Six Months Ago

Jamie had been attacked at the end of January, just before the All-Star break, and while it had been hard on the whole team, it had been particularly hard on Vlad. He and Jamie were friends and Vlad had never been close to someone who’d been a victim of something as violent and ugly as a hate crime. Watching both Jamie and Viggo suffer through the aftermath made him think about a lot of things, both past and present.

He didn’t know anything about his birth parents, and no amount of searching had gotten him much information, but he wanted a different kind of future than the one he’d had as a child. He’d grown up without family, without stability, without affection—and even though he now had money that afforded him a certain degree of stability, he was still very much alone. He was solely responsible for that and had been working on it, but he sometimes wondered if something was wrong with him. He struggled to reach out to people, to have strong relationships, even with other men. Even with Toli, who shared his culture and language, it had taken three years and a lot of effort on Toli’s part for them to become as close as they were.

One thing that had helped was having Rachel in his life. Though they’d kept things between them casual after their first sexual encounter, it hadn’t taken him long to realize how important she was and that he wanted more with her. They’d had a pivotal moment when she’d recently asked him what his hesitation was in committing to her. She’d pointed out that a relationship wasn’t a prison sentence—if it didn’t work out, he was free to walk away at any time. Once she’d put it like that, they’d gotten closer.

He started opening up to her in ways he’d never imagined he would feel comfortable doing, especially with a woman. Almost all of his experience with women had been hookers and hockey groupies so it had taken him a while to allow himself to trust, to feel, to be himself. Rachel wasn’t like any of those women, though, and the more time he spent with her, the more he wanted to be with her. She was so beautiful sometimes he had a hard time believing she was even interested in him, and the sweet woman she was on the inside sealed the deal.

Her big heart was never more evident than in how she handled his constant frustration with Jamie’s situation. He wanted to do something to help, but with Jamie’s attackers in custody in Canada and the trial not scheduled to begin until summer, he didn’t know if writing checks to LGBTQ charities was enough.

“You can’t take on the weight of the world,” Rachel said when he’d admitted how he felt. “You can only take care of you—and the people closest to you. We have to be the best people we can be and hope that we somehow spread more love than hate.”

He grunted. “Would be better to punch bad people.”

“I definitely feel that way sometimes, but the guys who did this to Jamie are just…inherently bad.”

“They call them skinheads—this is Nazis?”

“Yeah, people today who still think Hitler was right.”

“Right about killing Jews?” Vlad was confused.

“Right about making a purer race, the Aryan race—you know, blond hair and blue eyes. That kind of thing.”

He paused. “You have dark hair with blue eyes—this is bad? I am blond with hazel… We are not pure?”

“Oh, honey, we definitely aren’t pure, but that doesn’t make a difference, does it? If you and I were to have a baby—and I’m talking hypothetically, not actually getting pregnant…”

“I understand—my English is not that bad!”

“Anyway, if we were to have a baby—what do you think it would look like? Genetically speaking.”

He paused. “Maybe your hair—dark is very strong… I don’t know the word.”

“Dominant.”

“This, yes. And my eyes are hazel, which would probably be dominant over blue?”

“Let’s say we have a little boy with dark hair and hazel eyes…. The blond and blue that you and I carry would still be in his DNA but no one would see it. To people like them, he wouldn’t be pure and they would want to eliminate him.”

Vlad couldn’t help the growl that escaped his throat. “This…this…” He let out a string of expletives in Russian. Though the child they were discussing didn’t exist and they weren’t talking about having one together at this point in their relationship, the idea that their hypothetical child would be somehow impure because of hair and eye color was ludicrous to him.

“Are you okay?” she asked after a moment.

He took a deep breath. “I have never seen anything like this in my life. In Russia, I grow up without family and my memories are almost all hockey. I discover girls and sex, yes, but I don’t go out or meet people other than players and coaches. I never saw this kind of hate. I hear some whispers in locker room, this guy is with that man but I am thinking only about hockey so I ignore. This was very stupid.”

“You were young and didn’t have anyone to teach you these things,” she said gently. “It doesn’t make you stupid—just naïve. Personally, I think you’ve turned out to be a great guy, especially since you essentially had to raise yourself.”

“Sometimes I’m afraid,” he whispered. “For the future…”

“Your future?”

“No…” He struggled to articulate what he wanted to say.

“Tell me the general subject matter and I’ll help you find the words,” she said gently, sensing his difficulty in expressing his most serious thoughts in his second language.

“Children,” he said slowly. “Mine.”

She paused. “You’re worried about what part? Having them? Loving them? Being a good father—”

“This!” he said quickly. “I never had a father. Or mother. I wonder if maybe I will be bad.”

“Are you a thief?” she asked slowly.

He snorted. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because this not okay.”

“Why?”

He frowned. “I don’t know…is bad to steal. No?”

“Yes. And you know it instinctively because some things are natural. You don’t need a good parent—or any parents—to teach you right from wrong. A lot of it is who you are deep down. We learn a lot of that from society, whether it’s TV or your hockey coach or something else.”

