Page 69 of Two for Roughing

“Perhaps I can stop by and check for you.”

“Thank you.”

“But you will be coming home next summer, then?”

“I always come home in the summers.”

There was no smile in her voice when she said, “Yes, of course you do. Well, I’m sure you’re busy. I wouldn’t want to keep you.”

He wasn’t, but he couldn’t think what else to say. “I love you, Mama.”

“I love you too, Damyasha.”

For a long time afterward, he stared down at his phone. The darts tournament continued. A man with a bald head so shiny the strobe lights reflected in it raised his arms in triumph after hitting 180.

So, Mama knew about his friendship with Sasha. Did she know why he stayed at Damir’s house so often in the summers, lounging by the pool and fucking all night? Did she know his marriage to Masha would never be about the things marriage was usually about, like love and family, but rather about safety and secrecy? Did Masha know?

And if she knew about Sasha, did Mama know about Damir? It was possible she had always known; he wouldn’t put it past her. She’d never addressed it, and he’d never said anything. Speaking things out loud had power. It could destroy you if you weren’t careful. Anyone growing up in a place where the authority figures were not to be trusted knew as much. Anyone who had words within themself that weren’t the right words, the safe words, knew as much. Better to feign ignorance as long as you could.

Damir turned the concept over and over in his mind. If Mama knew, then Papa also knew. They didn’t keep secrets. Perhaps they hadn’t used exact terms, but they would have talked around it. And Mama assumed Damir would choose to stay in Chicago if he had someone, if he and Kilian were…more than they were. She assumed he would choose Kilian.

No, that wasn’t fair to Mama. She knew he would have to stay in Chicago. Being out in Russia wouldn’t be safe, not in general and certainly not as an athlete. Damir wasn’t famous—not when compared to soccer players or movie stars—but he was known. The Olympic committee had to at least mention his name when they decided who would be on the starting roster. Damir hadn’t chosen hockey for the fame; he’d chosen it for the game itself. But he knew the consequences of his choice. As he got older, the other options in his life narrowed down and down and down into ever more intense game schedules, which Damir welcomed. He’d welcomed the chance to play in America as a teen, the chance to be drafted to the NHL. Love and family couldn’t coexist with his career, which saved him from having to choose between bravery or cowardice when it came to his sexuality.

It struck Damir for the very first time how exhausting it would be to live this way for the rest of his life: sixty, maybe even seventy years on guard, wondering every day if he was old enough to be anonymous, never knowing when he would be safe to be himself.

He missed the sound of Mama’s voice and the taste of the air in a Moscow winter, so similar and yet so different to Chicago. Yet he could never truly go back. He could visit the country; he could choose to live there again after hockey. But when he missed being Damyasha, he was missing a version of himself he’d left behind without noticing—a version who had accepted his fate with a resignation Damir could no longer muster.

Someday, hockey would end, and he would have to stop jetting around North America and go home. If Russia were home, if Moscow were home, he could have a close friend over to his house a few nights a week, so long as the friend had an apartment of their own to keep up appearances. He could go out to functions with his close friend under the tacit understanding of everyone involved that they were more than friends, but he could never say it out loud. If human rights deteriorated further, he would spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, bribing government officials to turn a blind eye.

It would be a life. It could even be a happy life, at least at times. Generations of his ancestors had lived similar lives, had families and children and friends and careers despite the ever-present yoke of a government that hated them for having the wrong ancestors, believing in the wrong face of God, or supporting the wrong politics.

But if Damir stayed here, he could have more. He could be married; he could have children; he could call his close friend his boyfriend and have friends who used the word too. If he waited long enough to do it, people wouldn’t remember who he was anymore, when his hockey career was five, ten years in the rearview mirror.

He had no idea if he wanted all those things; he’d never paused long enough to think they were a possibility.

There were no sure things. His right to a free and equal life in the USA had become as questionable as it was in Russia. But the conversation here was different, one he could have using the words he meant to say instead of talking around them.

It was a distant future, but the thought of it felt like coming up for air after being submerged his whole life. He could get a job with the Firecrackers when hockey ended. He’d vaguely intended to investigate the option anyway, since they hired vets all the time. Most Russians went home after the NHL, but he wasn’t most Russians. He could keep his work visa, apply for a green card. He could start dating quietly. Kilian would pave the way—he would have to, now the choice had been taken from him. And Damir would profit from it.

The notion left a sour taste in his mouth, but he couldn’t think of any way to change it.

None of that was for now anyway. Kilian didn’t need Damir in the middle of an identity crisis on top of everything else. He needed Damir to support him, to keep the wolves at bay or, more accurately, to shut up the assholes.

Damir rested his head in his hands and laughed. When Kilian turned up at his door a year ago, all fake bravado and neediness, Damir would never have suspected he’d end up being the one who would create a better future for both of them. Far from it, he’d expected Kilian’s desperation for validation would lead to years of bad decisions, much the same way it did for rookies all over the NHL. Only in Kilian’s case, it would be far riskier because he couldn’t solve being gay with a public apology or a stint in the Player’s Assistance Program.

And while he thought some of Kilian’s decisions when it came to hitting up gay clubs and having casual sex were risky, he’d also proven far more thoughtful than Damir had given him credit for, and far more interested in leaving the world a better place than Damir had been at his age. Kilian had gone out of his way to make things better for Damir, to ask about and listen to Damir’s religion and culture, and to call others out for being hateful.

Now it was Kilian’s turn to be scrutinized publicly for innate parts of himself he hadn’t meant to share, and Damir wanted to give him the same respect.

Maybe, if they were both very lucky, in the distant future, Damir would be able to thank him for enabling Damir’s own happiness. Someday. With someone.

The vision of a future in which Kilian was as happy as he deserved to be comforted Damir. He didn’t know how to fix things for Kilian right now. He had nothing to offer. Damir wanted more than anything to be able to care for Kilian, but all he could offer were vague hopes for a future when someone else would do the job for him.

As the sun began to set, Damir became aware of how dark and empty the apartment was. Sometime during Damir’s conversation with his mother, Ketchup had texted to announce he’d be staying the night with the trainer who’d been working on his hip—a young woman who ought to know better. Damir sent him an eyeroll emoji. How could anyone censure Kilian for being gay when Ketchup was right there being Ketchup?

Damir heated up two portions of dinner—a thick red lentil soup with fresh lemon juice and parsley on top. Kilian didn’t emerge, so Damir ate alone. He turned off all the lights afterward and lay down on his bed. It wasn’t even 8:00 p.m., but he had nothing else planned. Might as well spend some time staring at the wall.

He lay there for an indeterminate amount of time, thoughts racing around and around in his head. At some point, his eyes drifted shut, not in sleep so much as in intense meditation.