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Darya chooses Rochester, New York because she knows nothing about it.
After a long flight, a long wait at baggage claim, and a longer wait for a cab, she’s finally pulling up to an affordable motel ten minutes from the airport. Her English is proficient enough to check in without worry, and she is able to practice polite small talk as she waits for her elevator to take her to her room. Her phone remains in her pocket, the buzzing stopped 30 minutes ago, her father finally giving up on her answering his call.
—
Darya Rozanova loves her father.
He’s kind to her, with a booming voice that intimidates the other kids, though she’s never shied away from it. He was there when she scraped her knees and held her hand when she got her vaccinations. He would buy her ice cream after every bad school day and slipped coins into her hands whenever they’d head into the shops together. He would scold her with disappointed tones and never yelling, brushing her hair back when she cried.
Alexei Rozanov loves his daughter. This did not make him a good man.
Darya learned this later, when she learned to dress herself in the mornings and could take the routes to school on her own. She’d come home to a tense house and a mother with tears in her eyes, broken glass in the bins and broken hearts in her hands.
She learned to press her ears under her pillow as the screaming matches echoed around the house. The night sky view from her high storied bedroom window use to distract her enough to ignore the screams, but now she stares through the glass and sees nothing but her mother’s face.
She’s older when she gathers her nerves to find her mother in the quiet house, feet careful not to step on any broken frames. She’s about as tall as her mom then, when she drags her from the empty marital bed and into her own room, away from the quiet and from her husband.
Darya loves her father, she does not think he is a good man.
—
Darya spends the first night (day, her body is still in Moscow), alone in her hotel room. She almost forgets to eat, and spends an hour figuring out how to order herself some food; the hotel is not fancy enough to offer room service.
She finds a nearby Russian cuisine, the delivery fee is as expensive as her meal, and orders it without hesitation.
She has her phone in her hand, filled with unheard voicemails and quiet heartbreak. She doesn’t know the rate it would have cost her father if she had answered any of his calls, and uses that as an excuse to ignore the one that lights up her phone.
She leaves her phone on her bed when she goes to collect her food, another missed call on the screen.
—
Darya knows about her Uncle Ilya.
She hears the murmured talk at every holiday gathering, every remembrance for her late grandfather, every birthday when she receives neatly wrapped gifts from her Aunt Sveltana with his name on the tag, in her handwriting.
She knows her dad hates him, and when she’s younger she doesn’t know why. Her only memory of her uncle sits with her; the warm light in his eyes, the toothy grin he gave her, light brown curls matching hers. She’d been sitting on his knees, his protective gentle hold keeping her close to his warmth. She felt safe there, even though she can’t remember the sound of his voice.
She never tells her father this, never questions it when he snarls at someone for mentioning his brother. He glares at Svetlana and she glares back and then she leaves and the moment is over.
Eventually, Svetlana stops showing up for birthdays. Dayra doesn't notice it at first, the soft wondering of Ilya’s absence turning to quiet disgust and disapproval. She still gets presents from her uncle, now given to her in the darkness of her room, her mother offering her hidden gifts from her kind uncle Ilya.
—
It takes Darya two days to get up at a decent hour, and she takes a walk to get some fresh air.
She’s smart, she doesn’t go out at night, taking public transit and staying in populated areas. She’s got a small frame but an intense stare, though her light curls soften her to appear younger than she is, even at eighteen. She pretends to be a regular participating member of Rochester society, but she feels homesick after a few hours and hides in her hotel room for the rest of the afternoon.
There’s a part of her that can’t help but wince at the money being wasted away in the drab and boring hotel room, though she had enough to spare. She spends the night glaring at the awful floral pattern on the walls, and dreams of the plush bedding of her childhood room.
—
Darya is fifteen when she formally learns of her trust.
She’s heard of it before, mentions of it in passing, thrown around like a weapon for the fights between her parents.
She knows it’s from uncle Ilya before her mother tells her, because who else would it be from? She knows the home she lives in was Uncle Ilya’s, the rare designer clothes in her closet are from Uncle Ilya, the running shoes that have lasted her for two summers are from Uncle Ilya, and the gold necklace with her name on it came from him as well. Of course the trust is from him.
She doesn’t voice that to her father, but to this he surprisingly keeps his usual retorts to himself. Like for once, because it’s for Darya, he could choose to ignore his aggression towards his brother. Alexei Rozanov loves his daughter.
She’s seventeen when her mother asks what she plans to do with her trust.
