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It’s not the most dangerous thing she’s ever done. It’s not even the most stupid thing, if she’s being honest. Most of those memories are fuzzy around the edges now, if they were ever even clear to begin with. But Svetlana does know she’d done this climb before more times than she can count, sometimes with full bottles of vodka or beer in one hand, so she’s fairly confident in her ability to do it now.
The window she wants is on the second story, and Sventlana finds herself feeling somewhat thankful for Alexei’s neglect, as it means that the overgrown tree right next to the ledge has not been trimmed back since her childhood and is still easy enough to climb now. The chances of her being seen are slim as well. It’s a big estate, far back from any main roads or neighbors, and the house is empty. No one has really lived in it since Grigori died. Polina had fucked off to wherever mere hours after the funeral, and Alexei has been living comfortably in Ilya’s apartment for the last few years. She knows that Alexei wishes he could sell the place, it would be a nice little profit for him if he could, but the deed is in Ilya’s name too and Ilya has always been a sentimental motherfucker.
He’ll be able to sell it now of course.
The first thing Svetlana had done when she’d seen the video was call Ilya. He, predictably, hadn’t picked up, but she had to at least make the effort, lest he bitch about her “abandoning him in his time of need” or whatever later. The second thing she’d done was buy a plane ticket to Moscow.
She hadn’t let anyone know she was going. She’d called out sick from work and promptly put her phone on Do Not Disturb. It had already been blowing up with messages and DMs from old friends and hookups and distant cousins who wanted to know if she’d seen it, what did she think, had she known?
Had she known? Svetlana rolls her eyes at the thought.
The window ledge is caked in grime and dirt and as she pulls herself in through the window she wipes her hands on her old jeans, glad she’d packed them after all.
The lights are off, the power hasn’t been turned on in years, and the room is eerie in its quiet.
This used to be Ilya’s bedroom. It’s empty now, has been for over a decade. Not that there was much stuff to actually take from it in the first place. The furniture was gaudy, hardly sentimental, and the walls covered in some old fashioned pattern she’s always hated, but that Grigori had never allowed to be covered with anything as personal as photographs or, God-forbid, posters.
She’d actually helped Ilya pack the last time he was here. Old clothes and a book or two. They’d been focused on efficiency at the time, the main goal had been to go through Grigori’s office and safe to gather any important documents Ilya might need one day. Birth certificates, passports, medical records, bank statements. All things that were listed on the official IRCC website as potentially necessary documents for applying for citizenship.
Had she known? Are you fucking kidding?
Maybe foolishly, they’d both assumed that there would be time to come back for the rest of it. And the house was big and they only had so much time between official meetings and functions. If she had known that that was the only time they’d have had she might have pushed a little harder to look then, but maybe she was a little foolish too. It wasn’t worth dwelling on now.
Svetlana doesn’t know exactly what she’s looking for, but knows that she’ll know it when she sees it. There are a few things she knows for sure she can eliminate as still being here though. Ilya’s favorite photo of him and Irina on Christmas when he was young, Svetlana knows is tucked safely in his wallet. Irina’s crucifix has hung from his neck since he was twelve, and his first jersey is wrapped protectively in thick tissue paper at the bottom of a drawer somewhere in Ottawa.
Svetlana wanders out of the room now, anything else Ilya had squirreled away in there that had been of value he’d surely taken with him. There’s a few spare rooms on this floor and the next that she pokes through, not finding anything of much interest. Lots of gold plated medals, official documents written on stiff paper with government seals. If it wouldn’t draw attention to her presence in the house, she’d use them as kindling to burn the whole place down.
Even before, this had not been a happy house. Svetlana’s house hadn’t really been either, but Ilya’s house had always felt harsher. There was a faint scent of cigars and stale vodka in her father’s office, Grigori’s office had stank with it. Cups and plates were dropped in Svetlana’s house, in Ilya’s they were thrown. Svetlana’s punishments bruised, Ilya’s scarred.
She wanders towards the attic.
