Work Text:
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Denial
Shane's in San Francisco when his mom dies.
"It all just happened so fast today," his dad says on the phone after he calls to give Shane the news. "Are you able to get home tonight? I'm sure there's a way to charter a flight; you don't want to fly commercial right now."
"I—I don't know," Shane says. "We have a game at six." West coast games are weird, how the sun is shining high overhead and Shane's body feels like it's getting time to start winding down for the night. He checks the clock. 3:47.
His mom died 10 minutes ago, at 7:37 in Lanaudière in the same hospital where Shane was born. Where she took him to the ER when he was 4 and spiked a 103 degree fever. Where they got an x-ray of his ankle after he sprained it playing shinny in the driveway at 7 years old. Where he went four summers ago to meet with a neurologist after his concussion, his mom at his side asking all the questions Shane was too scared to.
He feels stupid now, thinking back to those times. How did he not realize that he was standing in her grave?
His dad is quiet for a long time. "Do you—are you going to play tonight?"
"Yeah," Shane says. Hayden on the bed next to his is still, looking at Shane with wide eyes. The whole team knows that she went into the hospital after collapsing in the kitchen, since Shane got pulled out of practice and he told the assistant coach that did it that he could tell the guys. "I mean—I think I'm okay."
Shane called her today when she got admitted at noon and told her he was going to come home. "Oh, don't bother," she said. It's the last time he'll ever talk to her. The realization feels like a slap in the face. "I'll be home tomorrow. Besides, the Metros need you with Heinonen out." She had been in and out of the hospital a lot these past few months—little overnight stays that spiked his blood pressure and had him rushing back to Ottawa before they fizzled into a discharge and new orange bottle in her bathroom.
Today wasn't supposed to be anything. He was supposed to come home after the California road trip and drive two hours to Ottawa and listen to her talk about Gatorade wanting him to make an appearance at something this summer.
"Okay," his dad says quietly. "I would… I would really like you to come home."
"For sure," Shane says. "Our flight leaves tomorrow morning."
"You don't think you'll be able to make it out tonight?"
"No, not tonight. The game won't end until after nine."
His dad's voice sounds heavy when he says, "I'll see you tomorrow then. I love you."
"I love you too."
He hangs up and stares at his home screen—a selfie of him, his parents and Ilya on the boat at the cottage, Ilya with the camera and his arm outstretched as everyone smiles wide. He and his dad have fishing rods in hand; his mom has a beer. Only half of Ilya's face is in the picture. He wanted to make sure he got everyone else in frame before he had tossed the phone to Shane and cannonballed off the side of the boat into the cold, dark water. "You're scaring away all the fish," Shane had complained before jumping in after him.
"My mom died," Shane says. He feels like Hayden is holding his breath, and when Shane says what happened, Hayden exhales. Like it's over. It's the first time Shane's said the words out loud, but it already feels familiar in his mouth, like it's something he's going to say over and over.
She was dying for a long time. It felt inevitable.
"Fuck, dude," Hayden says. "I'm so—"
He's interrupted by Shane's phone buzzing. Ilya.
He picks up instantly and crosses the room to go out onto the balcony. "Hi," he says, voice small. He likes San Francisco from 19 stories up, the buzz and hum from the city underfoot.
"Shane," Ilya says, "my baby. I'm so sorry."
"Were you with her?" Shane says. His throat feels like its closing up, just for a moment before he swallows around the feeling and blinks away the tears pooling in his eyes.
Ilya answers right away. "Yes, me and David. Do you want to know about it, or no?"
"I—" Shane's not sure. In the months leading up to this, to today, he's pictured it a thousand times—at home with a nurse by her side, or peacefully in her sleep, or a trip to the hospital from hospice with Shane and Ilya following his dad's car. But now that it's happened, he can't know. It would make it real. "Maybe not right now."
"Okay," Ilya says gently. "How are you?"
"Um," Shane answers. "I'll be home tomorrow; did my dad tell you?"
"Yes, that's all he said. He's signing some paperwork now. Meeting with her doctors—Jacobs, her oncologist, you know him?"
No, Shane didn't. Ilya was the one in Ottawa taking care of her on his off days, driving her to chemo and radiation while Shane got to relegated to the occasional text updating him on a new surgery or treatment plan. He tried to tell her that he wanted to be there, but she kept telling him not worry about her and to focus on his game.
Ilya is the one that got to leave his afternoon game in the middle of the second period earlier today so he could drive to Lanaudière and be at the hospital when she died.
"I remember her talking about him."
"Yes, he drove here from his office this afternoon," Ilya says. "Me and David will go home soon."
"Are you gonna stay at their cottage?"
"Yes, our house is—um—like, what's the word? Closed for cold?"
"Winterized," Shane says. He has a regular maintenance guy come two weeks before the season ends in the spring and open the cottage up, then close it down two weeks after the season starts in the fall. He checks up on it from time to time in winter and has signed the most ironclad NDA their lawyers could write so he never says a word about the photos of Shane and Ilya that hang throughout the house now.
"Winterized," Ilya says slowly, rolling the word around in his mouth like he always does when he forces his tongue around new English. "Yes, that."
"I'll call Mark to come out and get the house ready," Shane says.
"No, no, I will do it. If you want."
"You don't want to go home?" Shane asks.
But when he says home, he pictures his parents' cottage where he spent his summers growing up. There's a little path down to the lake, well trodden dirt, and tall grasses that his mom used to hide in like a lion before jumping out at him, both of them shrieking with laughter as they tumbled to the earth, his mom tickling his sides.
He's only been up there in the wintertime once, when his grandfather died and his mom took him out of school, bundled up in a big puffy coat. They drove the two hours there together, his mom gently singing in the front seat. His dad joined them a day later after a big meeting.
Her and his dad went there for the weekend, to get away.
"I think David needs us with him," Ilya says.
Shane tries not to let out a retching sob. He'll never go home to his mother in their cottage again. She'll never brew him a chamomile tea and he'll never walk down that dirt path to find her with her toes in the water, back against the sand, book positioned perfectly to block the sun from her eyes.
"Yeah," he manages to say, "yeah, me too."
"Shane…"
He could never hide from Ilya.
"I'll be home tomorrow; I love you," he says.
"I love you too," Ilya answers, automatic like he doesn't even need to think about it. It makes Shane smile, despite it all.
He hangs up and goes back into the hotel room, closing the balcony door gently.
"Dude," Hayden says, "just let me know what you need. We can get a driver to the airport or… whatever you need."
"I'm gonna play tonight," Shane says. And he walks out their hotel door to go down the hall to find their coach's room.
He tells Coach Shepard what happened and that he's going to stay. "And—um, do you think you could tell the press? I don't really—" He shutters, a whole shiver going down his body. "I know the fans know her, or knew her I guess. And I don't want—"
"Shane," Shep cuts him off. "I'll tell them. And the team. Don't worry. You sure you're good to play?"
"Of course," Shane answers.
Shep shrugs and says, "Okay. If you need to sit out at any point, just let me know. The Dragons are a fast team."