Darya doesn’t know. She could tell her mother the truth and explain that wishes to give it all to her, so maybe she could escape and leave her husband once and for all. But she’d never do that, even if Darya begged.
Darya could use it for school, she had gotten few acceptance letters for schools outside of the country, early admission if she wanted it. France, England… America.
Uncle Ilya was not in America, Dayra knew this. She also knew America was not far from uncle Ilya lived. If she picked the right places in America, that is.
She mentions school to her mother then, and her mother lights up as much as she could those days.
More acceptance letters came in the mail, and when Darya finally accepted one she liked, she bought her plane ticket with her own money. Nothing from her mother, or her father, or her uncle.
The day she turned eighteen, she cashed out her trust, left a small getaway amount for her mother just in case and got on a plane.
Darya loves her father, and it breaks her heart when she leaves without saying goodbye.
-
Darya has Svetlana’s phone number. She knows the likelihood of it being out of date is slim. Svetlana was constant, never faltering. She was tiny, shorter than most of the men who would try to intimidate her. But Darya always saw her as someone larger than life, bigger than Darya, bigger than those men, bigger than Moscow.
She doesn’t call Svetlana, because despite missing her warmth, she didn’t come all the way to America to see her aunt.
She checks out of her hotel, and books a small flight to Ottawa.
—
Canada isn’t much different from America, Darya learns. She still feels out of place, her English, though almost perfect and clear, stands out amongst the Canadians she meets at the airport lobbies. They ask her questions with kind smiles and welcoming tones. She tries to have the same enthusiasm back and hates that she takes after her father when her voice comes out harsher than intended. She breathes in relief when she gets into her cab and the driver doesn’t make small talk.
Ottawa is.. boring.
She holds little interest in the landscape that passes her by, though her resolve lessens every minute. She watches the trees lining the roads, the buildings that flash by, the people gathering in the summer air.
Ottawa is… beautiful.
Darya is her father’s daughter, and she doesn’t cry. But she does want to.
—
Darya is eleven years old when a boy makes her cry.
She’d been running around a field with other school friends, when a boy, oh my god a boy, had asked if he could join them. Her friends giggled too loudly behind her, and she had stuttered her agreement over the attention.
She hadn’t really wanted him to join, him joining made the teams uneven, but she was faster than all of their other girls so maybe this would make things fun for her. They kicked a football back and forth for a few minutes, making up rules as they went, creating fake goal posts in the muddy terrain and filling the air with laughter.
He sticks by her the whole afternoon, and her cheeks burn whenever he steps too close to take the ball into his possession.
He makes her anxious, she doesn’t even remember his name, and her friends’ keep telling her to get closer to him.
It ends how most childish games go, and she gets a face full of mud from where he pushes her, his own friends laughing in the distance. The sweet moment is gone, replaced by teasing laughter and regret in her friends’ voices. She’s running home before anyone can catch her.
Her father is angry, but she’s safe in his arms. She dirties his shirt and he does not care. He wipes away the mud, tells her to stop crying, and the next day he puts her in boxing lessons.
She hates it at first, but her father comes and watches and she feel his proud stare and she hits harder and faster than when he’s not there.
When it gets around the school that she can fight, the kids stop teasing her, and she never gets pushed around again.
—
Darya stays at the fanciest hotel Ottawa offers, but the door still has trouble shutting and her water takes a few minutes to run hot. She unpacks like she plans to stay there long and sleeps for twelve hours. She's a lot closer to where she needs to go but couldn’t bring herself to finally bridge that gap. There’s a hockey rink ten minutes away with banners and posters hanging from the building. Somewhere inside that building there are two jersey numbers retired and hung next to each other, just like the players who wore them.
Darya wishes she could have seen them play. She gets back into bed after she gets dressed, and doesn’t cry.
—
In the quiet of night, twenty minutes after Darya turned twelve, her mother hands her a present with a blank name slip.
“These are from your uncles, they love you so much. Uncle Ilya misses you.”
—
It’s summer, and the sun beats down on Darya’s head. She needs to buy sunglasses, with the light bouncing off the pavement and making her squint. She debates turning around to the shop she saw ten minutes prior, kicks herself for being so cowardice.
The arena in front of her is quiet, it’s the off season, and there’s a concert being promoted on the marquee. Last season’s Ottawa Centaurs still wave freely in along the light posts, no one Darya’s recognizes. No one she holds dear to her.
She stares at the banners for another moment, and leaves.
—
Darya is fourteen when she first kisses a girl in her room.
