CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED THIRTY SIX
The quiet of an otherwise normal cul-de-sac was broken by the sound of an ambulance siren blaring a few times through the air, the big boxy vehicle trying to turn around to leave. Lights of red and blue pierced the darkness, bouncing shadows off the nearby trees and cars, bathing every house nearby in eerie ambient color.
Clad in winter jackets, thick snow-boots, and cold-weather knit caps, Nikkita and Viktoria sat on the back bumper of a police cruiser. Neither had tears to shed, but they both had dark circles under their eyes, huddling together to keep warm under a blanket that an officer handed to them.
"Do you have any other family in the city?" The woman asked, pulling out a notepad to write their answers.
"Yeah." The older of the two answered stiffly, "Our brother. He should be home soon."
"His name?"
"Sergio Rozovsky."
"How old is he?"
"Just barely 18."
"Where's your father?"
The two girls glanced at each other, then at the officer again briefly before lowering their eyes, "Moscow. He hurt his back while he was there and had to have surgery."
The loud, distinct feeling of a car's bass reverberated around as a black Hyundai Elantra pulled up, only for the noise to cut out as the driver realized which house the police were there for. When the car was still and the headlights shut off, the eldest of the three teens stepped out, looking relieved at least that his sisters were accounted for...but then realization hit.
"...Where's mom?"
.
The urn was sitting on a mantle above the fireplace, nestled in amongst the sprigs of pine and decorative wreaths that had already been set-up for weeks. Candles were lit around it, burning quietly, their soft light blinking off the walls, and the big 4-member family photo. Four members...substituting a certain silver-haired Russian from which the three teens took their looks, and in his place, a pale woman with wavy black hair and piercing light-brown eyes. The kids in the image were half their current ages.
The sound of snow crunching outside caught the attention of the teen who was looking at the photo, and he hurriedly rushed to the window in the living-room, which faced out towards the front yard, "...The Hell?"
The sight of that very particular blue Mercedes made the teen's heart seize in his chest, but seeing the man who owned it stepping out, followed by his female companion and two young daughters...that set the boy's teeth on edge. He let the blinds go and marched right up to the front door, pulled it open, and stood defiantly on the stoop with both arms crossed.
"I'm not moving."
"Hi Sergio." Mikhail waved, indifferent to the words the teen had spoken. He turned his attention back to his entourage, "Alright everyone, let's head inside." The two girls nodded and quietly snuck past their older brother, who still hadn't budged. The elder Russian stepped forward, Minako following close behind, but Mikhail wasn't content to simply walk around the teen.
"You can't make me do anything. I'm already 18."
Still, the words were ignored, and Mikhail stared at him straight on, unblinking with those same grey-green eyes. Minako watched the show-down anxiously, noting how her partner hadn't even tightened his grip on where he held her hand between them; his fingers and posture were relaxed, though his 6'2" frame still managed to look down somewhat on the 5'10" figure in front of him.
It was strange to see how the battle of wills favored the elder, and the teen scoffed indignantly before finally turning around to retreat within the house. Mikhail turned towards his lady love, and gestured in with his free hand, "After you."
"Feels a lot different from the last time we were here." She commented quietly, stepping in over the threshold with the Russian following after her, "Feels even weirder to actually go inside this time."
"We won't be here that long."
"Really? I thought you said we'd have to stay at least till your kids finished finals?" She turned back slightly and leaned down to pull one boot off at a time, setting them both neatly against the wall as Mikhail did the same with his usual business-casual shoes.
"Yes, but by 'stay,' I only meant 'in Banff,' not necessarily 'in the house my ex-wife died in.'"
"Touché."
The house held the smell of a 'different' family, as all homes did. Under that though was the smell of an apple-cinnamon candle, apparently set to try and hide the aroma of a trash bin that hadn't been taken out in a while. The sink overflowed wish unwashed dishes, and there were crumbs and lost macaroni noodles on the counters. What caught Mikhail's attention most though were the dusty shadows where crucifixes had been taken off the walls. All told, the more he looked around, the less religious iconography he saw.
"Where's all your mother's stuff?" He asked nervously, pulling his long-coat off.
The girls stopped where they were in the kitchen, trying to clean up a few bowls and spoons to make cereal for dinner, and glanced at him over the bar-counter, "...Sergie took everything down."
"...Really?"
They both nodded.
With that, the sound of a door half-slamming at the end of the hall could be heard.
The girls groaned at that. Nikkita set the bag of knock-off Frosted Flakes down and came around the counter, "Dad, you gotta get us outta here."
"Nikki!"
"I'm serious!" She turned back to her older sister, "I'm tired of this!"
"Me too but I don't want to move to God-only-knows-where!"
"Girls," Mikhail interrupted, "I haven't even told you what the options are yet, so cool your jets."
"I'M NOT MOVING ANYWHERE." Sergio called from down the hall, his voice muffled by the sound of the closed door.
