Archive of Our Own

• Chapter 39, The Long Game

November, 1985

"You have a light?"

David Hollander looks up from rummaging in his hockey bag and sees the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on with an unlit cigarette between her fingers. Her long black hair is tied up in a ponytail but her bangs frame her face, which is golden tan against her white turtleneck. She arches an eyebrow after a moment and he realizes he's been staring with his mouth hanging open. "I… no, sorry. I don't smoke."

"Ugh. Athletes," she sighs, putting her cigarette back into the pack. She leans back against the brick, her breath visible in the cold air. She surveys him with eyes the colour of coffee and he has never been more awake in his life. "You're Hollander, right? Left winger?"

"That's me, yeah. You a big hockey fan?"

"The biggest." Her mouth curves up into a smile. David feels like he's been jolted into the boards. "You're a bit late on your passes."

"Is that right?" He stands up to his full height, and squares his shoulders as best he can while being dissected and pinned open by the woman's level gaze. "I think my timing must be pretty good."

December, 1988

The tinsel on the tree is so shiny in the glare of the incandescent lights that he can't look directly at it. Okay, maybe he had used a bit of a heavy hand with it, but they didn't have many ornaments yet. Their first Christmas as a married couple was just the two of them in their apartment and they were keeping it modest. Yuna hadn't wanted to look at houses until the spring.

("I know, but there's no point until the snow melts," she'd said from the bathroom when he complained about the downstairs neighbour setting off the smoke alarm yet again. He heard her gargle mouthwash and spit it into the sink before her head popped around the doorframe. "We power through until then, we can check out the yard situation."

He leaned back into the couch, picking at the knobby fabric. "If Mrs. Tessier doesn't burn us all in our beds before then, sure."

"What's life without a little excitement?" She flung the towel at his face and cackled as he flinched and caught it. "Keeps your reflexes sharp.")

Her brown eyes are sparkling with the reflection of the lights and something he can't quite place. "Alright, there's one more gift under the tree. It's for you."

"What could that be?" He leans into the blinding mess of tinsel and pulls out a small box wrapped in red and green striped paper. He gives it a cautious shake. "It's a bit small to be a camcorder."

Yuna scoffs, but he hears the warmth behind it. "No, it's not a camcorder. I don't understand why you're so set on owning one of those bulky things. You don't work for CBC News." Her eyes widen at his raised eyebrows and lascivious grin and she swats him hard on the arm. "Jesus Christ, David. Just open it."

"Okay, okay," he laughs, "Give me a second, you've taped it too well. It's like breaking into Fort Knox." Finally a seam of paper loosens enough to tear and reveal a plain white box. Inside is a pair of small white shoes, laces knotted neatly into impossibly tiny bows. He gets dizzy so fast that he wonders if his head is still attached to his body. "No. Really?"

"Really, really." She leans forward from where she's kneeling and presses a kiss to his lips. A half second passes before he remembers to kiss her back. "You can have the camcorder next Christmas when there's three of us."

"Three of us," he says. He already knows he has a dopey, lovesick grin on his face. He does not care. Sue him. "Isn't that something."

February, 1989

David is not a religious man, but he thinks there must be something to the idea of hell because this is definitely it. The smell of antiseptic is making him queasy. He shifts in the chair. It's impossible to get comfortable. All those years ago he'd slouched way down in the chair until his father had yanked him up by the back of his shirt. He rubs a hand over the back of his neck.

The doctor comes out with a grim face, and the world tilts. He knows that face. I'm sorry, Mr. Hollander, we did everything we could, internal bleeding, too late—

"I'm sorry, Mr. Hollander. It looks as though your wife has miscarried."

It knocks the wind out of him. Some part of him had known when he saw the blood on the bathroom floor, but he had still hoped. "I don't understand. What happened?"

"There's no telling at this point, I'm afraid." The doctor has a full white beard and a kind face. David decides he hates him passionately. "Look after your wife, Mr. Hollander. Women tend to take things like this very hard. But you are still young, you can try again. This is very common."

But it's not common to us. This was our baby. He jerks his chin downward in an impression of a nod. His throat burns. "I want to go see her."

He straightens up and brushes away the shards of the dreams he had only hours ago so none of his sharp edges will touch her. She needs him and she has bled enough.

April, 1990

"Nothing fits! I am officially a whale." She throws her hands up in the air in irritation. She's standing in the bedroom in only a bra and a skirt that is only halfway zipped. The material has expanded to its limit and refuses to budge any further. Without the oversized blouses she's been favouring lately, it's easy to see the soft swell of her belly four months into the pregnancy.

He is reclined against the headboard reading. Had been reading, rather, before she started undressing and he found himself staring at the same sentence for five minutes without ever comprehending it once. "You are the furthest thing from a whale. It's just a little bump."