Shane smiles automatically, that fake one that he practiced in the mirror when he was 11 and got media training for the first time. "I'm faster," he says.
Shep laughs and claps him on the back and says, "That you are. Bus'll leave in about half an hour; try to go get a nap in."
"Will do," Shane says.
He goes back to his and Hayden's room, where Hayden is on the phone pacing the width of his bed back and forth. "Hey, he's here," he says into the phone. "I'm gonna go. Love you."
He waits for a second and then hangs up and says to Shane, who's toeing off his sneakers and pulling back the covers on his bed, "I let Jackie know."
"Okay," Shane says. He closes his eyes and falls asleep.
The alarm on Hayden's phone goes off twenty minutes later and Shane blinks awake before getting out of bed to go take a piss. As he's going to the bathroom, he checks his phone. 4 voicemails for various aunts and family friends and 37 unread texts.
He skips them all and goes straight to Jackie's, which reads hi shane. just got off the phone with hayden. he said you're sleeping now but i wanted you to know that me and the kids love you and love yuna and will be thinking of you. tell david and ilya we said we're sorry. sleep well <3
There's one from Rose, another from Svetlana, who met his mom once last New Years when she came up to Ottawa to celebrate the holiday with Ilya. He must have texted both of them.
On the bus to the arena, Shep makes the announcement to the team while Shane stares out the window, Hayden as a buffer in the aisle seat at the front of the bus with no way for anyone to look at him. He feels numb, like he's existing outside of his body. Like he's a fan in the upper bowl, watching a tiny, far-away version of himself move without having anything to do with it.
His phone pings and he sees that Ilya's texted a link to the Metros' Twitter page, where they're put out a statement. White letters on a blue background, the logo at the top. It reads:
The Montreal Metros are saddened to announce the passing of Yuna Hollander after her long battle with cancer. Yuna was a dedicated Metros fan her entire life, and more importantly, a dedicated mother to Shane. Metros fans will remember her animated reactions to goals by 24 and her frank analysis of the Metros' performance in the 2015 Gathorne-Hardy Cup finals. The Metros organization want to extend our condolences to Shane, his father David, and the entire Hollander family.
The Montreal Metros will be donating $24,000 to Shane's charity, the Irina Foundation, in Yuna' memory and fans who wish to join us in giving can do so by clicking the link in our bio.
Rest in peace, Yuna. We will miss you.
Shane quickly scans the text before closing the tab and going back to his text thread with Ilya. That was nice of them he sends.
yes very nice she would b happy about the donation Ilya sends.
The bus pulls into the Facebook Center in downtown San Francisco and they all exit to sticky, thick humid air before heading inside to crisp air conditioning.
None of the other guys want to look at Shane, like having a mother with cancer is contagious, but Hayden sticks close by and his pregame routines—10 minutes in the ice bath, chewing fresh mint leaves that the equipment managers always have for him, the careful precision of putting on his gear like he's a knight suiting up for war—go off without him even thinking about his mom.
After warm-ups, he and his As crash helmets in the locker room and that's when he thinks of her again, the way she always cringed and said, "Careful, please," when he did that with his teammates as a kid.
On his way out, back to the ice, the last one out of the locker room always, he sags against the doorframe for just a moment before taking a deep breath and heading out.
Just before the anthem, the Facebook Center lights go dim and their arena announcer comes over the PA system.
Shane realizes what's about to happen barely a second before it happens. He tries to steel himself against the photo that pops up on the jumbotron of him and his mom after his first cup win as the announcer says, "San Francisco Dragon fans, earlier today Yuna Hollander, mother of Metros captain Shane Hollander, passed away after battling pancreatic cancer. We ask that you keep Shane and the Hollander family in your thoughts during this difficult time. Please join us in a moment of silence as we honor Yuna."
Shane looks down at the ice, the slick shiny surface, wet from the Zamboni, as Hayden and JJ knock their shoulders into him when the arena falls silent.
The U.S. anthem plays, and finally, finally, it's time to play hockey.
He got on the ice for the first time when he was two, barely able to walk. Glided around the rink that day holding his dad's hands as his mom worked the camcorder. It's one of the only places in the world where he can turn his brain off to everything outside, change his body and his mind into a well tuned machine made for one thing—put the puck in their net, keep it out of his.
The other place is with Ilya, safe in his arms at the cottage.
The game goes smoothly, Shane able to focus all the way up until nearly the end of the third period when he sinks an empty netter for his second point of the night and instinctively turns his body to where his parents' seats would be in the Air Canada Arena, where the Metros play in Montreal.
She's not there. Of course. Even if she was alive, she wouldn't be there.
Still, it knocks the breath out of him, to turn around expecting for a second to see her and his dad in their blue Metros home jerseys, his mom clapping with a sly smile on her face as they make eye contact.
He stands there on the ice for just a moment, trying to remember how to breathe, before finally the ref skates over to him and says, "You good, Hollander?"
"Yeah, yeah sorry," he says and skates back to the bench to wait out the remaining 37 seconds left in the game.
After, when he's peeled off his gear and dipped into the shower and changed into his softest sweatshirt and a pair of Adidas leggings Ilya gave to him after they accidentally sent Ilya duplicates, he goes out to meet the press.
His favorite reporter, a tall blond named Esme that's been working for a Montreal sports network since Shane was rookie, asks gently when he steps in front of the camera, "Shane, we're so sorry. Is there anything you want to say about Yuna?"
"Yeah, for sure," he says, an automatic hockey filter that comes out of his mouth before he can think. Glib, impersonal. A habit his mom always tried to break.
"She—" oh God, oh God "—she's, I mean—" oh God, oh God fuck, what the fuck, she's dead, she actually died, oh God, oh God "—she was—" he can't breathe, he can't focus on anything other than his chest collapsing in on itself like star dying, like his chest is becoming a black hole "—she—"
He sobs, once, twice, then three times before choking out, "Oh my God, oh my God, God, she's—she's actually—" He covers his mouth with his hand and feels drool there. He can't control his own body. His mother is actually dead. He'll never talk to her again. Oh God, oh God. "I'm sorry," he tries to say. He turns away from the cameras. "Oh God, I'm sorry." He's not sure who he's talking to. His mom or the reporters.
"It's okay, it's okay, we turned the cameras off already, don't worry," Esme says.
Shane collapses down to his knees and someone goes to get Shep, who comes in and kneels down next to Shane with a protective hand over his back. "The owner of the Dragons just called and said he would lend you his jet, if you wanted to get home tonight."
Shane's totally hunched over, his nose buried in his elbow, as he tries to live in a world without his mom. "Okay," he says, "yes. Please. As soon as possible."
When his plane touches down in Ottawa, Ilya is waiting at the private airport. He takes Shane into his arms and Shane cries, and cries, and cries.
-
Anger
"We were supposed to leave five minutes ago," Shane snaps as Ilya finally pulls on his fucking shoes. He changed his tie twice, landing on the dark floral one Shane's mom got for him after she helped Ilya sign his first Tim Horton's endorsement.