She’s kind, sweet like Darya wishes she was, with straight black hair and doe eyes. She’s taller than Darya, but her posture is worse. Darya has to bring her shoulders in to meet her when they gain the courage to bring their lips in.
It’s awkward, Darya doesn’t know what she’s doing, even though she dared to kiss a boy last summer. That guy was older than her, only by a year but oozing with confidence. He knew how to direct her lips and when to pull away. It was a good first kiss, this was not.
Darya preferred this one.
They don’t make it out of that one kiss phase, though they tangle their pinkies together when they walk through school halls. Everyone assumes they’re just close friends, no one will ever know they shared a kiss in Darya’s home.
Darya wishes she could tell everyone, tell her mom, her best friend, her football teammates (she wasn’t allowed to join hockey, go figure).
She doesn’t want to tell her father, who still can’t show his face at the old sports bar he’d frequent in her early years. Sneers and jokes about his infamous younger brother. Her favorite Uncle.
Darya has to remind herself that she loves her father. And that he loves her.
Because if he knew the truth, she’d think they both forget that second part.
—
Irina.
Darya didn’t know much about her grandmother. Her mother knew little, and her father never spoke of her. She gathered what little information Uncle Ilya would provide through press conferences and interviews, tidbits of her legacy and love as he celebrated her memory through charity.
Charity, like the junior hockey camps.
It was easy to find the information for Ottawa's camp, with a long list of names she hadn’t recognized of this year’s coaches. Luckily for her, there was one right at the bottom who she was hoping to see.
Okay, maybe two names if she was being honest.
—
Darya is seventeen when her Uncle Ilya retires from professional hockey.
“Ilya’s retiring.”
There’s an abrupt silence in the air. What was once filled with silver scratching ceramic came to a halt. Darya held her breath, she knew her parents had been fighting all day. Her mother’s eyes were puffy from crying, and her father had been curt and refusing to make conversation when she got home. So her mother was definitely at her wits ends, either choosing to defy her husband and bring up a topic so taboo it might as well have been criminal. Or she simply was trying to rile him up further.
Darya did not blame her, ever. She also wishes she’d let her finish her dinner before she tried it.
After a pause, Alexei Rozanov rises from the head of the table and leaves the room.
Darya goes back to eating.
Her mom cries.
—
“Hello.”
Darya clears her throat when her voice comes out more huskily than intended.
There’s a petite girl behind the counter, dark skin and a small face. She has beads in her braids and a lot of make up on. But she was cute; like she had fallen out of a comic book and into this drab reception area of the practice rink. They’ve tried to brighten it up with posters and different pride flags hanging on the walls, posters saying HOCKEY IS FOR EVERYONE in bright rainbow letters. A photo of hands with different shades of skin tones all holding a hockey stick together sits big and center behind the front desk.
“Hi!” Bubbly, very bubbly. A smile on her face that didn’t seem fake. Canadian hospitality? Or genuine. Darya couldn’t tell.
“Checking in? The classes have already started...” She pursed her lips but didn’t seem deterred from Darya’s late arrival.
Darya blinked, she hadn’t expected someone like her to be assumed a student. “Aren’t I too..” Old. She doesn’t say.
The girl smiled kindly. “No, no, the foundation accepts anyone wanting to play hockey. You probably won’t get to run every drill, ‘cause ya know kids and stuff. But Mr. Hollander and Mr. Rozanov have vowed that everyone is welcome.” It is a practiced speech, a marketing script. It makes Darya want to cry.
She doesn’t.
“I’m actually here for someone.”
The girl smiles again, pulling back the form she had initially placed in front of Darya, “I can help with that, who are you looking for?”
Darya clears her throat. “Ilya Rozanov.”
She expects a wince, maybe a sympathetic look and a sarcastic yeah, so is everyone. Darya can’t imagine how loved and sought after the Ottawa star is, especially in the middle of one of their camps.
But the girl smiles like she’s been waiting for this moment.
“Okay, officially, I’m supposed to tell you Mr. Rozanov is very busy and won’t have time to meet with you today, could I recommend one of our remaining classes? Buuuut..” she blew raspberry and leaned in conspicuously, Darya reacted without thinking and leaned in further. “Ilya doesn’t want me “saying that shit” - his words not mine - so!” She clapped her hands and it jolted Darya back upright. “If you want to hang out here until they’re done or head into the rink, I’m sure he will find a moment for you.” She smiled brightly and gestured to the few chairs scattered around the other end of the room.
Darya nodded, and pointed to the chairs. “I’ll wait here, thank you.”
The girl grinned and winked back at her.
