight white T-shirt with a pink cursive Barbie logo printed on his chest over a pink and white checkered background; Svetlana’s hair is plaited into medium box braids with purple extensions woven into the long burgundy strands; she is wearing the same vintage Whitney Houston tour shirt from the first photo, the black cotton now faded to charcoal grey.] 

Caption: Two generations of bestie-hood! RIP Gloria, you were a slay every day. I will always be grateful to you for your kindness and for making @SvetaVetrova 🙏

Я люблю тебя навсегда, мама. Теперь вы можете быть снова вместе. 

[comments limited on this post]

@SvetaVetrova 

Самым крутым мамам в мире. ❤️‍🩹

@Cliff_Marleau ✅ 

🔥🥲💪

@CVaughn19 ✅

Deepest condolences, @SvetaVetrova ❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹❤️‍🩹

@CVaughn19 ✅

(Is now a bad time to ask how much $ you’d need to part with the vintage Whitney shirt? My mom’s a fan too.)

@SvetaVetrova 

@CVaughn19 ✅ not for sale! that’s a family heirloom. (thanks, vaughnie. 🙏)

 

Hollanov Updates @hollanovupdates

Ilya posted three pics to his official IG account with a caption indicating the post is a tribute to his friend Svetlana’s late mother. [link]

@RozanovTranslator 

At the end of the post, Roz says, “I love you forever, Mom. Now you [plural] can be together again.” Svetlana commented, “to the coolest moms in the world.”

 

@hockeygirlie

damn, save some of the pretty genes for the rest of us 

 

@hollanov2481

may her memory be a blessing.

 

@parasocialism 

“And they were roommates.” 👀

 

@hollanov2481

@parasocialism we’re doing dead mom yuri now?? this fandom is certifiable

 

@JeffKnowsPuck

Rozanov’s got a half-breed fetish

 

@hollanov2481

@JeffKnowsPuck you’re trash. blocked & reported

Gloria Johnson (1969-2023) Obituary

Gloria Lynn Johnson, 54, of Jamaica Plain, shed this mortal coil on July 12, 2023 in hospice care.

She was born on July 6, 1969 in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts to Walter and Angela Johnson. After graduating from Dorchester High School in 1987, Gloria spent a decade and a half as an unlikely NHL wife before trading in her WAG jacket for a career as a hair stylist, salon proprietor, and non-profit director. In 2006, she opened the inclusive textured-hair specialty salon Wash & Go in Jamaica Plain (3-time Best of Boston winner) with business partners and close friends Maria Sanchez and Shoshanna Cohen. In 2010, Gloria founded the Babyhair Project non-profit organization, which provides supplies and instruction in hair care to foster, adoptive, and biological parents of Black children in the greater Boston area. Gloria left this earth content in the knowledge that her passion project would survive and thrive without her.  

Gloria Johnson enjoyed strong coffee, soul-shaking music, and helping people look and feel their best. She was best known for her resilience and sense of style. She is survived by her daughter, Svetlana Vetrova; her brothers, Walter Johnson, Jr., Clyde Johnson, and Nathanial Johnson; and too many beloved friends to list by name. 

A funeral service will be held on July 15th at 3pm at First Church in Jamaica Plain (Unitarian Universalist). In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Babyhair Project.

Chapter Text

Before Russia, Svetlana’s hair was almost always in beaded braids she liked to make noise with by whipping her head around, much to the annoyance of her kindergarten teacher. Svetlana was too active of a child for anything else, her mom said. So every month Gloria and Svetlana made the pilgrimage from their house in Beacon Hill to the Dorchester beauty shop Gloria’s cousin’s wife worked at. Svetlana loved those Saturday sojourns into the heart of adult womanhood. She loved sitting in the chair right next to her mom’s while all around them, ladies who looked like them bustled around and gossiped and laughed and sang along to the radio. She liked picking out what color beads she wanted and flipping through hair magazines and listening in on grown-up conversations. Svetlana also really enjoyed the lollipops Gloria bribed her with to sit still and not make a fuss. On the way back home, Gloria would always warn Svetlana not to tell papa how much sugar she’d consumed and Svetlana would dutifully agree, though that wasn’t the kind of thing her father seemed to concern himself with much. It did make those Saturdays feel even more like a special secret between Svetlana and her mom. 