"Don't think they're going to start without you," Ilya says, equally irritated even though it's Shane's mom's funeral they're going to so he's the only one allowed to be annoyed today. Ilya grabs his keys and wallet from the counter and shoves them into his suit jacket's inner pockets before he looks at Shane with eyebrows raised, glowering. "So, are we going or not?" He barks.
"Jesus, yes," Shane says, "we're fucking going."
They go out to Ilya's ridiculous, massive garage in Ottawa where his luxury sports cars are lined up in a row—Lamborghinis and a Rolls Royce and the Porsche they're climbing into, which is the only car Ilya actually drives with any regularity.
They each slam their doors and the sound echoes through the garage, the air between them thick with tension. Shane has a headache in the front of his brain, right between his eyes like she used to get.
"I don't want to fight today," he says and tries to keep his voice even.
They've been fighting a lot, over every little stupid fucking thing. Ilya calls him during Shane's morning workouts and Shane feels like he could crawl through the phone and throttle him. They played each other last week and Ilya scoffed after Shane got a tripping penalty against him, saying as he skated past Shane real nice, Hollander.
They fought last night as they got into bed because Ilya used the last of the toothpaste before Shane was done with his shower. He had huffed and stomped around the bathroom like a little kid when he found out, feeling stupid but unable to stop the built-up volcano-rage inside his body even after Ilya apologized. "Oh my fucking God, Hollander, I will go buy some in the morning. Will that make you happy?" Ilya had roared, and Shane almost cried as he spat back, "Yes, it fucking would." And Ilya had rolled his eyes and Shane has to carefully unfurl his hands from fists.
Ilya starts the car and says, "Okay. I don't want to either. Never want to fight with you."
"Me neither," Shane says. "Sorry I've been in a shitty mood. Everyone is just… making me crazy."
Ilya coos something under his breath in Russian and says, "I've been in shitty mood too. I love you."
"Love you," Shane says and doesn't even point out that Ilya is one of the people making him crazy.
As he pulls out of the garage, Ilya reaches over and takes Shane's hand, running his thumb across Shane's skin the entire drive to the funeral home.
They pull in and Shane takes a deep breath, seeing his aunts and uncles' cars already in the lot, Metros bumper stickers and window decals. His dad's car is there too and Ilya pulls into the back of the lot away from everyone else.
"Shane, sweetie," his aunt Carol says when they cross the threshold into the funeral home, where people are milling around as his mom's urn sits at the front of the room. It's dark brown, solid, with carvings of birds etched into the wood. He and his dad picked it out from a catalogue four days after she died. "Come here, my baby."
"Hi Aunt Carol," he says and bends down to give her a quick hug. Carol is his dad's brother's wife. She has pink lipstick smeared just below her lips and smells of the same perfume she's been wearing since Shane was born.
She's been… texting him all the time in the month since his mom died. They talked maybe once a season and saw each other at Thanksgiving nearly every year of his life until that day, when Carol had called him while he was on the plane to say, "Shane, I just want you to know that if you ever need a mom, I'm ready to step in." It made his stomach churn with anger, that first day, and has been a simmering annoyance since.
He has a mom. He doesn't need a replacement.
"Do you need anything? Some water or—oh, hi Ilya," she says. She's met Ilya a few times over the years at Thanksgivings, and he flusters her every time. A blush rises to her cheeks almost instantly.
"We are good, thank you," Ilya says. "Where is David?"
"He's right there," Shane says. His dad is standing next to the urn, a paper cup in his hand. "See you later Aunt Carol."
"Bye baby," she says and pats him on the arm as he walks by. It makes his skin crawl, in a way he can't really explain. His mom always sort of hated Carol, with her blond hair and little comments about Japan and immigrants and foreign food, which made Shane hate her too as a kid. Solidarity with his mom.
"Stop being so nice to her," he angrily whispers to Ilya under his breath as they cross the room. "She fucking sucks."
"Really?" Ilya asks with a quirk eyebrow, looking back at her and making super obvious that they're talking about her. Shane's blood feels hot.
He wishes he was on the ice, facing down the Wolves or the Outlaws, some team he fucking hates. He could throw around his body and slam them all into the boards—Carol and the other ones too, like his mom's friends that want to step into her role, his teammates' WAGs that keep bringing him food that he can't eat. Ilya. His dad. Everyone that's been pissing him off.
Sometimes he imagines what fighting Ilya would really be like. Dropping the gloves over center ice in Montreal as the crowd screamed and the arena rocked. Feeling Ilya's bones under his hand. Grabbing onto his helmet and ripping it off his head. Crashing his knuckles against Ilya's soft cheek, maybe knocking out his teeth as he does. Feeling Ilya punch him back, the uppercut he's famous for. Tumbling down to the ice together after they both got bloody from the other's fist.
He always heard that he would be mad at the person that died. But he's not. He doesn't blame his mom for dying. She would have stayed, if she had the option.
"Fucking yes, really," he says. "She's a fucking racist."
"Oh," Ilya says. "I didn't know that."
He didn't know he could be this mad at Ilya. At his dad. He wants—he doesn't know. He wants to say something terrible, but he doesn't know what. He wants them to hurt like he hurts. Like he's hurt every day for the last month.
Life has become unrecognizable to him. He doesn't know how to move without feeling his grief inside his body. It's in his joints, his ears, along his spine. Everywhere. When he wakes up in the morning, it's the first thing he thinks. My mom is dead. And then he opens his eyes to sunshine pouring into his room. And she's still dead.
"No fucking shit you didn't," he says, and Ilya's mouth sets into a hard, firm line before they reach Shane's dad.
"Hi boys," he says.
"Hey."
His dad is wearing a black suit, with a brown belt and brown shoes. A black button up underneath with a gray sweater over it. Shane's mom always hated when he wore a brown belt or shoes with his black suits. He can hear her so clearly in his head saying, "They clash, David, can you seriously not see that?" But still every time, his dad would pair them together until she sent him back upstairs to their closet to get the black belt and shoes.
"I think we're about to get started," he says. "Just a few more minutes."
Shane pictures landing an open ice hit on his father. Pads against pads, kit against kit, Shane's shoulder digging into his dad's frame to send him flying down and across the ice. The crowd gasping and cheering as Shane steals the puck off his fumbling stick when he clattered to the ice. Going back to the offensive zone and sinking the puck into the net as his dad tries to stand up.
"Okay," he says.
The funeral director gathers them all and instructs them to sit. He, his dad and Ilya sit in the front row.
It's a small funeral. Private. Just family, a few close friends of his mom's. Everyone here knows he and Ilya are together. Still, he feels their eyes on the back of his neck. Are they wondering about what his mom's reaction was to him being gay? He wants to turn around and snarl and bite at them all and say it was pretty fucking great actually, all this considered. She only cried one. Called Ilya disloyal. Made plans for dinner that night. Better than Shane had ever expected it to go.
The director drones on about how grief is only a season and someday they'll be able to think back on his mom and feel nothing but joy.
"Stupid thing to say," Ilya whispers to Shane under his breath.