Pulling the ladder down, it creakes with disuse and old wood, and Svetlana wonders if she should maybe reconsider this endeavor's ranking on the list of stupid and dangerous things she’s done. Ilya would never let her live it down if she died climbing the ladder to his old attic.
She makes her way up carefully, poking her head into the darkened room and wrinkles her nose at the immediate smell of wet wood and dust.
The attic, she knows, spans the full floor plan of the house. She and Ilya used to sneak up here as children to giggle and eavesdrop on the adults slurring in the rooms below. She remembers one of Ilya’s games after a particularly enlightening party the night before; the satisfying smirk on Ilya’s face before the crack of a fist landing against his jaw. It was following a chirp he’d made, at all of 10 years old, asking if the other team’s center knew that his mother was fucking his coach. It would have been one thing if the kid thought he was lying, it had been another thing entirely to learn that he wasn’t. That feels like a long time ago now.
The attic is not as full as she thought it would be. Clearly Grigori had been more thorough in his purge than Svetlana thought. She didn’t think it was possible to hate him more.
Eventually though she finds a corner with three cardboard boxes hidden under an old sheet. Careful of any particular droppings she might find inside, Svetlana unfolds the lids and sits comfortably in front of them.
The contents are exactly what she came for.
There is the leatherbound photo album that she remembers Irina painstakingly dating and captioning. The photos inside are still glossy and with the soft resolution that all 90s and early 2000s digital photos have. Several are of Ilya as a baby, a little, round, blond lump that stares up at the camera with a look that asks “what the hell are you doing taking photos when you could be giving me all of your undivided attention and cuddles and love?” Svetlana’s seen that look a lot more recently than she had in a long time.
There’s another dozen or so of him as a toddler, same soft blond curls and light eyes, but he’s smiling more attentively at the camera now. At least a little aware that what is happening is important to the person on the other end and desperate to please her.
It’s around this time that she starts to crop up too. She smirks at one particular photo of the two of them, five years old according to Irina’s neat penmanship, where she is sitting primly on top of Ilya’s stomach as he lays prone beneath her on the floor. He does not look nearly as pleased about this arrangement as she does.
She takes out her phone to snap a picture of it for herself; there’s a fun dirty joke in there that she’ll save for another time, when the internet is not blowing up with speculations about the preferences that this photo proves.
Had she known? Give her a fucking break.
As Ilya gets older the pictures start to taper off, the captions are shorter. Dates and years, no additional context for the situations from which they came.
There’s predictably a lot of Ilya on the ice. Toothy grins with missing teeth and bright eyes peering out from under his helmet. She wonders if anyone else will be able to tell from his face how hard he is trying here to make Irina smile.
It isn’t fair that she died so young. Svetlana came to terms with this a long time ago. The unfairness of it all; that Irina had so much life left to live, so much more to give, to do. That she did not get to save Alexei from his father, did not get to meet her granddaughter, did not get to see Ilya succeed, to win, and fall in love. There is nothing she can do about it now though. Irina is gone, and it is unfair. Such is life she supposes.
Sometimes though, when it’s late and Svetlana’s a little drunk and she starts thinking about it, it makes her angry. It wasn’t fair of her to do that to him. To them. To any of them. Then Svetlana gets angry at herself for being angry, and that makes her angry at Irina too. Because even though she wasn’t Svetlana’s mother, Svetlana loved her. And she had thought, hoped, that Irina loved her too.
Irina was the first person Svetlana remembers dying that she’d actually known. She remembers being twelve and not knowing what to do with this empty space that a person she knew had once occupied. How it all felt a little surreal; the funeral, the mourning period. She remembers watching it all happen in her stiff black dress and tight bun like she was watching a movie or a play. Like the people in front of her were just acting, going through the motions but that it wasn’t actually real. Like suddenly Irina would be there, and this would just be some particularly vivid dream.
But that hadn’t happened. So instead she had held Ilya’s hand and let him squeeze it hard when he wanted to cry but couldn’t. She’d let him smoke her precious contraband cigarettes behind her house until he was coughing and puking and crying.
