### CHAPTER 17 - MOM'S HOUSE
Roman's mom comes to the game on Saturday, and I've never been to a real hockey game before, not a live one. In Russia I watched on TV on our old couch while Papa yelled at the screen and threw his slipper at it when his team missed. Here, it's different, it's loud in a way that vibrates in your chest, it's cold enough that you can see your breath, and the whole student section is chanting and stomping their feet on the metal bleachers until it sounds like thunder.
Maya drags me and Jamal and Priya to seats right behind the bench, third row, close enough that we can hear the players yelling at each other, and she made a sign that says CALLAHAN IS HOT in big pink glitter letters that shed everywhere. Roman sees it during warmups when he skates by, and he shakes his head, but he's smiling, that little real smile he tries to hide, and he taps the glass once with his stick right in front of us.
He plays different than he practices, faster and meaner and more focused, like someone flipped a switch. He hits a guy from the other team into the boards so hard in the first period the glass shakes and the whole crowd stands up and screams, and I stand up too before I even realize I'm doing it, my hands gripping the cold metal railing.
Maya elbows me hard in the ribs, grinning. "See? Told you he was good. Told you he was worth the glitter."
He scores in the second period, a quick sharp shot from the left circle that the goalie never even sees, and the light goes red and the horn goes off so loud it makes my ears ring, and he looks up into the stands, not at his mom who is clapping in the row behind us, not at his coach, not at his team. At me. He finds me in the crowd and he taps his chest twice with his gloved hand, quick and deliberate.
I don't know what it means, I don't know if it's a thing he does for everyone, but my face gets hot anyway, burning in the cold air, and I look down at my shoes fast.
We win 3-1, and the whole student section sings the school song off-key on the way out.
After, we wait outside the locker rooms in the hallway that smells like sweat and rubber mats and cheap body spray. Roman comes out twenty minutes later in grey sweatpants and a U of T hoodie, his hair still wet from the shower and curling at the ends, his cheeks still pink from the ice. A woman is with him, short and blonde with the same bright blue eyes, wearing a navy team scarf.
"Guys, this is my mom, Linda," he says, and he sounds a little embarrassed, a little proud.
She hugs Maya first, like they've met before, then Jamal who picks her up off the ground, then Priya who gets a cheek kiss. Then she turns to me, and her eyes are kind and crinkled at the corners.
"You must be Viktor," she says, and her voice is warm. "Roman talks about you all the time."
He does? I look at Roman, startled, and he's suddenly very interested in his shoes, in the scuff on the toe of his left sneaker, his ears turning red.
"Hi," I say, and my English feels small and clumsy in my mouth. "Nice to meet you."
She hugs me too, tight and quick and sure, like she's known me for years instead of seconds, and she smells like vanilla and laundry detergent, like clean sheets and home, and for a second I forget how to breathe properly.
"You're freezing," she says, rubbing my arms briskly with her warm hands. "You figure skaters never wear enough clothes. Come on. I made enough food for the whole team plus the Zamboni driver."
Her house is twenty minutes off campus, a small blue house on a quiet street with a porch light on and a little garden out front that's sleeping under snow. Inside it's warm, too warm after the rink, almost stuffy, and there are photos everywhere, crowded on every wall and shelf. Roman as a kid missing his two front teeth, grinning with a hockey stick bigger than he is. Roman in hockey gear that's too big, swimming in the jersey. Roman with his arm around a tall man with the same eyes who must be his dad. I notice the dad isn't in any of the recent photos on the mantel, just the old ones from before he left at the end of March when Roman was twelve, and I don't ask.
"Make yourselves at home, shoes off, coats on the bench," Linda says, already in the kitchen moving fast, tying an apron around her waist. "Viktor, honey, you're skinny as a rail. Sit down right there, I'll feed you."
We sit at the kitchen table that's already full and steaming. A huge pan of lasagna bubbling at the edges, garlic bread piled high in a basket, a big green salad, and a pie cooling on the counter that smells like apples and cinnamon.
Jamal whistles low and long. "Mrs. C, you marry me, I'll quit skating tomorrow and learn to do dishes."
"You have to fight Roman for me, and he'd win," she says, winking at him as she sets a plate down in front of me already loaded. "He's very protective."
Roman groans from across the table, his face red. "Mom. Please."
We eat, and I eat more than I have in weeks, not because I'm especially hungry, but because she keeps putting food on my plate and saying "one more bite, hon, for me" and it feels rude to say no, and more than that, it feels nice, it feels good to have someone care if I eat, to have someone notice my plate is empty. The lasagna is hot and cheesy and tastes like something my mama used to make when I was little, before everything got bad.
She asks me questions between bites, easy ones, where am I from, how do I like Canada so far, do I miss home, is the food too bland, and I give short answers because my mouth is full and because I'm nervous, and she doesn't push, she just listens and nods and refills my water glass when it's half empty without me asking.