"Yeah," Shane agrees. He won't ever let this stop hurting. He won't betray her like that.
He could get a boarding penalty against this guy. Crush him into the glass, crunch his spine. It would be worth a trip to the box, maybe a suspension. He's wracked up more PIMs this month than the rest of the season combined.
After the director's done talking, he opens the floor for anyone to come up and give a eulogy. His dad gets up from his chair and pats Shane's knee before going to the podium beside the urn. The little carved birds look like they're taking flight among cherry blossom branches.
His dad's speech is short, and he starts crying halfway through it. The minute it's over, Shane can't remember what he said.
"Are you…?" Ilya asks when his dad takes his seat again.
"Yeah, yeah," Shane says and stands up. He doesn't really want to, but he knows she would have wanted him to so he's doing it.
When he gets to the podium, staring out at everyone, he can't think of anything to say. None of you loved her like I loved her, he thinks bitterly. None of you are mourning like I'm mourning.
He finally opens his mouth and babbles on about something, saying that he'll always miss her and it will always hurt, just to counteract that stupid shit the director said. His eyes well up with tears halfway through and he tries to blink them away, but they end up falling anyways.
He runs his hand over the top of her urn before he flees the room, wiping at his cheeks on his suit jacket.
Outside, he puts his hands on his knees and gasps for breath, remember the way the wood of the urn felt under his hand. She's in a plastic bag inside the urn. His dad will keep her at the house in Ottawa, but at some point, when they're ready, they'll take some her ashes to the cottage and spread them in her favorite places.
He hears the door open and shut behind him as he tries to get a breath. Then, he feels Ilya's hand run along the length of his back.
"Shane," Ilya says simply.
He turns around quickly, throwing his arms around Ilya's body and burying his face in his shoulder.
"You've been pissing me off so bad," he says accidentally. His mouth is squished against Ilya's wool jacket.
Ilya adjusts them so it's partially covering Shane as well as the snow starts falling. January is feeling endless.
"Yes," Ilya agrees, "you have been doing the same to me."
Shane lifts his head so he can look into Ilya's blue eyes. "Really?" He asks, even though he knows he has. Ilya doesn't treat him like he has been, at least not for years and years now. He thinks back suddenly to that rooftop in Vegas their rookie season. Not everything is about you, Hollander.
"Of course," Ilya shrugs. "You are very annoying—"
"—Shut up—"
"—And I am in grief too."
He kisses Ilya's jaw, barely pressing his lips to his skin. There's some stubble there. Ilya's hair is growing out too. He was due for a cut a few days after Shane's mom died, but he cancelled it. "I love you," he says. "Thank you for missing her."
Ilya kisses his temple and says, "Will always miss her. Just like my mama."
Shane doesn't know how to say that he wishes he could be mourning Irina with Ilya. The actual person she was and not just the idea of her. Instead, he says, "I wish I could have met her."
"Me too," Ilya says. "She would have—"
They're interrupted by Aunt Carol coming outside to join them.
"Jesus, boys, it's freezing out here," she says. "I got you your coat, Shane."
"I don't need it," he says and turns his body a little away from her.
"If you say so," she says and drapes it over her arm. "I thought it was a beautiful service. She would have really liked it."
Anger flairs up in him like a wildfire. He turns to her and squares his shoulders so they're looking at each head on. Staring at her from across the faceoff dot. About to drop the gloves. He's only fought twice in his whole career, but he imagines getting a shot of cortisone in his hand after going back to the bench with bruises and bloody knuckles.
He's about to say something awful, his lips curling into a snarl like an angry cat. But—
—She never said anything. She never wanted to piss off his dad's side of the family, and she never wanted the way they treated her to keep Shane from seeing them. "They're our family," she used to say breezily, like it meant nothing even when he saw her eyes go tight when Carol said something about Shane being naturally smart. "We just have to learn to get along with them."
"Thanks," he says now to Carol and pictures a right hook to her temple, her jersey balled up tight in his other hand holding her exactly where he wants her to deliver another punch. "I think she would have too."
"Excuse us," Ilya says and grabs his hand before leading Shane across the parking lot towards the car.
"God, I fucking hate her," Shane says under his breath when they're halfway there.
"I know," Ilya says. "We will get some air from her."
Shane bumps his shoulder into Ilya's, and they go to sit in the car together, just the two of them, for a long time.
-
Bargaining
The nearly-freezing water of the coldtub runs down in rivets along Shane's arm as he grips the sides to lift himself out.
He lets out a long sigh and sits on the edge with his feet still in the water. His hip is fucked, has been for a while. It's all coming to head now, game three of the Gathorne-Hardy Cup finals at home in Montreal. They scraped one win in Vegas against the Aces, then dropped one before coming home.
The Aces are fast and physical and hungry, on a Cinderella run from barely making the Western Conference's second playoff wildcard spot to now the finals. They've got one defender, Raine, who's been checking Shane every time his skates hit the ice.
But Montreal is hungry too. Shane most of all.
He stands with a groan and steps out of the tub gingerly, careful of the high sides that let him soak his entire body.
"Thought I heard you getting out," Ilya says from the doorframe of Shane's recovery room in his apartment in Montreal. In his hand is a big fluffy towel that Ilya throws over his shoulders after stalking into the room like a tiger in the grass. "You sound like old man." Ilya grabs his own hip and groans dramatically.
The towel's warm, fresh out of the dryer, and Ilya runs his hands up and down Shane's arms and over his back to transfer the heat.
"Thank you," he says, "and fuck you. Not like you sounded any better last round." He leans down to dry off his legs and says in an overly dramatic Russian accent, "My knee Hollander, needs a replacement."
Ilya bites into Shane's cheek in response and Shane strips off the Speedo he was wearing in the cold tub to grab his clothes.
"You know what is good for hip?" Ilya growls as Shane pulls on his sweatpants, free balling it.
He smirks. "What's that?"
Ilya moves to stand behind him before putting his hands gently on Shane's hips and pulling him so he's flush against his groin. "Stretching them out. Could hold you open while I fuck you. Get hip flexors ready for tomorrow."
Shane leans his body back into Ilya and feels his heat. They're both shirtless. Ilya's skin is smooth, the muscles underneath firm. His body is as familiar to Shane at this point as his own. "Not tonight," he says. "But after game three tomorrow…"
"Yes," Ilya says. "Promise you." As if he's the one holding back and not Shane.
They head upstairs for dinner—a shit ton of whole wheat pasta alongside kale salad and salmon, to carb load before tomorrow's game—and as they sit down, Shane's phone lights up.
"My dad made it to the hotel," he says after scanning the text.
"Thought they had place here?" Ilya says around his mouthful of pasta.
Shane puts his phone down. Takes a bite. Tries not to think of her. Tonight's been good, so far. He doesn't want to derail it like he does every other night.
"They had a townhouse they rented, like an AirBNB kind of thing, but my dad wanted a hotel this time," he answers.
Ilya hums and nods before knocking his knee into Shane's. "Wish I could be with him at game," he says.