She didn’t try to be comforting. She knew that would just make things worse. So instead just stayed by his side. Whatever he needed, she was there. She’d always be there. Until she didn’t need to be.
Had she known? What the hell do you think?
Svetlana closes the photo album but keeps it cradled between her legs in her lap. The boxes are not very full. There’s a few loose photos of Irina as a child and a young woman; crumpled and a few have water stains, but Svetlana tucks them inside the larger album all the same. She had been so beautiful.
There’s some linens that are beyond saving, eaten away by moths and mice and other things that don’t bear thinking about. The second box has a few random pieces of china; a teacup, a saucer, a small plate. She tucks these in her lap with the album, carefully balancing them so they don’t break.
There’s some jewelry as well. Grigori wasn’t good for much, but he at least had enough money for nice things. There’s a simple string of pearls, a pair of diamond earrings, a silver watch, a gold bracelet, some other nice pieces with what are surely real sapphires and rubies.
Svetlana remembers standing in front of the large mirror in Irina’s room once, looking down at these jewels. Where Ilya had been, she has no idea. She hadn’t had to make him any silent promises about staying by his side yet. And even after that, she’s never been his keeper, not for lack of everyone else’s trying. Ilya is always going to do what he wants, no matter the consequences, no matter how many people tell him it might be a bad idea- especially if someone tells him it’s a bad idea.
Svetlana never does that. She never would. It’d be pretty fucking hypocritical of her if she did. What Ilya did in his free time was really none of her business back then, and what she knew they never spoke about out loud. He would just look at her with that “please give me your undivided attention and cuddles and love” look and she’d pet his hair and let him grumble about weak backhands and the Metro’s scoring record.
Had she known? Come the fuck on.
Svetlana twirls a ruby ring around her finger now. She remembers Irina showing Svetlana how to fasten the necklaces without looking, holding the earrings up for her so that she could pretend her ears were pierced too, slipping rings on her fingers like a princess being proposed to. Svetlana suddenly has a fleeting image of years from now, of another little girl playing dress up in front of her own mirror. Reverently handling these jewels as she holds them up to her own neck. She has dark hair and freckles.
Svetlana puts the jewelry in her lap.
The last box is the real treasure trove. It takes some digging through what are clearly Alexei’s things (which Svetlana tosses unceremoniously behind her), but the second half is all Ilya’s.
There’s a soft yellow blanket that Svetlana has a vague memory of using as a cape once. Or maybe the roof of a fort? Underneath that are some hard cardboard baby books with bright colors and large Cyrillic lettering that were obviously well used. Shoved against the wall of the box is a well worn teddy bear with what was probably once a bright blue bow sewn around its neck. The poor little bear’s ears are almost completely devoid of all of their fur, like he was carted around by his ears exclusively. His little glass eyes are smudged and scratched from someone clearly spending hours tracing little fingers around and on them, and the bow is fraying at the ends from where it’s been tugged on and stuffed in a little teething mouth.
The bow is the same shade of blue as the Metro’s logo. Svetlana’s sure that’s just a coincidence.
Underneath that there's a crisp and starched baby cap with lace and a matching little dress thing. It takes Svetlana a moment to place it as what was probably a baptismal outfit. Russian Orthodox churches do full infant submersion. She laughs to herself picturing some poor priest attempting that with a newborn Ilya.
There’s a few other baby clothes. Little blue baby booties, and green and white onesies with predictably cute patterns and animals. She tucks it all away in her lap. Even if Ilya doesn’t really want these things, someone will.
Ilya had once spent an entire afternoon intermittently sending her pictures of photos in frames and albums and similarly small baby clothes and toys, all of them scattered around a clearly well lived-in home. The pictures had all been accompanied by messages with a truly obscene amount of laughing, heart or pleading eyes emojis. She’d sent back a puke emoji every time.
Svetlana can only imagine what kind of messages the actual subject of the photos was getting.
Had she known? Are you fucking serious?
The bottom of the box has a few more random toys. A baggy of knock-off Legos, a random red building block, a fire engine and dump truck painted in something that’s surely full of lead. There’s a little plastic hockey puck and stick too, which makes Svetlana roll her eyes at the sheer obviousness of it.