"I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME." The elder Russian sighed to himself, but then looked at what his daughters were trying to cobble together, "What are you doing?"
"...Dinner?"
"That's breakfast."
"We can't get groceries to make stuff normally." Viktoria grumbled, chewing on a few dry flakes, "Sergio won't let me have the car keys so I can go to the IGA, and the busses leave too soon for us to get stuff before they leave school. The best we can do is go to the store at lunch and bring home whatever non-perishables we can fit into our backpacks."
"...What about this huge mess? Haven't you guys been cleaning up after yourselves?"
Nikkita crossed her arms and got a sour look on her face, "I tried to keep up with it, but certain people who won't be named made stuff dirty again faster than I could clean it." She eyeballed both her sister and the hallway where her brother had retreated.
"It's true..." The older girl agreed weakly, twirling a strand of red-dyed silver hair, "I kind of gave up after a week..."
Mikhail blinked at them, but then made a face and nodded, turning to look around the living-room again, "...Well, I guess the only thing to do is to have you guys pack up and then burn this place to the ground."
"DAD." "PIPAW."
He just laughed and raised his arms up, "I'm kidding. But, in all seriousness, put all that cereal stuff away. We'll go out. SERGIO."
"I'M NOT-"
"EATING? OKAY."
The teen burst through the door like a battering ram, shooting his gaze down the hall and straight at his father, "YOU CAN'T JUST COME IN HERE AND JUDGE US."
"Chill." Mikhail said quietly, "Just come out here and talk to me like a man, not like a child. I know that shit's been rough for you for the last 2 weeks, but now's not the time to try to act like you've got this. You don't got this. Let me help."
"You're just going to ruin everything! I don't want your help!"
"Well, you can either come sit down with us and tell your side of things, or you can let me get the whole story from your sisters. At that point, I'll be making decisions about how to move forward and I'll be doing so without your input, which you'll probably really hate. So...what's it going to be? Will you come sit at this table, or am I going to be dragging you outside to an unknown fate, kicking and screaming?" He thumbed at the front door, "It's entirely up to you."
The teen grit his teeth, but held his ground for a moment. Minako and the two younger teens could feel the tension in the air like an electric vibration...but it cut off rather quickly as Sergio finally came out of the hallway and sat indignantly at the big debris-covered dining-room table.
This place would look really nice if it hadn't been let go... The ballerina thought, trying to see the beauty of it under all the trash and dust that had piled up since the Lady of the house had passed. It was only then that she caught sight of the big family photo at the other end of the room, and her first glimpse at the woman who had preceded her in her partner's life. She could hear the Rozovsky family members starting to move towards the table with the oldest teen, but she stepped off on her own to get a better look at the picture.
When Mikhail turned to watch her go, he caught sight of the urn sitting on the fireplace mantle, and all his previous plans were immediately put on the back-burner. He stepped up behind her, settling a hand lightly on the small of her back as he approached the mantle, but then moved past the woman to reach for the urn.
It was a simple-looking brass-polished vase, inlayed with laser-cut etchings along the bottom and upper rim. The top was fastened with a lid crested by a small lamb statue, curled up as though asleep on top of the whole thing.
"...Mylene..." He said quietly, sighing sadly...though not for mourning. It was more out of disappointment, "How long did she suspect she was sick?" He turned back towards the table where his kids were waiting.
"Maybe just the last 4 months." Sergio explained sullenly, his eyes downcast, arms crossed tightly over his chest; he'd lost weight since the Skate Entourage had seen him in Calgary, but he was still thickly built, "I told her to go back to see Dr. Caplan, but she just went to see Father Abram instead. I tried to press charges against him, but-" The teen's robust attitude was already crumbling, and he brought a hand up to cover his eyes, "...I was told that there was no point. You can't prosecute someone for praying."
Nikki and Viktoria just stayed quiet, looking sullen where they sat.
"...All the crosses, Bibles, and other religious stuff got thrown out the day the urn came home." The youngest explained quietly, "He blames God for mom dying."
"THERE IS NO GOD." Sergio loudly corrected, "But if there somehow is, then after everything we've gone through with this crap, He's responsible. He created cancer, and that has nothing to do with Free Will or Sin or Guilt or ANYTHING...and because of that, I consider Him an ENEMY, and I WANT HIM DEAD."
"Whoa whoa, jeeze, Sergio..." Mikhail quickly set the urn back into place and rushed back over through the debris on the carpet to get to his place at the table, "Don't take it out on your sisters. They lost their mom too."
Minako kept her distance for a while, letting the scene simmer down a bit before stepping over to take a seat next to her partner.
"...Let's just talk about other stuff for a bit." The Russian suggested, "So... If I'm not mistaken, your last Final exams are on Thursday, right?"
"My last ones are tomorrow, but Nikki's are done Thursday, yeah." Viktoria answered, slouching between where she propped her arms up on the table.