—
In the hour that passed, Darya familiarized herself with the room she was in.
The seats were disorganized, like someone had moved them around and didn’t collect them. It was clearly a space for parents to wait for their children when they arrived to collect them. Her theory proven true when the first set of moms walked in and greeted the girl at the desk - Nina they called her.
Nodding politely at the curious glances her way Darya scouted out the now empty counter, Nina away from her desk for the time being. Different colored fliers lay out on the desk, Wired bins with incoming mail, small tubs of trinkets for people to grab. When curiosity got the best of her, and she got over sitting for so long, she found herself looking down at the offered freebies at the counter.
Brightly designed buttons and pins. Tiny hockey sticks with rainbow tape at the foot, more pride flag pins of different variants all sit mixed in together. One bucket was emptier than the rest, and the very bottom sat a few circle pins. Stamped onto the middle were a double venus symbol, bronze around the edges but a deep purple lining the symbol. She stared longer than intended, and only broke out her reverie when Nina spoke.
“You could take one if you’d like.”
Darya took a step back and fixed her face. “I’m just looking,” Nina gave her a kind but calculating look. “Thank you though.”
The girl dropped it and went back to her work.
Just then the doors leading to the rink flew open, and the room filled with noise.
Darya took a deep breath and waited.
—
There were a few times when Darya wished her father would drop dead.
He was kind to her, held her when she cried, never yelled at her even when he scolded her, stayed in her bedroom when the monsters in her closet were too scary to sleep through.
He was also never loyal to her mother, finding fault with everything she did, calling her crazy when she called him out on his affairs, and then confirming them when he grew tired of their fighting. Over and over he would make her mother feel less than human, and more than once he would lay a hand on her delicate face.
He never raised a hand against his daughter, his wife was another story.
He would excuse his behavior over and over, faulting his own father and his own upbringing; on the rare nights when he grew weary of his own wrongdoings. He would beg for forgiveness and say he would be better, drunk on vodka and regret.
And then the next weekend would come and he’d be out doing it all over again.
And Darya hated him - she loved her father - she hated him for the lies and for the way he wore her mother out, hated him - she loved her father - for every false promise he made to them. She hated him - did she love her father? - when he blamed his dead father and dead mother for making him this way. She hated him - oh my god she hated him - because she watched another man go through the same fate, the same upbringing, the same torture, and come out on the other end kind and loving and good. She hated him, because Ilya Rozanov was living proof he could have been different, and he chose not to be.
—
The families had cleared out, a few coaches - nhl players, she reminded herself - lingered by the counter, taking lollipops from Nina’s desk and making conversation with her.
Ilya Rozanov was not among them.
“He sometimes takes awhile to come out, he likes to make sure the cleaning crew don’t have to do any of the heavy lifting.” Nina said to her, smiling patiently, as if to comfort Darya’s growing anxiety. She was starting to shift from foot to foot, body language alluding to her discomfort.
The coaches shot her a few curious glances, friendly smiles, but otherwise left her alone.
Finally, after a lifetime of waiting - because that’s what it’s been right? her whole lifetime without her uncle - Ilya Rozanov and his husband Shane Hollander walked through the double doors.
Ilya Rozanov was big.
That was Darya’s first impression. And it made her sad, her face twisting uncomfortably. Last she saw him, she was tiny, fitting safely on his lap. But he was just a boy himself, curls tightly gelled to his scalp, eyes low and body caged in. When he held her, it was not as if he was keeping her safe from the world, it was like she was in his world. His world existing in the space between his arms and chest, tied to his orbit and no one else there.
This Ilya was big, because his world was much bigger.
He had laugh lines at his eyes, smile bright and big like she remembered, curls damp with sweat and wispy on the back of his neck. He wasn’t as lean as he used to be, but muscular all the same. He walked without that weighted pressure she expected to see, the one she knew she carried on herself. The one Alexei carried with him too.
She watched as he stepped away from his husband’s side and - oh wow, he’s stunning - holding out a hand to Nina. He smirked and she was laughing before he spoke. “Swear jar, please.”
Nina shook her head and held out a large glass jar over the counter and he began to collect cash like church usher, groans and jokes being passed as every one of the coaches offered up various amounts of cash.
Ilya’s voice boomed over their complains. “No, no, everyone shut up, if you talk shit, you owe shit, get over it.”
Shane Hollander nudged his shoulder. “Cause you berate them too much.” Hums of agreement echoed around the room, and Ilya shook his head in defiance, spinning around the room theatrically holding the jar with one hand around the opening.