"You're the one who skates at six in the morning, Roman tells me," she says, passing me the garlic bread again. "Every single day. That's real dedication, Viktor."
"He's insane," Maya says through a mouthful of bread, pointing at me with her fork. "We literally have to drag him off the ice. Coach has to turn the lights out."
I look down at my plate, embarrassed and pleased at the same time, and my left sleeve rides up a little on my wrist, and the black athletic tape shows, three neat layers. I pull it down fast, yanking the fabric, my heart jumping into my throat.
Linda sees, I know she sees because her eyes flick down and back up, but she doesn't say anything, she doesn't ask, she just pushes the pie toward me with a soft smile. "Eat dessert, sweetheart. My mom used to say pie fixes everything, and she was usually right."
After dinner, Roman and Jamal do dishes at the sink, bickering about the right way to load the dishwasher, and Priya and Maya look at old photo albums on the couch, laughing at baby Roman's bowl haircut. I get up quietly and go to the bathroom to get away from the noise for a minute, because my chest feels tight, but not panic tight, full tight, like too many feelings at once and nowhere to put them.
It's a small bathroom with warm yellow walls and a fluffy rug, and there's a framed cross stitch above the toilet that says HOME IS WHERE MOM IS in careful blue thread.
I lock the door and sit on the edge of the tub and put my head in my hands and just breathe for a second. The house is so warm and so loud and so full, and I haven't been in a real home since I left Mama's kitchen in Saint Petersburg.
I pull my phone out of my pocket because my hands need something to do. I don't bring the journal, it's too heavy, too old, too much for tonight. But Dr. Amara said write anywhere, five minutes, just get it out.
I open my notes app, the blank white screen, and my thumbs hover.
I type one word.
*Safe.*
I stare at it, my throat tight. I delete it fast, like someone might see. Then I type it again, slower this time, pressing each letter.
*Safe.*
I leave it there, glowing on the screen, and I lock my phone and put it back in my pocket like it's a secret.
When I come out, Roman is in the hallway waiting, leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets, and he straightens up when he sees me. "You okay?"
I nod, and I mean it this time, mostly. "Yeah. Your mom is really nice."
"She likes you," he says, quiet, just for me in the hallway. "She told me in the kitchen while you were in here. She said you have kind eyes. She said you look tired."
I don't know what to say to that, to being seen that clearly by a stranger, so I say nothing, I just look at the floor and feel my ears get hot.
He leans against the wall again, close, his shoulder almost touching mine. "Thanks for coming tonight. I know big family stuff is weird."
"Thanks for inviting me," I say, and I mean that too.
We stand there for a second too long, just breathing in the hallway that smells like lasagna and vanilla, and then Maya yells from the living room at full volume, "Are you two making out in the hallway or what? Because Linda has more pie and I'm not sharing!"
Roman laughs, loud and startled, his head tipping back. "Mind your business, Chen!"
In the car on the way back to campus, I sit in the back with Priya, my seatbelt on, and Maya drives too fast like always, singing along to the radio. Roman is in the passenger seat, half asleep already, his head tipped against the window. His mom packed us leftovers in plastic containers, and mine is on my lap, still warm through the plastic, and I hold it with both hands like it's something precious.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. Dima.
Dima: *how was hot hockey mom's house*
Me: *good. she fed me until I thought I would explode*
Dima: *did you cry*
Me: *no*
Dima: *liar. you always cry when people are nice to you*
I smile down at my phone in the dark car and don't answer, and I put the phone away and watch the streetlights go by.
Back in the room, Roman tosses his bag down and flops face-first on his bed with a groan. "My mom wants you to come for her birthday next month," he says, his voice muffled by his pillow. "She already told me to tell you. She said you need a proper cake, not dining hall food."
It's January. It's literally the middle of winter, snow still piled outside our window.
"Tell her okay," I say before I can stop myself, before I can think about it and get scared.
He rolls over, surprised, his hair messed up. Then he smiles, slow and real. "Okay. I'll tell her. She'll be so happy she'll probably start planning the menu now."
I go to my desk and I open the drawer where the journal lives now. I take it out and open to the blank page at the back with the five lines I drew, the empty music staff.
Underneath, in the space below, I write one word in English, not Russian, in small careful letters so small no one could read it unless they were really looking.
*safe*
I close it before I can get scared and second-guess it, and I put it back in the drawer and shut it soft.
Roman turns his light off, the room going dark except for the streetlight through the blinds. "Night, Viktor."
"Night, Roman," I say back, and my voice is quiet in the dark.
I lie in bed and listen to him breathe, slow and even, and I think about yellow bathrooms and lasagna and a mom who hugs strangers and calls them honey, and I think about a plastic container of leftovers still warm on my lap.
For the first time since I got on that plane in Saint Petersburg with a bag tied shut with a shoelace, the word home doesn't hurt when I think it. It just feels warm.