Yuna grumbles and starts to undo the zipper, wrenching it with more force than strictly necessary."I am bloated and swollen. Everyone who said I would be glowing is a goddamn liar."

You are glowing, he thinks as she continues to mutter. Her face is fuller and her hair has never looked shinier and thicker. She's all luscious curves and perfect skin. Her breasts are distracting to the point that he had walked into the dresser when she'd been changing the other day and broken a bottle of perfume. She's a goddess and she's carrying his baby.

It's been making him a little crazy, truth be told.

"David!" She is trying to sound exasperated but she's laughing in spite of herself. "Have you heard a word I've said or are you just staring?"

He marks his place with a bookmark and sets the book on the nightstand. "There's a right answer and there's a true answer, which one do you want?"

"I'm about to be an attraction at Marineland," she says dryly. She is standing by the side of the bed in her underwear, her hands on her hips. His mouth waters. "You can't possibly still be horny."

"I think you'll find," he says, pulling her firmly onto his lap and smiling into her neck at her squeal of surprise, "That it's extremely possible."

_________

David wipes his face with the old t-shirt he's wearing and surveys the room. It's easier without all the boxes of books and old hockey gear that he managed to move out of the way. There's a nice big window that lets in the sunlight, though it's mostly illuminating the dust particles floating in the air at the moment. The carpet had been replaced shortly before they bought the house, so that's fine, but the white walls absolutely will not do. Wallpaper is too much of a pain in the ass to hang. Painting is easy enough.

Maybe a soft green, he thinks. That works for a boy or a girl. He doesn't have a preference either way. He'll buy the paint next week. Once Yuna gets home from her appointment, he'll see what she thinks.

The telephone is ear-splittingly loud in the silence of the house and he jumps. It's on the fourth ring by the time he makes it to the kitchen to answer it. "Hello?"

"Is this David Hollander?"

It's an innocuous question, but his stomach fills with cold dread. By the time the nurse explains that she is calling from Ottawa General and that he's being contacted as Yuna Hollander's emergency contact and could he get to the hospital as soon as possible please, every nerve ending of his body feels like it's encased in ice.

He doesn't remember driving there. He is dimly aware that that's not a good state in which to operate a vehicle, but it's too late now.

"Mr. Hollander?" It's a different doctor from before. A woman, this time, with a blonde perm and blue thick-rimmed glasses. It doesn't matter. The face is the same. He nods. "I'm Dr. Lahey. I'm the attending OB/GYN here today. May we speak privately?"

He listens as though from underwater as the doctor explains. A routine checkup had showed no fetal heartbeat, confirmed by ultrasound. Gestational age appears consistent with dates so this was likely recent. Has she had an injury or trauma in the last week?

No, he thinks dully, just me taking her to bed and forgetting again how easy it is to break something fragile.

She explains that there will be a surgical procedure this time and though her language is delicate, he gets the gist and has to force the bile down so he doesn't vomit right there on the tile floor. Her scrubs are soft green. It is the ugliest colour on earth.

February, 1991

"Dinner was nice," he says as he loosens his tie. He keeps his back to her.

"It was," she agrees. "The service was faster than I expected it would be on Valentine's Day."

"I remember my days of waiting tables. They train for Valentine's like they're preparing for war."

She huffs out a laugh at that. "Can you unzip me?"

David looks over his shoulder at her. The burgundy dress is partially unzipped but it still drapes over her frame and beautifully showcases the round curve of her belly. It is getting harder to ignore. God knows he's been trying.

He gently eases the zipper down. His fingers graze the skin between her shoulder blades and he pulls back like he's been burned. She rounds on him, her eyes flashing. "Okay, that's it. I can't take this anymore. What the fuck is the matter with you?"

"There is nothing the matter with me," he says. She slips the dress down her shoulders and he looks away.

"That!" She yells. "You're treating me like I have some kind of contagious disease just because I'm pregnant. As if you didn't play a part in it." She wrenches a drawer out so hard that for a second he thinks it might hit the floor, but she yanks a threadbare McGill t-shirt out of it and pulls it over her head. "You act like you're afraid to touch me."

I am, he wants to yell back at her. The last time was my fault. But he looks at her face, and the tears in her eyes make him feel small. "I don't want to hurt you."He swallows around the razor blades in his throat. "Either of you."

"You won't." She steps across the room and closes the distance between them. "Just… give me your hand. Please."

He's never known how to say no to her. He's not sure it's ever occurred to him to try.

She lifts her shirt and places his hand on the swell of her belly. It doesn't feel like much of anything. It's smooth and firm, lined with small pink stripes just below her bellybutton. Maybe the doctors are wrong and there is no baby at all. Don't swallow the watermelon seeds, his brother's voice calls to him from across the years, it'll sprout in your belly.

Underneath his hand, there's a distinct thump-thump-thump like a knock on a door. It brings him clear to his knees.

"He's saying hi," Yuna says through tears.