He paused once the attention was on him. “I don’t know what that word means so,” And he shrugged comically, offering the jar out once again for anyone missing.
He continued to spin around the room, finally turning around and locking eyes with Darya.
He doesn’t recognize her, not right away. And it doesn’t hurt, she can see he quickly puts on his professionalism, probably assuming she’s a fan. He takes a single half step toward her and then freezes.
The jar tumbles to the ground with a loud boom and miraculously does not break.
“Shit, Ilya!”
“What the fuck?”
“Mr. Rozanov, are you okay?”
That snaps Ilya out of his stupor and he quickly bends down to collect the jar, swiping the few bills that slipped out. “It’s Ilya, Nina, I’ve told you and - here, Shane - one more from each of you, yes it counts, come on.”
Darya watched as he collects more cash and then sets the jar on the counter, he takes a second to calm himself quickly, wiping his hands on his pants and turning to Darya once more. The rest of the room have clearly taken notice and have either taken their leave or stepped away in a small act of offering privacy.
Shane Hollander doesn’t step away from his husband, eyeing Darya in polite curiosity.
“Hi.” Darya says before Ilya can speak, and she takes a hesitant step forward and offers her hand. “I’m -“
“Darya.” Ilya breathes, eyes swimming with emotion Darya doesn’t have the privilege of knowing. Because she does not know him, not really. She knows he’s her uncle, knows he sent presents on her birthday and on Christmas. She knows he played professional hockey until he was forty one, and that his husband followed him there a year later. She knows he got married at his home in Ottawa, and she knows he has a few dogs. She knows he’s adopted a couple of kids in the last few years but does not know their names. She knows he likes oreo ice cream and that he loves to tease his husband more than anyone else. She knows all the information fed to her on forums and reddit threads, interviews and documentaries, instagram accounts and anniversary posts.
But she does not know what that look he’s giving her is filled with, the feeling circling behind damp tearful eyes. She does not know when he learned to cry so easily, because her own tears are stuck somewhere back in Moscow, locked away in a drawer along with a love letter with no name for a girl who doesn’t remember her.
She retracts her hand and clears her throat, and maybe she doesn’t cry, and maybe she doesn’t know what feelings he has about seeing her here. But she thinks that maybe he knows more than her, because she speaks “Uncle.” in her native tongue, dry eyed and stable. And she breaks apart.
But then he’s there, arms holding her together, just like she remembered. Tight in his orbit, safe in her uncle’s arms. He’s just as stable as he was when he last held her. And he smiles that toothy grin, eyes damp - because they’re allowed to cry now- and she’s okay again.
“I missed you.” He tells her, in Russian. And she holds on tighter and repeats it back to him.
-
They're making a scene, she knows. And she doesn’t care. There’s a lump in her throat that’s keeping her from talking clearly even though her eyes remain dry, and Ilya hasn’t taken the arm he had around her shoulders away. She hopes he stays close to her.
Shane Hollander steps in when Darya and Ilya have relaxed from their embrace and he holds out a hand in a friendly greeting.
“Hi, I’m Shane.” He glances at Ilya as she take his hand and she can see the analyzing scan of his face. “I’m Ilya’s–“
“You’re my uncle.” She supplies uselessly. She repeats the word in Russian and then offers a much tinier hug to Shane. He’s able to reciprocate despite his surprise and Ilya’s eyes are wet again.
Shane nods, taking in the scene, Darya stepping back in close to Ilya’s orbit, he links his arm with hers and she relaxes. “Yeah, I am..”
The two husbands exchange a glance, speaking without words and Darya waits patiently, content to just be for the moment.
“Well, Mom’s not gonna complain if she has the kids for a little longer…” Shane starts, “Why don’t we all get something to eat, are you hungry, Darya?”
He says her name like a Russian would, no accent.
“Yes.” She lies. “Starving.”
Ilya clicks his tongue. “Absolutely not, I cannot have my favorite niece hungry, let’s go right now.” He begins to turn away, tugging her along when she pauses.
“Um.” He looks at her curiously when she lingers. “One second.”
She steps away from the men, striding to where Nina sits who meets her eyes kindly. She only hesitates for a moment before she’s digging through the mostly empty tub of pins. “Thank you.”
Nina nods and smiles brightly. “Have a good night.”
Darya turns and falls in line with her uncles, sticking the double venus pin into her pocket.
Later, after dinner and before she meets her cousins, she’ll stick the pin through her jacket collar and wear it proudly.
Right now she grabs her uncle’s hand and follows him out of the building, his husband by his side.