Most people on and around their teams know about him and Ilya, but they're not public yet. They go out to dinner and don't touch. It's sort of—clandestine, fun. Sad. Sometimes he wants to kiss Ilya so bad while they wait for the valet to bring the car around after dinner that he feels starved for it.
Ilya's watching from home tomorrow. Jackie got him a WAG jacket as joke, just like the Trojans WAGs got one for Shane, and Ilya's promised to wear it on the couch. Wear only it, he said with a wink.
"Yeah," he says. "Me too. I think he'll be… I don't know. Lonely, I guess." He takes another bite and whines as he shifts in his chair, pain from his hip flaring up through his abdomen and down his leg.
He stares down at his plate for another full minute, trying to stomp down the feeling welling up inside of him. Sitting here, taking stock of his body as he refuels for the next game—it always makes him think of her. Of how her body broke, how when she took stock of it she knew something was off and then it killed her.
It killed her. She's dead. Sometimes, it still doesn't feel real.
Ilya reaches out across the table and squeezes his forearm like he knows Shane is thinking about her. He probably does. He always seems to know.
They finish dinner and go to bed early so Shane can rest up before the game tomorrow. When they're in the same city, they always go bed together even when one of them isn't tired. The routine of it has become one of Shane's favorite things—brushing their teeth standing side by side, taking turns spitting into the sink. Shane using his Waterpik to floss while Ilya strips down to his boxers.
They kiss a little bit when they get into bed, in the dark under the covers like it's a secret before Ilya finally rolls off of him and says, "Goodnight, Shane."
Shane adjusts so he's tucked up behind Ilya's body with one arm slung over his hip to hold him close before he answers, "Goodnight, Ilya."
When he closes his eyes, the now-familiar feeling starts racing through his body. His heart starts pounding; his stomach turns. He feels sick with it, nauseated by his own desire.
Please, please he thinks to his own brain. Please let me dream about her. Just one more time, please.
It happened once, five weeks after she died. He dreamed they were shooting back-to-back commercials, and he was walking in front of the green screen in a suit for a cologne commercial while she stood to the side of the camera looking at her iPad. In his dream, she was healthy—long hair and full cheeks, clothes that fit instead of hanging off her body.
She had snapped at him, the one and only time he suggested getting a new agent so she could focus on her health. She hadn't done that since he was a little kid, but the harsh tone and look in her eyes sent him back to being seven years old and grounded for breaking a vase her parents brought from Japan. "Don't say that again," she had said ten months ago when he said JJ's agent gets him some endorsement deals, maybe I could switch over to him so you can relax at your treatments.
He tries to sleep now and eventually, finally, does.
When he wakes up at 4 a.m. without having dreamed of her again, he feels like a traitor. His brain should know how much he misses her and how much he wants to see her again. It should understand that he needs this more than he needs to see hockey plays or Hayden's kids. The black tar feeling comes over him like maybe he doesn't miss her as much as he thinks he does. Maybe his brain won't give him some relief because it knows he doesn't actually need it.
Again, he thinks please.
Again, he thinks just one more time.
Again, his stomach aches. Again, his bones hurt like they're being pressed into dust. Again, the spot in his chest that's felt like an open, ugly wound since she died expands a little. Just like it does every night when he wakes up without having seen her face.
He rolls over and closes his eyes, Ilya moving automatically in his sleep so he's curled up behind Shane. His arm crosses over Shane's stomach and his fingers start toying lightly with the trail of hair that runs from his belly button to his groin.
"You're awake?" Ilya says. His voice is rough with sleep, groggy. Shane loves it like that. He's the only one allowed to hear Ilya's voice at three in the morning.
"Yeah," Shane says.
"Hip hurting you?"
Yes, it feels like it's on fucking fire. Just one more thing to ache. He feels like grief is making his body break just like her body broke.
"No," he says, "it's okay for right now."
Ilya pulls at the hair he was playing with and says, "Liar. I get you hot pack."
"Ilya—" He says, but Ilya's already rolling over and out of bed. His bare feet pad across Shane's hardwoods out of the room, downstairs next to the microwave to where they keep the hot packs.
He hears the microwave beeping and the door opening and closing before Ilya makes his way back upstairs and appears in their bedroom with the giant pack wrapped up in a towel.
Shane shifts for a second and settles into a comfortable spot on his side with his bad hip up before Ilya carefully pulls back the covers and lays the hot pack over it. He groans obscenely into his pillow as relief spreads through him almost instantly.
Ilya is propped up on one elbow and bites Shane's shoulder, gently, before saying, "I like when you make that sound."
Shane reaches up behind him and grabs at Ilya's hair, keeping his mouth on his skin. His curls are soft around his fingers, little ringlets that Shane loves so much it makes him feel crazy sometimes. "I know you do," Shane says. "After tomorrow's game."
Ilya says, "Yes. I make you make that sound all night."
"If we win."
"That was not the deal, Hollander," Ilya says and bites his shoulder again.
Shane turns his face so he can smile into his pillow without Ilya seeing how stupidly in love with him he is.
Ilya kisses the bitten spot on his shoulder and then says, "So if not hip, what woke you?"
He shifts so their bodies are pressed up together from chest to ankle, the heat of Ilya's skin seeping into him like coming to sit by the fire on a winter day.
"I just woke up," he says, "but I couldn't get back to sleep because I… I wanted to dream about her. And I didn't, again."
It's been months of this now. Even though they rarely share a bed, in the grand scheme of things, Ilya knows how often this keeps him awake.
He kisses Shane's shoulder again and is quiet for a long time before finally saying, "I wanted the same. When Mama died."
Ilya so rarely talks about that time, or about Irina at all, that Shane goes still, like one twitch of his finger might spook Ilya back into hiding.
"Used to beg God," he says. "Say please, God, please. Maybe it's a stupid thing?"
"It's not," Shane says right away. "I do that too."
"Because we are the same," Ilya says. He drops down from his elbow and settles them so his arm is under Shane's neck and his lips are pressed into Shane's hair.
"Yeah," he agrees. "The same."
It's quiet for a minute, and Shane wonders if Ilya fell asleep. Then, he feels Ilya moving the hot pack around so the heat gets distributed evenly again.
"Did you… I mean, do you ever see her? In your dreams?"
Ilya doesn't answer as he works until finally he's satisfied with the way the hot pack is laying. A bolt of happiness zips through Shane at that, how cared for Ilya makes him feel.
Finally, he says, "Sometimes. But—" he hesitates before adding, "—I didn't for a long time. But I see her now. First night in the cottage I ever spent, I dreamed of her."
"Really?"
He hums. "We talked about her, remember?" Of course Shane remembers. "And I dreamed her that night."
"Do you remember it?"
"Little bit," Ilya says. "She and me were in the lake there, and you were on shore. And we kept splashing you to come in the water."
Shane smiles and says, "That sounds like you."
Ilya kisses his hair. "Yes," he agrees. "And it was like her too. We were all laughing together. That's all I really remember."