"Hey there, sunshine," he says, his cheek pressed against her belly. His voice is barely above a whisper. He hopes whoever is inside can hear him. "I'm your daddy."

May, 1991

It's been hours. Not that he's complaining. He would never, especially not out loud. He likes his balls where they are, thank you very much. It's just hard to watch, that's all. She's in so much pain that his stomach is in knots just watching.

"Yuna, the head is out now, I need you to not push, just take small panting breaths. On the next contraction, we're gonna get these big shoulders out and then we should have a baby."

She is wild-eyed but obeys and breathes in and out in little puffs of air. It reminds him of when she had tried to teach him to blow smoke rings while draped across the bed in his old apartment, a lifetime ago. He breathes in time with her and it is rapidly making him lightheaded. "We're almost there, sweetheart."

The look on her sweat-drenched face is murderous. "We are doing jack shit, you can say we when you have a person coming out of your fucking—"

"There's a contraction, now push!"

She roars and squeezes his hand and bears down with all her might. In that moment, he thinks she must be the eighth wonder of the world.

"That's it, good, good, and… yup, there we go! It's a boy!"

He looks at his son (holy shit he has a son) and his heart rises into his throat. The baby is big but he is dusky blue and making no noise. No no no no no you have to breathe please don't leave we just got you here—

The doctor suctions something out of the baby's mouth and rubs his back more roughly than David has ever seen anyone do to an infant, but there's a weak cough and then an indignant screech and like a magic trick, the baby turns pink and flings his arms outward. He is screaming and covered in blood and a white, waxy film. A wild thatch of black hair sits atop his slightly pointed head. He's perfect.

"Is he okay?" Yuna is shaking so hard that her voice wavers. David rubs his hands up and down her arms.

"He looks just fine, mom," the doctor says with ease. "You look like you're pretty shaky there, that's the adrenaline. We'll get the little guy all cleaned up for you while you deliver the placenta. That part should be easy, no big shoulders!"

She grabs his hand."Go stay with him? Please?"

"What if you need me?" She is shivering so hard her teeth are chattering. They said adrenaline, but—

"David." She is firm. This is her mom voice, he realizes. "Go see our little boy."

The nurse is weighing the baby and god, he looks downright furious. His fists are curled like he is ready to fight. "Hey there, sunshine." The baby's wails die down into whimpers.

"Keep on talking to him, dad," the nurse says as she swaddles the baby. Her smile is blinding white against her dark skin. "He likes your voice."

"Is that true, little guy? You know my voice?" The baby's eyes are unfocused, but he looks like he is trying. "I've been talking to you for a while."

Once he is wrapped up and a hat is placed on his head, David finally holds his son. He settles the baby into the crook of his arm. He weighs barely more than a house cat. "I don't have a lot of practice with babies, so I hope you'll forgive me if I fuck up." He winces. "Shit, sorry, I probably shouldn't swear in front of you. That's the first one, I guess."

The baby blinks at him, dazed. David knows just how he feels.

"We love you so much, my sunshine boy." He touches his fingertip to the baby's cheek. It's covered in a fine downy hair like peach fuzz. "I promise you right now, there is nothing you could ever do in your life that will ever change that."

December, 1991

The laughter from the nursery can be heard as soon as he comes in the front door. Shane's high-pitched giggles and squeals are mixed with Yuna's loud belly laugh. "David! Come and see this!"

He jogs down the hall until he is standing in the nursery doorway, grinning at them. There are tears of mirth on Yuna's face and a pair of little white shoes in her hand as she sits on the carpet with the baby. Shane is kicking his feet and babbling as he gnaws on a teether. "He won't let you put the shoes on?"

Shane twists around at his father's voice and bestows a gummy smile on him. Yuna lifts up his chubby legs and gives them a wobble. "They won't go on! His little biscuit feet are too fat!" She breaks into fresh giggles.

David picks up the baby and places a loud smacking kiss on his cheek before settling him on his hip. "His little biscuit feet are just perfect. He's our Christmas ham, isn't he?" Shane gurgles around a pudgy fist, drool dripping down his chins all the way to his wrist.

"Oh well," she sighs, wiping tears from her lashline. She gets up and takes Shane from his arms over to the changing table. "I guess he goes to meet Santa in socks. I'm sure there are worse things. Though at this rate we'll never get skates to fit him."

David puts the shoes back in the box and takes a moment to freeze this frame in his mind forever. The afternoon light streaming in through the window seems to make the butter yellow walls glow. His wife and child, bathed in gold, the sun around which his soul orbits. He basks in Shane's delighted giggles as Yuna pretends to bite his toes off. Yes, he thinks as he puts the box up on the closet shelf, there are worse things.

They'll use the shoes for the next baby.

May, 1993

One of their friends had given Shane an electronic toy piano for Christmas. David can't remember who. He wishes he could. He'd like very much to find them and throttle them. A loud discordant note rings out and he and Yuna both flinch in the middle of folding laundry. "You having fun there, bud?"