She keeps these things in their original box, and carefully moves the things in her lap to nestle in with them as well. She closes the box as best she can without any tape to keep it shut, and stands, giving a half-hazard little kick to one of Alexei’s baby hats that had landed in her way.
She makes her way back down the ladder, careful of the box in her arms now. She automatically starts to walk back towards Ilya’s old room but then realizes that’s stupid and makes her way down to the main entrance of the house.
It’s still dark and quiet, but its not as off putting as it was before. She wonders if Ilya knew, the last time he was here, that he wouldn’t be coming back. She thinks so. Probably. Yes.
As she closes the front door behind her, she thinks about locking the door before realizing that the house is empty now. Like, really empty. No one will ever be coming back. Everything it had to give has been taken. Everything it could do, it has already done.
Svetlana adjusts the box in her hand and starts walking down the drive to her car.
Good fucking riddance.
She tries to call Ilya again from the car. It’s late afternoon in Moscow which means its early morning in Ottawa. She knows he’ll be awake.
He still doesn’t pick up, but the phone rings out this time meaning he’s at least taken it off of Airplane mode or Do Not Disturb which Svetlana considers a good sign. There will be people in Boston and New York and Montreal who want to check in on him. Make sure he’s safe. She hadn’t been worried the first time he hadn’t picked up because he was already in Ottawa when it happened. She knew he was safe there.
Svetlana stays in Moscow for only two more days. There isn’t much left to do. Her family is still here, so she stops by for a few dinners, answers their stupid questions with practiced deflection. In a few days when officials come around and start asking their own questions, her cousins and aunts and father will all be able to answer honestly that they know nothing.
Had she known? Does it fucking matter?
She does mail the box before she leaves. Ilya’s hurting, but the brief heart attack she can give him by sending a heavy box with a Russian return address on it will be objectively funny, even if she’s not there to see it.
Svetlana doesn’t get to actually talk to Ilya until about a week after she gets back from Moscow. But a few days after she’s landed, she gets a text from him.
You are a terrible, awful person who seeks only to make my life harder. You think it’s funny to kick me when I’m down? Have I not suffered enough?
He’s sent a photo as well. Someone has clearly taken the photo of him, as someone else stands behind him. The person behind him is reaching around to cup Ilya’s face in one hand, pinching it into an exaggerated pout. On the other side of Ilya’s face, the same person is holding up one of the photos of baby Ilya from the album. Irina is holding Ilya in her lap, pinching his face in the same way.
Both adult Ilya and baby Ilya are scowling at the camera.
Svetlana doesn’t know when the last time she saw him this happy was.
She sends back a little kissy face emoji, because he's right. She's a terrible, awful person who does like to watch him suffer.
A few minutes later her phone pings again, but this time it’s not from Ilya.
Jane from Montreal: Thank you
There’s a photo attached as well. It’s of the mantel above a fireplace in a house she has never been to. But she recognizes it nonetheless.
The photo shows two clearly new frames that have been added to the preexisting row. There’s one in a simple silver frame of Irina and Ilya as a toddler. They’re holding hands with their backs to the camera. Their heads are turned to look at each other and it’s clear they’re both smiling.
The second frame is gold and tucked a little bit more behind a different framed photo, as if trying to obscure it a little bit from someone who is just glancing at the mantle in passing.
Svetlana smiles.
He’s gonna throw a shit fit when he notices, she sends
Jane from Montreal: I know
Jane from Montreal: Gotta keep him humble
Jane from Montreal: Plus it’s a good reminder of why he shouldn’t try to bottom
Svetlana can’t help it, she laughs outright. Guess she didn’t need to save the joke for better times after all.
Her phone buzzes again.
Jane from Montreal: But seriously, thanks. You’re a good friend
Svetlana sighs as she places her phone back down. She is a good friend. She’s been by Ilya’s side longer than anybody else. She knows him, she loves him. And she’s so, so fucking happy for him.
So yeah. She’d known.
Fuck you for thinking she hadn’t.