"It sounds nice." He tries to keep the wistfulness out of his voice, but he doesn't think he does a very good job.
"Yes, it was."
The hot pack is fading and the hour has turned over when Shane finally asks into the dark room, "Do you think I'll dream of her again?"
Ilya says, right away like he doesn't have to think, "Of course." He reaches down between them and removes the hot pack and the towel and throws them onto his bedside table, where they land with a thunk.
"Now close your eyes," he says. "And we will sleep."
And Shane does.
-
Depression
"Hi, Mr. Hollander?" A tall, blond woman with a clipboard and a headset says when he steps out of the Lyft in Vancouver. His driver wanted to take a selfie, speaking in rapid French about being in the crowd when Shane won his first cup. Mes enfants vont être tellement excités he said as Shane tried to get out of the car without ruffling his feathers.
Merci, merci he said in his awful English accent that's never improved no matter how long he's lived in Montreal. He took lessons his sophomore season with an instructor to get better, but he couldn't force his tongue around the accent. Dites-leur que j'leur ai dit bonjour.
"Your tongue is better for other things," Ilya told him last summer when he complained about it before they made out on the deck of the boat for half an hour, each of them rutting against the other and coming in their swimsuits. Ilya had grabbed his arm afterwards and rolled them both off the deck and into the water to clean them off while Shane screamed happily, even though it was disgusting to think about swimming around in come water.
It feels like last summer was centuries ago. Like it happened to someone else. He'll never be that person again, carefree and laughing in the sun. He barely even recognizes that person. Her death has unmade him. Most days, he feels like he's still coming apart at the seams, like every piece of himself that he's been able to hold onto is one broken thread away from slipping out of his grasp.
To the headset woman, he says, "Yeah, hi."
They shake hands and she introduces herself as Lauren. "I'll be your personal assistant today," she explains. "Reebok wants to make sure this goes as easily as possible for you. I understand in the past you had someone else helping you through your shoots?"
She says it breezily as they walk through the doors to the gym and down the hall to the locker room. Like it's nothing, just a factoid. He used to have someone helping him through his shoots, and now he doesn't.
"Yeah," he says. "My agent said he would come, but his flight got delayed."
His new agent, Tim Hopkins—who represents half the league's top scorers as well as a dozen prospects who all have their eyes on going first overall—was recommended by Hayden three weeks after Shane's mom died. He's nice enough and picked up the negotiations for Shane's contract extensions that his mom had already started. The Metros did a big thing for his mom when he finally signed in March and Tim went on and on about her before Shane finally walked out of the room.
"Ah well, no worries at all," Lauren says. They get to the locker room, where a rack of clothes is hanging next to a row of sneakers in his size.
Also there, on a folding table clearly brought in just for this are cans of ginger ale on ice, a phone charger, and fresh fruit arranged in neat piles so they're not overlapping with each other. All things his mom had demanded at every commercial and photo shoot he's done until his sponsors came to expect them and put them up without her asking.
"Reebok wants you in the white outfit first, with these sneakers—" She points to a pair of white sneakers with neon yellow laces that remind him of Ilya's Nike's— "for the scene on the rowing machine."
He had a meeting with Reebok on his flight to go over everything they wanted from him today, and he feels like a robot as he gets dressed. Last year, his mom was sitting in the director's chair they put in his dressing room going over his filming schedule for the day. He had been shooting for Gatorade that day, or Rolex, or something. She had been so thin her collarbone jutted out. Her hair was gone, her eyebrows, her eyelashes, and she wore a black scarf wrapped around her head with pearl earrings.
Now, he sits down hard on the bench in the locker room, trying to catch his breath as he remembers her earrings. His shorts are only pulled halfway on, but he sticks his head between his knees as he hyperventilates. When he was little, he would sit in her lap, wrapped up in her warm arms and twirl her earring around and around, feeling the smooth pearl under his fingertips. He could smell her perfume.
"How are you doing in there, Shane?" Lauren asks with a knock.
"Yeah, just—just one minute," he says and stands up to finish getting dressed.
He goes out and they have everything set up near the rowing machine, all the cameras and lights and interns running around with headsets like Lauren's. He gets on the rowing machine before the director says, "Wait just one second, Shane."
An intern comes over and sprays him down with water so it looks like he's been sweating, and then he grunts his way through the rest of filming as if he was actually working out. He runs the track they have in the gym wearing an all black outfit with neon blue shoes and lifts weights wearing bright orange and does some endurance training in oversaturated green.
He keeps looking up throughout the day expecting to see his mom standing next to the camera, remembering just a half second too late that she's dead. She really did die and won't be at this or any other shoot again. It makes him falter for a moment every time—the rowing bar slipping out of his hands or tripping over his own shoes. It's the most amount of takes he's ever needed during filming and he feels like he's failing her when the director yells cut. Like he can feel her eyebrows quirking up at him every time he stumbles.
It's the only time of the day when he doesn't feel like he's just going through the motions. These have never been fun exactly, but sometimes they would catch each other's eye and his mom would make a face at whatever director or intern or PA that she was annoyed with. It felt good to be in on the joke with her, especially because he so often feels out of the joke. That's over now too, just like so many other things. The hopelessness that's settled inside him like a virus he can't kick burrows itself a little deeper.
Hours later, the director finally says, "Alright everyone, great work today—that's a wrap."
He showers quickly in the locker room and eats some of the fruit that probably Lauren set out before getting redressed. When he leaves, he sees Tim standing in the lobby of the gym.
"I guess my agent made it," he says to Lauren, who was seeing him out.
"Oh!" She says. "Well, I'll leave you two to it."
Tim looks up from his phone when he hears Shane approaching and shoves it into his suit pocket. "Shane! Man, what the fucking bitch of an airport today. Never fly commercial," he says. "Sorry I didn't get here sooner. How did it go?"
"Fine," he shrugs. He misses his mom so fiercely in that moment that he feels like he can't breathe. He wishes Ilya were here so he could bury his face into Ilya's shoulder and dry heave wracking sobs as Ilya plays with his hair.
"Good," Tim says. "We've got CCM tomorrow, Speedo on Thursday and Gatorade on Friday, then we're done in Vancouver for the summer. Rolex and the soda people just want print ads this year, so we can do those back in Ottawa."
Shane nods along as they get in the back of the town car Tim had waiting for them. When it was just him and his mom on these trips they would always go out to fancy dinner on the first night—some sushi place if they were on the coast or a steakhouse if they weren't.
The first time they did it, Shane was 15 and just signed his first CCM contract. They traveled here, to Vancouver, for the photoshoot. Shane had felt so awkward and uncomfortable all day with everyone touching him and positioning him at just the right angle, the director shouting at him to turn his face one way or another, stop smiling, make himself bigger, hold his stick a certain way, give more ferocity in his eyes. After he got changed out of his hockey gear, his mom had driven them straight to the sushi place that would become their favorite and let him get as much as he wanted, a seemingly endless supply of rolls and sashimi.