Shane, cute as a button in his overalls and striped t-shirt, beams at him so brightly that his face crinkles up. "Playin' da panino!"

"You sure are. You wanna maybe play with another toy?"

"No fanks!" He bangs cheerfully on some more keys. David grits his teeth and tries to smile through the headache starting behind his left eye.

"Maybe he'll be the next Billy Joel," Yuna says, neatly folding a small Barney t-shirt. "You gonna be the piano man, baby?"

Shane nods vigorously, his hair flying. It's getting long. David makes a mental note to take him to the barber before the weekend. "I da panino man."

"Sing us a song, then, panino man," she laughs.

"Happy birfday song?" His big eyes are hopeful at the prospect of cake.

"Almost! It's your birthday in three days."

"One two free days!" He hits a piano key three times for emphasis.

"That's ri-i-ight," she sing-songs. She looks at David and makes an exaggerated pout. "I can't believe he's going to be two years old already. Everyone told me how fast it would go but I didn't really believe them."

He chuckles as he tries to find a mate for a small blue sock."Time flies when you're not sleeping."

"He was a sweet baby, though."

"The very sweetest," he agrees. "Still is."

She tucks her hair behind her ear without meeting his eyes. She's nervous. That's been her tell in poker ever since he's known her. "Do you think you'd want to do it all over again?"

Ah. "I would love nothing more than to have another baby with you." He's surprised at how easily it falls out of his mouth. From the look on her face, so is she.

She recovers fast. "I'm surprised you didn't say make another baby."

"I thought it was implied."

That gets a wry smile in return. "Really, though? You think we're ready?"

"I think we're as ready as we're ever going to be," he says right as he finds the sock's mate. He puts the pair together and tries to remember when the laundry was even smaller than this. He finds it's not as easy to call it to mind as he would have thought. "Besides, Shane could use some other band members, it'd be a shame for the panino man to remain a solo act."

In his mind's eye he is in a bottom bunk and trying to harmonize with the voice up above him. Don't go around tonight, 'cause it's bound to take your life, there's a bad moon on the rise.

"I think we'll wind up with two boys," she says softly. Sometimes he swears she can read his mind. "Just a feeling I have."

David remembers the baby name book they'd leafed through in their many colourful conversations about what to name Shane. Melissa, Greek origin, meaning honeybee. Wouldn't that be just exactly right arriving when the flowers bloom next spring? "I don't know. A little girl might be nice."

October, 1999

"I can't stay out late, I have practice in the morning."

David counts to five in his head. Lord, grant him patience with eight-year-olds that think they're thirty. Yuna had been sad to miss Halloween for the conference but in the face of a certified Shane Sulk he thinks she might have gotten the better end of the deal. "Bud, Halloween comes once a year. I think you can probably spare one night." He hands Shane the pumpkin-shaped candy pail, which is fluorescent green for some reason. "I'm sure even Gretzky went trick or treating."

Shane adjusts his cap, his round face set in a scowl. "The costume looks stupid if I have to wear a coat. I don't even look like a Pokémon trainer."

"Well, that's Canada for you," David sighs. Shane never complains about the cold at the rink but he's not letting him freeze in the damp air either. "The other kids will be wearing coats too. You have the ball thing in case you need to catch any Pokémons?"

"Daaaaaaaaad," Shane groans. "You don't say Pokémons. It's just Pokémon."

"Ah, an invariant noun," he says dryly. "Like sheep."

Shane looks like he's about to roll his eyes but thinks better of it after a raised eyebrow from his father. "I guess. Can we go?"

"By all means, lead the way."

The night air is chilly as they set out. Shane's nose goes pink at the tip quickly in the cold but David knows better than to comment on it in his current mood. His fingers twitch at his side but he does not reach out to hold Shane's hand. He had decided recently that it was only for babies. But you are my baby, David had wanted to say. When did that stop?

There's a thump on the back of his legs and then a small thud. He turns around to find a little girl of about four or five sitting on the sidewalk, looking like she's considering if she wants to cry or not. She gets up and brushes off the puffy skirt of her bright yellow dress and decides not. "Sorry."

"Ashley! I told you to be careful!" The woman hurrying behind her has a toddler on her hip dressed like a cowboy. "I'm so sorry, she was twirling and not watching where she was going."

"Belle has to twirl when she's dancing!" Ashley is indignant.

"Of course she does," David says as he crouches down to look her in her big brown eyes. "You look lovely, young lady. Just be careful and listen to your mom, okay? There are cars around."

She nods, reaching up for her mother's hand and waving goodbye with her other hand, daffodil bright even in the dark. Good. Safer that way. He offers up a silent prayer that she stays out of the road and follows Shane up to the door.

"Trick or treat!"