"It's in the morning, so I don't have to stay till the end." The younger teen followed, "What are you planning...?"
"There's a really big skating competition in Detroit this weekend that I'm supposed to go to. I have to bring Yuratchka his things, since he left them at my place in Moscow after we got done in France. The idea is that you guys come to Detroit for the weekend...and then at least for the winter break, I'll be taking you with me back to Hasetsu in Japan. I know you guys don't want to think of calling something a vacation after what happened, but that's all this is for right now...a trip to get you out of here so you can clear your minds, and so I can keep an eye on you."
"Cousin Viktor did really well this weekend." Nikkita chimed in.
Both Minako and Mikhail glanced from the girl in surprise, to one another, and then back again, but it was the Russian who spoke, "...You followed his events in Sapporo?"
"Well...sort of..." She nodded, "I went looking up videos cuz I was curious if I could see you in the audience, but then I ended up watching the whole Saturday event..." She lifted her head, holding her chin on the palms of her hands instead, "I remembered how you said he was kind of a big deal. I didn't really believe it after he came in 2nd on Friday, but when I saw his show the next day...wow!"
"He wasn't feeling it on Friday, that's true..." The elder Russian explained, "But he really knocked it out after that."
"Where's Hasetsu...?" Viktoria asked, "I've never heard of it."
"It's a small coastal city on the north of Kyushu. We just never went far enough south in Japan to see it. It's a nice little place though. That's where Minako and your cousin's husband come from."
"...So...Detroit...and then Hasetsu..." The middle teen repeated to herself, "What about after?"
"There's a lot of things that are involved in that decision." The silver elder explained, "I know you guys won't be happy with anything less than staying here, bu-"
"No, I'm good."
"...Me too." Nikkita added quietly.
"...You're...good...?" Mikhail echoed in disbelief, "...How? Why?"
"As soon as mom died, we all kind of knew it was only a matter of time before you'd come get us." The young teen answered, stretching her arms out across the table to touch her slender fingers to her father's forearm where he sat around the corner from her, "I started telling my friends so we'd all be ready. We started a closed group on SMS so we could keep in touch."
"I like my friends, but I'm not exactly ready to take a bullet for them." Viktoria shrugged, "Transient High School friendships, I guess. I won't be surprised if I lose track of them all after a while."
All four then turned their eyes towards the odd man out. But, true to form, Sergio just buckled down, "I'm not going anywhere."
"...Why not?" Mikhail raised both brows skeptically.
"I'm 18 years old...a legal adult. If not for a few months, I'd have already graduated high school and been in university by now."
"So? You've been 18 for like 15 minutes."
"Soooooooo...?" He was incredulous, but raised his hand to start listing things off on his fingers, "I'm graduating from High School this year, I'm still going to tournaments in the mean time, I have better shit to do than get thrown into a completely different country when I'm just going to come back in 6 months... What's the point of me going? It'll just be a huge pain in the ass."
"I can't just leave you here by yourself."
"I've been doing fine on my own." The teen grumbled.
Mikhail and Minako glanced at one another, then at the state of the house around them, and gave a grunt of sarcastic acknowledgment.
"Quit judging! You weren't here! You don't know anything that happened!" Sergio growled, but then pointed a finger at the ballerina, "And you don't know me!"
"I didn't even say anything!" She said defensively.
Mikhail reached across the table and stuck his own finger down against the back of the teen's hand, dropping it to the table top and holding it there, "Make gestures in her direction at your own peril, Sergio." He warned, "You won't be getting away with rude outbursts again like you did with your cousin."
"Cousin? Who...Vicar?"
"VIKTOR." The Russian pressed a little harder, "Your own sister is named after him; it should be the easiest name to remember ever."
"I don't care."
"Obviously." Mikhail pulled his hand away and pushed to stand, leaning over the table with his palms down on the top of it, "Ladies, if you'll excuse Sergio and I. I think we need to have a chat alone. Outside."
"Dad it's like a thousand degrees below zero out there!" The eldest teen argued.
"Outside." The Russian said, more firmly that time, "So get a warm coat. We're going to be out there for a while." He stepped over to where he'd hung his own coat, and fished for his wallet and keys, stepping back over to Minako to give the keys and his bank-card to her, "...If we're not back before you guys start dying of starvation, let the girls tell you where to get dinner. Just be careful driving the Benz, it's pretty quiet, so people don't always hear it coming."
"...Are you sure? I mean, you don't want us to wait?" The ballerina wondered, rising to stand, following the man back towards the front door as he started pulling on his things, "Hun?"
"I'll have my phone. Just text me when you guys are getting ready to riot. I'll let you know we're coming if I think we're at a good stopping point and can come back." He answered, doing up the buttons on the front of his coat before turning back to his lady love and reached for her hands. He brought them up between them and gave a bit of a sigh, but then leaned forward to kiss her on each cheek, and let her hands go to pat her shoulders, "Do svidaniya."
"Davai."