It changed after that. She got more intense about it—his brand, his contracts, what it meant to be an Asian kid repping Reebok and Gatorade—but he could see how happy it made her. He had made it, which meant that she had made it. Everything she had worked for and his grandparents had worked for all came to fruition in him. The pressure of it made his throat close up sometimes and his skin break out in a cold sweat.
He wants that pressure back more than anything in the world right now. Please he thinks. I just want to have that one more time. The week before she died she had sent him a new sponsor to look over, some fitness equipment company that he never actually made any contact with. Probably, even on her death bed, if he had been allowed to go to it, she would have been talking about the premier brands. Longing sits in his chest like an anvil.
That night, he facetimes Ilya.
"How did today go?" Ilya asks. He's laying on the couch in the cottage and Shane can see the lighting change on his face at the TV off screen plays in the background. Ilya's got it on mute.
He bites his lip. "Fine," he says. "Sort of weird, without her there."
Ilya hums. "Yes, I'm sure," he says. "Want to talk about it?"
Shane feels that panicky feeling start to rise up, and he puts the phone down for a second, making Ilya look at the ceiling, as he clasps a hand over his mouth to hold in a sob. He's been doing this a lot—crying like he's never cried before. He didn't even know he could cry like this. Huge, wracking sobs that shake his shoulders and feel like they'll never end, like he'll cry for the rest of the life.
In his head, he hears his juniors teammates calling the guy who cried after his family's dog died a pussy, a girl, a fag. He wishes that he hadn't laughed along with them, just to fit in.
"Oh, baby," Ilya says. He can probably hear Shane desperately trying to suck in air as he cries. Ever since he was a little kid he's been like this when he cries—holding his breath until he gasps, then holding his breath again. Over and over until his head aches.
"Let me see you," Ilya says after a moment.
He gasps and holds up his phone. He manages to say, "What's the fucking point of all this if she's not here?" He sniffles to shove some dripping snot back into his nose, out of control of his own body just like she was.
"The sponsors?" Ilya asks.
"All of it," he manages to choke out. They lost the cup in five this year, and he hardly even cared. Up until that game, he was hellbent on winning. Then the puck dropped in the first period, and all he could feel was sick.
During the handshake line, he was so relieved he was trembling. At least she wouldn't miss him holding the cup again. At least he wouldn't have to have a day with it in July without her beside him.
Ilya shushes him gently, like you would a little kid that skinned their knee.
"I wish you were here," Shane says.
"Me too," Ilya agrees.
Shane holds his breath and then gasps again. His tear tracks have met in the middle at the base of his chin and they drip down onto his legs below. His voice is small and wavering when he says, "I wish she was here."
Ilya answers, "Me too." Then, he says, "Do you not want to do the commercials anymore?"
"I don't know," Shane whispers. And that's true. He hated today. It felt like he was outside of his body again, like he did for days right after she died. He was watching himself, detached from what was happening around him. He has more tomorrow, and the next day, and until he retires, and it makes him gasp and sob to think about doing it again. His head feels like he's splitting it open with blunt fingernails.
But giving them up means abandoning her dream. And he won't do that to her.
"Not right now," he finally says after Ilya prompts him to breathe. "Maybe someday, but not right now."
"Okay," Ilya says. "Now go drink your water." It's the only thing that can stop the sobbing, that forces his body to relax long enough for him to wrestle control of it back.
He grabs his water bottle off the end table beside the bed and drinks half of it in one long pull. Finally, he can breathe again.
"I love you," he finally says with an even tone.
"I love you too," Ilya responds. "Tell me about tomorrow. You want me to fly out?"
"Yes," Shane says. "And it's CCM."
Ilya smiles. "I'll get first flight tomorrow, 5 A.M. And we will tell CCM that I'm in town training."
"I bet they'll try to pull you into the commercial." Shane feels his heart start to slow down, returning to baseline. The adrenaline racing through him in fading. He's so tired he wants to fall asleep right now, even though it's only about 7:00.
Ilya scoffs. "Of course; I'm the best player in the world."
Shane laughs, and the conversation turns to what they'll do in Vancouver this week, an unexpected vacation. He suggests sushi. Ilya says yes.
-
Acceptance
The next summer, his dad drives to their cottage by the lake with his mom's ashes buckled into the front seat. He put four pillows surrounding it, just in case, and duct taped shut the plastic bag inside the urn where Shane's mom is. Before he leaves the house in Ottawa, he sends a picture in the family group chat, the one that his mom is still in, and captions it one last road trip to the cottage with your mom
Shane and Ilya arrive in Lanaudière a week later.
"How are you feeling?" Ilya asks in the car to his parents' cottage. Shane's driving, and Ilya is playing with his fingers. He likes holding hands in the car. Shane learned that the first summer they spent together four years ago, when Ilya was in town just two weeks and Shane felt like he swallowed sunshine.
"Okay," he says. "Good. I feel bad that we waited so long."
Ilya hums, but doesn't say anything else as he flips Shane's hand over and traces along the lines on his palm with the tip of his index finger.
They pull up the house and walk the familiar path past the dead, overgrown bushes that his dad always thinks will bounce back if he mixes this into the soil or sprays that along the leaves.
"Hey, it's us," Shane calls when they go inside without knocking.
"I'm in the kitchen!"
They head back to the kitchen and see his dad with a huge pot of pasta boiling—the tips of the spaghetti peak out from over the lip of the pot, and he's using the pasta fork to shove it down so it's all submerged.
"Hi boys," he says.
"Smells good," Ilya answers and lifts the lid on the sauce pot next to the pasta. He leans down and sniffs the simmering marinara before grabbing a spoon and dipping it in. He blows on it for a second before eating it. He practically goes cross eyed as he moans.
His dad laughs, "Hungry?"
"Starving," Ilya says. He pinches Shane's arm and adds, "He wouldn't let me eat all day."
"You're such a baby—you had, like, six eggs for breakfast. And I knew we were having lunch here."
"Am supposed to be eating 4000 calories a day, you know," Ilya says and sticks out his tongue as he grabs the loaf of fresh bread that's sitting on the counter and tears off a huge chunk.
He shoves the bread in his mouth and he and Shane's dad mill around the kitchen for a few minutes while the pasta cooks as Shane wanders into his parents' bedroom down the hall.
The urn is sitting on the dresser. He walks over to it, feeling like a little kid again. She used to pick him up and let him sit on top next to her jewelry box as she got dressed and picked out her earrings. "Which one today?" She would ask and hold up two options, letting him choose.
"Hi Mom," he says when he gets to the dresser. He runs his hand over the smooth top of the urn. It's cold, sitting directly under an air vent. He moves so he can trace the little birds carved into the side with his finger. He's never talked to her like this before.
"You didn't miss much this postseason," he goes on to say. He wants to hear her voice so badly that the old familiar feeling from last year, the deepest longing he can imagine, comes back for one blazing moment. "The Metros got knocked out in the second round, and the Trojans went to the third. They've got some good pieces, but their defense needs bulking up. I'm sure Ilya's GM would have loved to hear your opinions."