The man at the door is middle-aged, with a beard and an Ottawa Centaurs t-shirt stretched tight across his large belly. "And who are you supposed to be, little man?"

"I'm Ash. From Pokémon."

"I don't know what that is, but if you say so," he says as he puts some candy in Shane's bucket. He takes a closer look at Shane's face and squints. "Hey, aren't you that Hollander kid?"

Shane freezes in the face of this unexpected inquiry. He looks back at David, and the man's eyes follow. David notes the split second of surprise on his face and tries not to let it dig in. "You his dad?"

"I am," Davd says coolly.

"Man, you must be proud, hey?" The man is grinning now, barely noticing how Shane has inched back towards his father and taken his hand. "My buddy is a coach here, he says that your boy is really becoming something special on the ice."

The ice has nothing to do with it, he wants to say. He's been special since before he was born, before he ever even knew what cold felt like. He cried the first time he saw a dog with three legs. He used to jump up and down when he was excited but he kneels to talk to the ants in the yard when he thinks we're not looking. He's got my brother's freckles. He looks like his mother. You have no idea about the things that make him special. He's all we have and he's everything.

Instead of all that, he just gives the man a tight smile. "Yes. I'm very proud."

He squeezes Shane's hand three times in succession, a silent I-love-you, their secret code since before he could talk. Shane squeezes back, one-two-three.

August, 2017

"Shane never mentions other people in the family."

They're working on the edges of a jigsaw puzzle, which is a little different with two people, but he doesn't mind. He likes Ilya's company, though it's taking some getting used to. Ilya's honesty is different from Shane's. Not quite as blunt, but no less devastating.

"No, I suppose he wouldn't." David thumbs over the solid blue edge in his hand. "Yuna's father passed before we got married. Then her mother, when Shane was pretty young. She didn't have siblings."

Ilya makes a noncommittal noise as he pieces together a river. "What about you?"

"My parents were…" He considers his words carefully. "They were not kind. When I married Yuna." That's an understatement. It still guts him. The look on his father's face as he said ugly, hateful things about the woman David loved had been the last shovelful of dirt on top of that relationship. His mother had been quieter about it but just as poisonous. "They've been gone a long time. Never met Shane. By mutual decision."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Ilya's face is solemn as he moves stones around the water, comparing them to the picture on the box.

"It's been a long time. We have our little family, and that's what matters." Back and forth, his thumb grazes another piece of the sky. Unexpectedly, he finds his own honesty closer to the surface than usual. "I had a brother. Peter. He died when we were only kids." He has not said Peter's name in years. The texture of it in his mouth is foreign now. "Shane reminds me of him, sometimes."

This piques Ilya's interest. David has noticed that he likes to collect little pieces of information about Shane. He'd seen how he studied every photo of him here at their cottage. "What was he like?"

"Pete? Nicest kid in the world. He was a big reader. He loved Tolkien. Knew everything there was to know about trains." A tight coil inside him loosens as he talks. "I was more of a hockey kid, but I liked to listen to him talk about it. He was pretty serious most of the time. But when he got to laughing, his whole face would crinkle up."

"Yes," Ilya says softly, David looks at his face and wonders how he ever could have thought he was a callous jackass. "That sounds like Shane too. He sounds like he was a good brother."

"He was. He was only fourteen when he died." On Shane's fourteenth birthday, he had gone to a bar and stayed there drinking until closing time. Yuna hadn't spoken to him for three days. "He got hit by a car."

"How old were you?"

"Twelve."

"That is a hard age to go through that." Ilya's mouth twists as though he's considering whether or not he wants to talk. "I was the same age when my mother died."

"I'm sorry, Ilya." There's a pang of tenderness in his chest for this motherless boy. He looks very young to David all of a sudden. "I'd love to hear about her some time, if you ever want to tell me. It's nice to remember the people we miss. I haven't talked about Pete in a long time. But he's still in here." He taps his chest. "Safe in my heart."

Ilya looks at him, considering this. "That is a nice way to look at it."

"I believe it." And he does.

_____

"We're back! What are you boys up to?" Yuna puts her hands on his shoulders and squeezes. Shane hangs back with his hands in his pockets, but there is a small, shy smile playing on his lips.

David tips his head back for a kiss, which she happily delivers. "Oh, just getting to know each other over cards. He's kicked my ass in a couple hands of poker now."

"Be careful of that one, Ilya," she warns him on her way to the kitchen. "Hollander men are known to get your defenses down."

"I know this already, I think." Ilya looks at Shane as he says it.

He places his cards face down on the table. "I'm going to go help your mother put everything away. Excuse me, boys."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Shane brush gentle fingers over Ilya's cheek. His voice is pitched low. "You good?"

"All good, solnyshko." Ilya takes Shane's fingers and presses a sweet kiss to them. "We are having a nice time."