Everything was different after they moved to Russia. Svetlana was ripped away from her friends and her school and their neighbors’ three dogs and everything and everyone she was used to except for her parents. She had to speak Russian most of the time, often translating for Gloria, which was frustrating for everyone involved. They lived in a big house surrounded by other big houses, but Svetlana’s papa was a lot more worried about crime and danger than he had been back in Boston. Other kids were jealous and mean about Svetlana’s name-brand American clothes. Most of her favorite foods just didn’t exist in Russia. And instead of going to the beauty shop every few weeks to get their hair done, Svetlana’s mom had to do it for both of them herself.   

At first, Gloria stuck to less complicated versions of familiar styles for her daughter, but after the second time Svetlana came home from school crying because her classmates made fun of her cornrows, Gloria reluctantly started hot combing Svetlana’s hair straight every week. It was stressful for both of them: Gloria afraid to accidentally burn a wiggling Svetlana’s scalp or ears, and Svetlana missing the warm, social environment of the beauty shop. Missing things feeling normal and easy.

Svetlana’s papa didn’t understand. “She looks beautiful,” he told his wife. “You do good job and we save money. All good.”  

“She looks like a local news anchor, not a little girl,” Gloria grumbled unhappily.

Svetlana’s new friend Ilya was more than willing to fight any boys who said overtly racist things, but a lot of the most cutting remarks came from girls and weren’t as obviously offensive. Even when no one said anything awful, Svetlana was still exhausted by the constant attention and questions. She’d attended a pretty fancy and predominantly white private elementary school in Boston, but she hadn’t been the only Black girl in her class. She hadn’t been expected to represent all of America as well as Blackness itself. In Boston, Svetlana’s teachers and classmates were surprised and impressed that she spoke a second language; in Russia, this ability almost seemed to make people suspicious. Svetlana spoke good Russian–her papa and his parents had made sure of it–but they could not make her look like someone people expected to speak Russian, not completely. 

Until her mom went back to America, Svetlana only got to have braids at the dacha when no one else was around to see except for Ilya and his mama. After her parents divorced, Svetlana had to do her own hair and wasn’t coordinated enough to give herself more than a couple braids, which was just as well since that was a “normal” amount of braids for a Russian girl to have. Braids remained a summer tradition: almost as soon as Svetlana got off the plane from Moscow, Gloria would take Svetlana to get the normal amount of braids for a lightskin girl from Boston to have, i.e. as many as she wanted. 

By the time Svetlana was a teenager, she and Ilya and Sasha were joined at the hip both literally and figuratively, a codependent trio of adolescent angst. Svetlana had thoughts about kissing other girls back then, but she was not as willing as the boys were to take such dangerous risks. So while her friends rebelled by having gay sex with each other, Svetlana settled for wearing her hair natural, which was ironically much more work than other hairstyles.

~

As an adult, Svetlana could freely admit that she was vain about her hair. She was proud of the length, volume, and definition of her curls. She took “skin, hair, and nail” vitamins religiously and invested in expensive co-washes, curl creams, gels, and oils. She had 100% silk pillowcases and microfibre hair towels that traveled with her. In the depth of her grief, however, Svetlana didn’t want to deal with shingling her hair in sections in the shower or crunching out gel casts or refreshing her curls every morning with a spray bottle and more goo and a diffuser.

“I want box braids,” Svetlana announced to the denizens of Wash & Go on the morning after her mother died. “But I have to go to the funeral home at four. Is that enough time if we do jumbo ones?”