He smiles. He can imagine her sending them her trade deadline thoughts in February and suggesting casually that they mention to their GMs who they should target and what needs each team has. She always gave the Metros an edge over the Trojans, something Ilya whined about every year.
"Ilya's good, and Dad. I don't want you to worry. I know you probably were—worried, I mean. Dad's kept the house the same, and he still comes to my games when he's in town. He goes to Ilya's too."
He leans in close to the urn, resting his forehead along the ledge before he says quietly, "I think I'm going to drop Rolex. I hope that's okay. I'm just tired."
Outside, he hears the trees rustle in the wind.
"I missed you this year," he continues. "But I'm doing okay too. I want you to know I'm doing okay."
He thinks it's the truth. It's hard to remember last year—how caught up in the storm he was. He couldn't go a single second without thinking of her.
But lately, he's gone hours before he thinks about her. And it doesn't stop him in his tracks anymore. It feels like a fact of his life. She died. He's still learning what that means. He's not sure he'll ever totally understand it. But he can remember that she's gone and then go on with his day.
In some ways, it feels scary. Sometimes, he wants to go back to being in the thick of his grief and be able to feel that again—the raw, ugly loss of her. To move on feels like he's letting his love for her fade, which makes his heart race and adrenaline spike.
But he knows rationally that's not true. She'll always be his mom. He'll always love her more than he could ever say. She wouldn't want him to be caught in the tornado of grief for the rest of his life.
So, he remembers that she's gone, and then he goes on with his day.
"Shane?" He hears his dad calling from the other room. "Lunch is almost ready."
"I got to go," he says to her. "I love you." He replays in his memories all the times she said that back to him.
He goes out to the kitchen and sits down at the table next to Ilya, an empty spot across from him where she once sat. He watches her chair for a moment. Then, he scoops himself some pasta.
After lunch, his dad says, "I'll go get her."
He disappears into his bedroom for a minute.
"Come here," Ilya says, and Shane goes into his arms, letting Ilya wrap him up and hold him as he takes deep breaths. "You still want to do this today?"
He nods, his face smushed up against Ilya's ancient Dynamo Moscow shirt that's followed him from Russia to Boston to Ottawa. It's ripped along one of the seams on the side and always smells like Ilya, even after it's been washed. It's one of Shane's favorite things in the world.
"Yeah," he says. "Today feels good."
"Okay," Ilya says and turns his head so he can kiss Shane's hair.
His dad comes back around the corner with the urn and works as Shane and Ilya are still tangled up in each other. Carefully, he pulls back the duct tape he had over the top and goes to throw it away.
Shane lets Ilya go and looks. He's never seen the plastic bag before. It looks like a giant Ziploc.
"I thought we could take the whole thing outside," his dad says when he comes back. "That way we can spread as much as we want." He gets a big bowl of water and hands it to Ilya, so they can clean their hands afterwards and not put her down the drain in the sink.
"Okay," Shane says.
Ilya shrugs and adds, "Sounds good."
They go to the backyard. It's lined with a few trees and tall grass on the hill that his dad never mows. Along the concrete of the patio are neatly planted blue and white perennial flowers that she put in the year Shane was drafted. There's the dirt path that cuts through the yard and leads down to the lake over the hill.
His dad puts the urn on the table they have out there and takes a deep breath. Ilya puts his hand on his shoulder to help steady him, and Shane does the same. His dad puts his hands over theirs for a second before he opens the bag.
His mom's ashes are light brown, sort of tan. He thought they would be gray, like fire's ashes. His dad reaches his hand in and grabs a handful before covering it with his other hand.
He goes out into the backyard, barefoot in the lush green grass, and says, "I love you, Yuna." He turns his back to the wind and throws his hands out. Her ashes get flung into the air and the wind carries them for a moment before they settle over the grass. Shane notices for the first time that he's wearing a McGill sweatshirt, where they met when they were freshmen.
As his dad stands in the yard, watching, Ilya gives Shane a kiss on his temple. "You go when you're ready," he says. "I'll wait right here."
For some reason, that's what spurs Shane into action. He squares his shoulders and reaches his hand inside the bag.
It's grainy and sort of coarse, which makes sense if he had thought about it for three seconds before this moment. It's bone in here, tiny little fragments. Her bones. It's strange to think he's probably touching a part of her that he's never touched before—what was once her liver or her lungs. The outside of your body is such s small portion of it, in the grand scheme of things.
He grabs his handful and does the same as his dad—covers it with his other hand to protect it, so none of her drops.
As he goes to the dirt path, he sees that his dad is crying—giant wet tears like he's never seen him cry before, not even in that first week after she died. "I love you, Dad," he says. He gets a shaky smile in return.
He stands at the top of hill and listens to the tall grass swaying in the breeze, that familiar rustle. He can see the lake from here, the sand where she would lay, the gentle waves lapping at the shore.
"Bye, Mommy," he says and opens his hands.
The wind picks her up and brings her to the grass where she used to hide in to make him laugh. The memories play in his head as his hands empty. His screaming laughter, the way she would nuzzle her face into his neck and say I'm gonna eat you up as he squirmed and giggled. As he grew up, they would walk hand-in-hand down to the shore so he could make sandcastles as she sat with her feet in the water. Then, he was a teenager and he would come to stand at the top of the hill to tell her that dinner was ready as she laid in the sand and read her books.
When she's gone from his hands, he whispers, "I miss you."
Ilya's on his knees beside the flower bed when Shane turns back. He's letting her slip through his open fingers over the flowers and whispering in Russian.
His dad spreads some more, and Shane brings handful down to the lake that she loved. Eventually, they're finished.
They dip their hands in the bowl of water until they're clean from any ashes. Then, his dad takes the water from the bowl and pours it gently over her flowers.
"There," he says. "Now she's in her favorite place forever."
They go inside to wash their hands properly. His dad looks tired—he's looked like that a lot since she's died. Lately, he's seemed a little better.
Shane knows he wants them to go so he can start crying and mourning without them watching, so Shane says, "Will you come over tomorrow? Maybe for breakfast?"
His dad nods and says, "I'll see you boys in the morning." He practically ushers them out the door.
In the car on the ride home, Ilya drives. He asks, "Are you okay?"
Shane bursts into tears. "Yeah," he says through them. "It was nice." It's true.
These tears feel so unlike the ones the from last year. He couldn't stop those or the sobs that wracked his body. They consumed him from the inside out, like they were always there beneath the surface and sometimes he lost control so they broke free.
Now, he wipes his tears on his arm and says, "I think she'll be happy to be there." He's still crying, gently, like he could stop at any time.
Ilya reaches over and squeezes his thigh before settling his hot palm against Shane's skin where his shorts are riding up. "Me too," he says.
They're quiet the rest of the car ride as the Russian music Ilya put on plays softly in the background. When they get to house, Shane asks, "Do you want to go swimming?"
Ilya smiles and nods.
They get changed, and as Ilya walks down the dock and jumps off the end, Shane goes to the shore where the waves comes up over his feet. He thinks of his mom and wades further into the dark water, where Ilya is waiting for him.