There is a lived-in quality to the way they love each other, no matter how much they insist it hadn't been like that. They fit together like puzzle pieces. God, he thinks, how did we miss it?

When David takes his place at the table again, Shane has gone to the bathroom. He decides to take advantage of the opportunity to ask Ilya something he's been dying to know. "What does that one mean? That Russian word you called him? I heard you say it a couple times before too."

Ilya's ears turn pink and oh, god, he hopes that wasn't a rude question. He really hopes it's not a rude word.

"Is like, um, endearment?" Ilya scratches at the back of his neck. His ears are rapidly going from pink to scarlet. "In English it would be little sun. Or sunshine."

"Sunshine," David repeats, a smile growing on his face as he looks at his cards. He hasn't had a full house in a long, long time. "Well. We've certainly always thought so."

July, 2021

The lights strung around the garden twinkle like starlight, or maybe David is just lightly buzzed on champagne. He loosens his tie and looks around at the people here to celebrate with his son. Both his sons, now. His gaze lands on Yuna across the yard and his eyes follow her as she talks in animated tones to a somewhat frightened-looking rookie with blond hair. She's still the most beautiful woman in any room she's in.

"You are making heart eyes," Ilya says gleefully as he sidles up next to David. He is hand in hand with Shane. They've both abandoned their jackets and ties inside the house and rolled up their sleeves. Shane's face looks more peaceful than he's seen it in years. There is a flush of warmth on his freckled cheeks and he is fidgeting with his wedding ring, moving it back and forth with his thumb. The feeling of it is still new to him.

"I suppose I am," David says. He takes a sip of champagne. "She's still a knockout."

Shane smiles and looks so much like her that David's heart contracts painfully "So, any marriage advice for us?"

Christ, what a question. What pearls of wisdom can he offer to these young men who have loved each other since boyhood but are only just now getting to start a life together? What can he possibly tell them about love and loss that they don't already know?

"I guess, uh, just remember that whatever happens, you're on the same team in life. Face the hard stuff together and enjoy the good stuff together. You'll figure the rest out." He pays no mind to the champagne flute in his hand as he crushes them both to his chest as though they were children and not large muscular athletes. "I love you both."

"We love you too, Dad." Shane's voice is muffled in his shoulder. Ilya says nothing, but his big hand is gripping the back of David's jacket for dear life.

They separate, all three of them with suspicious moisture around their eyes that they don't acknowledge. "If you boys will excuse me, I have heart eyes to follow. You know how it is." They do know. He's watched them together enough to know that.

Yuna is still talking to the young man as he slips a hand around her waist. "…second overall, I do think that's impressive— oh, hi, honey!"

He squeezes her around the middle just slightly and feels her breath hitch. "Young man, do you mind if I steal her away for a bit?"

The rookie's shoulders sag in visible relief. "No, that is okay, Mr. Hollander." He nods politely at Yuna. "It was very nice talking to you, Mrs. Hollander."

David turns her to face him. It could be the lights that make it look like her eyes are an entire galaxy of stars. Or maybe not. He's thought that for decades now. "I don't suppose you can spare a dance for an old man."

She winds her arms up around his neck, the corners of her lips turning up. "You don't look so old to me."

"I'm so glad you only wear glasses for reading."

They sway gently for a moment until Yuna tilts her head to the side. "Is this our wedding song?"

"I might have made a request of the young man with the playlist," he smiles. It's a dopey, lovesick smile. He still doesn't care. Sue him.

"You're secretly a romantic."

"Only about you." He leans his forehead down to hers. "The boys sure look happy, don't they?"

She hums in agreement. "They deserve it. It's been a hard road for them."

"I hope it's easier for them from here. Though I'm sure they'll have their challenges."

"They will. But they'll have each other." She leans back and looks at him, her eyes misty. "I can't believe our baby is married. Time is nothing."

Thirty-six years with this woman. It's a lifetime and the blink of an eye. "Life's a funny thing, isn't it? It's nothing like you expect it's gonna be. Sometimes it's better."

She's as sweet as Tupelo honey, just like honey, baby, from the bee…

Her elegant fingers stroke the hair at the nape of his neck, just above his collar. "No regrets?"

"Not a one." He traces the knobs of her spine beneath her dress and feels her shiver. There could be a thousand lifetimes with her and it still wouldn't be enough. "You?"

"Only that I didn't make them rent chairs. My feet are fucking killing me."

He leans down close so she's the only one who can hear him. Her perfume has mostly worn off in the heat, but there is still a hint of it mixed with the scent that's purely her. "I'll make sure to keep them up in the air later."

The peal of her laughter is loud enough that a few heads turn toward them anyway. She flushes and her face shimmers with suppressed mirth."You're also secretly a pervert, have I told you that?"

His laugh is low in her ear as her hair tickles his nose. "Only about you."

June, 2025

There was going to be a baby, and then there wasn't.

It's a sorrow he remembers well. He had hoped never to see it on his son's face.