Most of the staff were there, but no real clients, thank god–everyone was either working on each other or else drinking coffee or tearfully hugging or, in Shoshanna’s case, furiously crocheting a blanket with a wan expression on her usually cheerful freckled face.  

Shoshanna’s better half Maria crossed her brown tattooed arms over her chest and professionally assessed Svetlana and her hair: “If me and Leroy tag team you, we can do medium braids by then.” Maria clapped her hands together and a slim dark-skinned young man appeared at her side, his hair barbered into a masterful fade this week. Leroy was dressed in head-to-toe form fitting black, but that was normal for him, although as Gloria’s prize protégé he was surely mourning her hard.  

While Maria and Leroy muttered to each other, Shoshanna put down her crochet project and said, “I might not be as qualified for the rest of it, but I can wash, deep condition, and detangle you.” She guided Svetlana to the sinks with a gentle hand on the small of her back. Svetlana hadn’t thought she wanted to be treated like she was breakable, but Shoshanna’s careful fingers sorting through and cleansing her hair felt like love. It felt like release, like the miseries of anticipatory grief were swirling down the drain alongside any dirt or hospital stink. And the tears streaming into Svetlana’s hairline felt like an extension of that cleansing process.

“That’s right, honey, let it out,” Shoshanna soothed. Her voice sounded as wrecked as Svetlana felt, which was more comforting than if she’d been entirely calm and collected. Things shouldn’t just be normal after something so momentous happened! It was weird enough that the sun kept rising and Boston drivers kept being masshole menaces while Svetlana’s mom was motionless in a refrigerated drawer instead of bumping booties with Shoshanna or debating New Edition versus Bell Biv DeVoe with Maria.             

Shoshanna and Maria felt more like family to Svetlana than any of her uncles’ wives did. Gloria had met the two women who became her business partners when she started beauty school soon after her return to Boston. The three of them were all in the textured hair track of the curriculum and a bit out of synch with the rest of their classmates for different reasons: Gloria because she was older and had been living overseas; Maria because she was Afro-Latina and fairly butch; and Shoshanna because she was white and Jewish (with blazing red type 3c curls even denser than Svetlana’s). They quickly formed a pseudo family unit that only grew stronger when two out of the three of them fell in love with each other while they all grew their business.    

Sergei might have refused to let Gloria have custody of their daughter, but he’d been generous in the divorce settlement, so Gloria had the seed money the women needed, and the rest was history. They made an oasis for themselves that turned out to be good business. 

After Shoshanna deftly detangled Svetlana curls, she applied a generous quantity of conditioning hair mask and stuck Svetlana under the dome of a dryer chair. While the goop did its work, Svetlana thought about the bouquet and card her papa had sent. He had remembered Gloria’s favorite flowers, but sent her a note in Russian when she was no longer around to read it. He’d apologized for not being the husband Gloria had deserved and thanked her for their “brave, beautiful daughter.” There was something sadly whimsical about it, as if Sergei was hoping that Gloria’s spirit would be more open to communications from him than she had been while alive. (Svetlana’s mom had graciously accepted Sergei’s well wishes via Svetlana while in the hospital, but politely declined any more direct contact.)   

Once, about a decade earlier, Gloria had drunk a glass of wine too many and told Svetlana: “Your papa is not all bad, baby. He’s just weak. Being a decent husband to me, and father to you, was easier for him in America. He was gone a lot, but when he was home with us he fit himself into my life so well I didn’t realise it was like playing house for him, kinda.  

“Now Lana, you know as well as I do there’s plenty of racism in Boston and lots of that shit didn’t even register with Sergei, but when it did—when it happened here—he would stand up for us. So I thought he would always fight for us. Turned out things were different when that meant going up against his own people, his own culture.”  