“But how do you know what to do?”

“I don’t think anyone ever knows how. You learn as you go. In my head, I imagine that once I give birth to this little human being that has no one in the world to take care of it but me, I’m going to figure out what it will take to make sure they’re happy, healthy, and loved.”

“You are not afraid you will fail?”

“No.” Her response was immediate. “Will I make mistakes? Sure. But fail? The only true failure would be failure to love him or her—and that’s not who I am. I’ve always been careful about pregnancy because I’m not ready to give up my career, but if it happened, nothing would be more important.”

“All of this, what happened to Jamie, makes me sad. Not just for him, but who were the parents to raise those men that hurt him? Were they bad also? Did they not care to teach right from wrong?”

“Those men,” she said slowly, “obviously got their hate from somewhere. Parents? Maybe. Society? I hope not, but it happens. It’s hard to analyze what made them that way, but it’s not necessarily because of bad parenting. There could be a million reasons. Mental illness, a traumatic experience during childhood, falling in with the wrong crowd… Who knows? We can’t control that.”

“But with the children we have. We are responsible for them, for who they are?”

“Only partly. Again, mental illness, a traumatic experience—those things change people. There’s only so much we can do as parents.”

“Do you have relationship with your father?” he asked suddenly. “You talk only of your mother—and you are not close.”

“My parents divorced when I was twelve. My father ran off with the babysitter, who was twenty at the time. So my stepmother is now thirty-three. I haven’t seen them, or my twin ten-year-old stepsisters in a couple of years. My dad wanted to have fun, not be saddled with a family. He would see me every other Sunday for three hours. We’d usually go to a movie so he didn’t have to talk. By the time I was sixteen I was on to him, so I’d tell him to just give me the money and I’d tell my mom we had fun.”

“So you had not-so-good parents?”

“Well, yes and no. I had a pretty good family until I was about ten. That’s when my parents started fighting. After Dad left, my mom worked two jobs and made sure I had everything I needed. It wasn’t until I made it big that she got really needy. Now I send her a check every month and only deal with her when I have to. She started asking for money for her sister, my cousins—people I don’t even know. I told her she gets five thousand dollars a month and she can spend it however she pleases, but that’s it. I also paid for her house, so she has very few expenses.”

“Your mother is not married?”

“No.” Rachel laughed. “She’ll only date millionaires, and now that I don’t take her with me to places she can meet them, she doesn’t date.”

“So even though you are not close to your parents, you are not afraid to be a parent.”

“Nope. I’d probably freak out a little if it happened now, but in general, no.”

“I searched for my parents,” he admitted. “I hired detective in Russia—almost a hundred thousand dollars—and nothing. We know only that I was left inside church, in box with letter.”

“What did the letter say?”

“Only that I was born first of January, at 7:45 p.m. I have this letter—priest from church gave me when I left. No name, nothing. Just asking to take care of baby.”

“I’m sorry, Vlad. That must be so hard.”

“But something strange, and this always bothers me.”

“What?”

“Hockey is expensive. Children in poor Russian orphanage do not play hockey. Where is money for equipment? Where is money for uniform? Skates? Tape for stick? Is not cheap. Other children did not play—just me.”

“How old were you when you started to play?”

“As long as I can remember,” he said. “Maybe four or five? Outside with sticks, and then one day someone come in car…I did not know him, but teacher tells me to go. He take me to rink and they give me skates, equipment, everything. Tell me if I am good, if I learn quickly, I can play hockey. I don’t remember details, only that I learn fast, and I love to play. I am in school until early afternoon and then every day to rink. Sometimes coach to pick me up, sometimes taxi. Is not strange to you?”

“A little,” she admitted. “Did you ever contact your coaches from back then?”

“I cannot find. Detective say they are dead but I look online and see one is coaching in same place as when I was there. I try to contact but no answer. I don’t know, Rachel. It feels funny. This is why I am always thinking about my parents. Maybe my father was a rich, married man? He could not raise me but he gave money, so I could play hockey? Something like this?”

“Maybe.” She was thoughtful. “Maybe this summer, when we’re both off, we could do a little searching ourselves.”

He was startled. “You would do this?”

“Why wouldn’t I? This is important to you and you’re important to me. Once we’re done with work for our respective seasons, we can spend part of the summer finding out your history since it’s such a big deal to you.”

He was momentarily stunned into silence. He’d never known anyone like her before and was beginning to realize what a mistake he’d made in keeping their relationship casual. He needed to find a way to tell her that, before he lost her. He’d had a feeling she wasn’t happy with the status quo.

“This is nice,” he said at last. “I have never had this kind of…” He paused. “Intimacy? To be able to talk about fear…sadness…babies…everything.”

“It’s called a relationship,” she said softly. “When two people genuinely care about each other.”

“I like it.”

“Me, too.”

“I think I’m ready now, Rachel.” He was surprised at the ease with which the words slipped out.

“Ready for what?”

“To take things to the next level. I’m falling in love with you and I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I need you in my life. Not just dating, but a real relationship.”

“I want that, too,” she whispered.