Shane does not want to talk. The words had been polite but the tone was clear. Back the fuck off. Don't touch it. Little Shane, hiding under the bed so no one can try to take the splinter out of his foot. This version of Shane, looking ten years older than he had yesterday, putting in his earbuds and running so the hurt courses through his bloodstream and never has a chance to settle in any one place.

In comparison, Ilya has not moved from the armchair in close to an hour. He had not said anything when Yuna had squeezed his shoulder and kissed him on top of the head before heading up to the guest room, but he had not rebuffed her either. David knows how to sit with grief. He has left a space for it unconsciously for most of his life. He knows the dimensions of it in a sunlit room with white walls. His childhood put under the earth, the top bunk left empty.

"I've told you before about how we wanted more children." His voice is rusty and he clears his throat. "We had a couple of losses before Shane finally came along."

Ilya lifts his forehead from the cradle of his hands. His eyes are red-rimmed. "He never told me that."

David shakes his head. "I'm not sure he even knows about it, honestly. We never really talked about it. It wasn't the done thing at the time. You just moved on." You're young. You can try again. At least you know you can get pregnant. At least you have each other. At least. "But it hurt. I tried to be there for Yuna because she needed me, but they were—" He blinks hard against the twinge of old pain, like a healed broken bone that aches in the cold. "They were mine to lose too."

"I am sorry."

He shoots him a small smile of thanks. "I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know what it's like to lose something you dreamed about and wanted so badly. You can be grateful for what you already have and grieve what you lost." He has lost so much and still has everything. Two truths, one held in each hand, a scale that never quite balances. Perhaps it never does for anyone.

Ilya considers this, staring straight ahead. "I bought socks. For the baby."

There is an ache inside his chest just the size of a pair of white shoes, yellowed with age but never worn. "I'm sorry."

"Shane said not to buy anything, it was too early and anything could happen, but I saw them at the store and they had little baby ducks on them. I could not resist." He is picking at his cuticles. David wonders if that's a habit he always had or if he picked it up from Shane. "I should not have done it. Brought bad luck, probably."

(David had read The Lord of the Rings trilogy to Shane when he was young and could not sleep. Shane hadn't cared much one way or the other about the story at first, but he liked to hear his father's voice in a quiet rumble as he rubbed the silky tag on his blanket between his small fingers. But he got more invested as the story went on over the course of weeks and months, and by the time they got to Mount Doom he was sitting straight up in bed with no trace of sleep in his eyes.

"'Sam looked at him and wept in his heart, but no tears came to his dry and stinging eyes—'" David paused his reading at the frown on Shane's face. "What's wrong?"

"How are they gonna make it, Dad? They're so tired."

"You'll just have to wait and see, pal," David said, ruffling his hair. "Don't count those hobbitses out yet.")

"No, son," he says. He means the word as much as if Ilya was his own flesh and blood. "Sometimes it just doesn't work out. It's not fair. But it's not your fault." He takes Ilya's hand and squeezes it before he can draw the blood to the surface.

I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you and it as well. He will never forget those words, nor how Shane had leaned on his shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief.

July, 2026

Condensation runs down the side of Ilya's beer bottle onto the patio table. David watches him trace the beads down without drinking anything. He's uncommonly quiet but every so often he brushes his thumb across his upper lip, just under his nose. Everyone has a tell, in cards and in general. That one is Ilya's. If they were at the cottage, the silence would be less loud, but they were staying closer to home over the next few weeks. There are no loon sounds, no rustling trees, no rippling water. Even the cicadas have ceased their singing as the sun has gone down.

David can be patient, but he can push as needed. "Getting close now. How are you feeling?"

Ilya's smile does not meet his eyes. "I am excited, mostly. Nervous." He picks at the corner of the label on the bottle. "Shane will be a good dad."

"He will. You both will."

The younger man frowns and begins to peel at the label carefully. Brushes his nose. David braces. "I am not so sure about me."

Ah. "Well, I am," he says easily. He means it with his whole heart. "You'll be a wonderful father."

Ilya looks down at his lap for a long moment. "I am afraid that I am… like my own parents. My mother—" He cuts that particular line of thought off with a wave of his hand. David has never seen a photo of Irina Rozanova, but he knows the shape of her absence all too well. "You know about my mother. And my father, he was not a good man. Very cold. Nothing was ever good enough." His shoulders are tense and hunched as he protects himself from the ghost of a man long dead. "I was afraid of him."

David wishes he could go to Russia to piss on the old man's grave for ever making his boy feel like he's anything less than extraordinary. "You think you would be like that?" He pats Ilya on the shoulder and considers it a victory that he doesn't flinch at it anymore. "Ilya, I don't think anything could be further from the truth."