Svetlana knew that her papa had been unfaithful to her mom (and then her stepmom) in Russia, and she wouldn’t be surprised if he’d cheated while on road trips with the Bears too, but her parents had seemed pretty happy when she was little–definitely happier than Sergei’s bloodless second marriage anyway. It had been a relief to learn that Svetlana’s sunny childhood memories weren’t completely out of sync with what her mother told her as an adult. It was nice to know that no matter what else happened after, Svetlana had been born from love. 

Midway through the day, Cliff and Ilya arrived at the shop bearing gifts of Thai takeout: pad see ew and Thai iced tea for Svetlana and a variety of noodle dishes and curries to share with all and sundry. Everyone was familiar with Ilya already and most of them didn’t give a damn about hockey anyway, so he flitted around chatting and charming everyone with stories about Gloria wrangling the two of them as kids. Cliff was kind and respectful and clearly out of his element but rolling with it. Svetlana could tell that Maria, who did care about hockey, was a bit dazzled at having the current captain of the Bears in her place of business, but was trying not to let it show. 

“He’s just another overgrown white boy,” Svetlana teased Maria. “No need to get too excited.”

“He’s a Stanley Cup champion and an NHL All-Star,” Maria hissed. 

“Well, yeah. But so is Ilyusha,” Svetlana pointed out. 

Maria grunted, ignoring that. “He’s also a fine-looking specimen, and I don’t see no ring on his finger,” she said in a sing-song tone.

“Any chance he swings both ways like the other one?” Leroy asked.

“Not really,” Svetlana replied, distracted by the patient way Cliff was listening to one of the apprentices infodump about something or other. (Also, his ass in those jeans.) 

Both Maria and Leroy’s busy fingers paused in their work. Their sudden quiet pulled taut in the air and then broke as they both leaned down to whisper-yell questions at Svetlana in stereo.

“What the hell—“

“—does that mean—”

“—what I think it means?”

Svetlana cringed. There was no getting out of this without telling them something. “Nothing, nothing!” she insisted anyway. “Just . . . he’s straight but not narrow, you know?”

“Uh huh,” Maria said, dubious.

“I mean, his best friend is married to a man . . .”

“Girl, just tell me if I’ve got a shot or not, damn,” Leroy interrupted, laughing lightly.

“Eh, maybe if you had a girl with you, but otherwise nah,” Svetlana said without thinking. Oops. 

Maria snorted, and Svetlana could sense the pair of them making some kinda faces at each other above her head. “I’m thinkin’ she’s speaking from personal experience. How ‘bout you, chico?”

“Oh, she’s been to Paris with one or both of them hockey boys, all right,” Leroy agreed. “Greedy bitch,” he added with a friendly pat to Svetlana’s shoulder. 

They were right on the money, of course, but Svetlana did not want to talk about it with Cliff in the room, even if he was almost certainly out of earshot. She wasn’t quite sure where this prudery was coming from. Probably from the same puritan asshole inside of her who insisted that you didn’t get happily-ever-after with a guy you first kissed during a tipsy threesome with your best friend. Never mind that Svetlana now suspected the whole situation had been a weird, slutty attempt at matchmaking on Ilya’s part, right on the cusp of him and Shane getting together for real. 

Thankfully the boys headed out to meet Shane somewhere before Svetlana could prove that Russians did, in fact, blush, promising her that they’d be back by 3:30. Svetlana closed her eyes and entered a kind of meditative state where her emotions existed outside of her body for the time it took for two people who loved her for her own sake as well as her mother’s to transform the chaos of Svetlana’s curls into a temporary structured order. As Maria and Leroy supplemented Svetlana’s own hair with purple braiding hair, Svetlana imagined tucking some of her more conflicted feelings between the strands for safekeeping, hoping that in six to eight weeks time the takedown would reveal multiple kinds of new growth.

As long as Svetlana didn’t open her eyes and just let the overlapping salon noises and smells wash over her, she could feel the phantom presence of Gloria’s hands working alongside Maria and Leroy’s. But eventually, they were done with her and Svetlana was being urged to admire the finished product. A small boulder of grief appeared in Svetlana’s throat when she looked at herself in the mirror. She swallowed thickly and said, “I look like Gloria’s daughter,” which was not what she had meant to say, probably. Svetlana tagged on a “thank you” as a sheen of incipient tears blurred the image before her. She attempted to blink back the flood, but her efforts were about as effective as windshield wipers in a deluge.

Maria squeezed Svetlana’s shoulder and fucked off to hug her wife, but Leroy lingered. 

“So,” Leroy said, sounding nervous and unsure in a way Svetlana hadn’t heard since Gloria first hired him, two weeks after he’d graduated with high honors from cosmetology school and one week after his father kicked him out of the house. “I’ve been using Gloria’s chair since she got too sick to work . . .”

“Aw kid, I’m sure she wouldn’t want it to collect dust,” Svetlana rushed to reassure him. There was a time when Svetlana had been jealous of every young stylist Gloria mentored, but over a decade spent primarily in Boston had mellowed her abandonment issues. And Leroy was a really good guy who’d been cursed with a much more fucked up parental situation than Svetlana.

“Thanks for saying that, Lana,” Leroy said quietly. “But, uh, she didn’t empty the drawers at this station. Maybe you don’t want to deal with it now, today, but I promise I won’t mess with any of her stuff until you’re ready.”

“Oh,” Svetlana said. “Okay.” She looked at her phone. Twenty minutes until the boys got here. “I’ll take a look now, I guess.”

Svetlana spent a few minutes pawing through a drawer filled with such treasures as Gloria’s Massachusetts state cosmetology license, a slightly over-exposed photo of Gloria braiding fourteen-year-old Svetlana’s hair in this very chair, and a truly impressive array of braid aid tools looking like a multi-colored armory of finger-mounted wearable daggers. 

“I think I need a box for this stuff,” Svetlana told Leroy, who had been hovering but trying not to look like it. “But first, I think you should have this.” She plucked out the most blinged-out parting tool in the drawer–bedazzled purple plastic–and held it out to Leroy, hoping she didn’t seem condescending or something.

Leroy accepted the bauble like a precious gift and Svetlana relaxed. She pocketed one gold metal braid aid and Glora’s favorite curved curl-cutting shears and then dumped the rest of the professional styling tools into a basket for Gloria’s sentimental coworkers to fight over.         

At 3:29, Cliff moseyed into the shop to collect Svetlana, leaving Shane and Ilya in the car. He complimented Maria and Leroy on Svetlana’s new look with a graceless sincerity that made Svetlana want to cry again or hug him or both. Instead she allowed just about everyone else to hug her again. On their way out to the car, Cliff smiled at her warmly and said, “Don’t worry, we won’t be late. Shane built in time for goodbye hugs in the schedule.” 

The trip to the funeral home was bureaucratic and surreal. All Svetlana had to do was check that they had Gloria’s personal info correct for the death certificate: full legal name, sex, SSN, date and location of birth and death, residence. The only room for any interpretation was the entry for “occupation; industry.” After a period of unnecessary deliberation, Svetlana settled on "entrepreneur; beauty.” It didn’t feel like enough. 

~

CLIFF: i can clear out tonight if you want 

SVETLANA: you’re texting me? we’re sitting right next to each other

CLIFF: yeah, stuck in the backseat like kids on a roadtrip 

CLIFF: my legs are longer than rozy’s, but no way he’s giving up shotgun while his man’s driving 

CLIFF: not that sitting with you is a hardship!

SVETLANA: 💜

CLIFF: sorry. i just didn’t want to get rolled into you guys’ evening plans without checking with you. i’d understand if you needed hollanov to yourself or whatever. 

CLIFF: don’t wanna overstep.

SVETLANA: you are ridiculous. and sweet. and i’d rather not sleep alone.

SVETLANA: i *could* puppy pile in with those two, but.

CLIFF: yeah

CLIFF: your hair looks great btw  💅

SVETLANA: 💅🏽