"I don't want to be like that. But it is what I know." He is the inverse of Shane, who keeps his face smooth and still as a lake with only his eyes betraying what's beneath the surface. Ilya's eyes burn a hole into some unseen spectre but his mouth and chin tremble with the effort of holding back. Whether it's a sob or a scream, David is never sure. "I'm afraid it is inside me waiting to come out."

The quiet stretches taut between them.

"My father, he drank a lot," David says. He keeps his voice soft to cushion the jagged edges of the words. "He was angry, especially after my brother died. Punched walls, that kind of thing." Ilya furrows his brow as he digests that information. David decides not to elaborate on how his jaw had once been "that kind of thing" in the way of his father's fists. He continues. "It was a different time. But that's no excuse. I was afraid of him too. I never wanted that for Shane."

"I can't imagine you being that way at all." His voice is smaller than he's ever heard it.

"I won't say I never got angry," David says. "He put a huge dent in my car door playing ball hockey once. Brand new car, too. Hadn't even had it a week." He huffs out a laugh at the memory, which had not seemed funny at the time. "Boy, I was fired up."

"What happened?"

"I was ready to blow my top. But he came into the room and his eyes were all big and teary. And I was just knocked sideways with this feeling of needing him to know he never needed to be afraid of me." He is talking to the grown man next to him but the words are for the frightened boy he still carries around inside him. Ilya, he'd corrected him once, and David had been surprised at how easy it had been to change the idea of him in his mind. He wishes he had known that boy, that he had spent a longer time calling him the name given to him by his mother instead of his father. "He was only a kid. He deserved to know that no matter what, he was safe and loved. I deserved that too, even if I didn't get it. So did you."

Ilya is so still it looks like he's barely breathing. David presses on.

"I'm not saying you won't make mistakes. God knows I've made my share of them." Shane's terrified face through the glass at the cottage still haunts him. "But I promise you, whatever kind of father you had, you don't have to be the same."

They're both silent now as he lets Ilya process all of that. David does not spare a thought to the father he left behind. Instead he thinks of Peter, fourteen forever but always his big brother, and hopes the man he would have become would be proud. What do you think of my boys, Pete? I think I did a pretty good job.

"What did you do about the car?" Ilya's voice breaks him out of his daydream.

"Oh, he mowed some lawns over the summer and gave me the money. I put it right back into his bank account, but I never told him that," he says with a chuckle. Shane had looked so serious handing over the cash. It had been the first glimpse of manhood he'd seen on his little boy's face. "He's always been great about taking responsibility. Too good, sometimes. But I never laid a hand on him. The kid's never had a spanking in his life."

For his own self-preservation, David takes a swig of his beer and decides to pretend he doesn't see the corners of Ilya's mouth twitch at that. That's enough honesty for the day.

August, 2026

The chairs in hospitals haven't changed a bit. It does seem like they should have. All this time and they still make his back ache.

He is older, he supposes.

Yuna reaches over to squeeze his knee and hold it still. He hadn't even realized it was bouncing. It's the nerves. Even though there's no reason to be nervous. The boys had said everything was fine. But that was an hour ago. Things can change. Things can go wrong and there's nothing you can do about it, what if something goes wrong and he's not there to hold his sons if—

The door opens, and he forgets how to breathe.

Ilya's green scrubs only highlight how red and puffy his eyes are. There are tear tracks down his cheeks. But his smile threatens to crack his face wide open. He holds the door open wide and Shane steps through, clad in matching green. He does not look like he has cried but his eyes are sparkling. There is a tiny bundle cradled in the crook of his arm.

Yuna is standing with her hands pressed over her mouth but David finds his legs have forgotten how to work because that's his little boy, standing tall like a man, like a father. Wasn't that us just moments ago? When did I pick you up for the last time? I don't remember. Why don't I remember? How did we get here?

One November day there was a pretty girl in a white turtleneck leaning against a brick wall and now she is holding their grandchild. If he stands, his knees will give out.

"Dad?" Shane takes a tentative step towards him. "You okay?"

Yuna looks up from the baby and meets his eyes. Over forty years of history passes between them in seconds. She passes the little bundle back to Shane. "Honey, I think you'd better introduce them before your father passes out from emotion."

Shane chuckles a little at that. David wants to take him by the shoulders and shake him. You don't know. You'll turn this memory over in your mind so many times it'll be worn smooth as a beach pebble. You won't realize until it's over. "You ready, Dad?"

He swallows thickly and nods, holding his arms out. Shane places the baby in the cradle of his elbow and David looks at his granddaughter for the first time.

She's tiny. He forgot how tiny they start out. Her face is mottled red. Her eyelids are shiny with some kind of ointment. Her nose looks slightly smushed and speckled with little white bumps and her lips are pursed in a disapproving frown as though she's already seen quite enough, thanks. She's utterly, devastatingly perfect.

Her little knit hat is yellow.

"Hey there, honeybee," he says, his voice foggy with unshed tears. "I'm your grandpa."