Page 68 of Two for Roughing

Damir stalled out a record five times on the drive home.

Kilian vanished into his room as soon as they got there.

Thanks to the insomnia of the last day, Damir had done all the cooking he’d need to for the next month or so. He had nothing to prepare, and if he worked out now, he’d overexert himself. It was a relief when his mother called.

“Mama? It’s not Thursday.”

“Yes, Damir, I’m not senile yet.” The half-amused, half-resigned timbre of her voice reminded Damir of a hundred moments from his childhood. She had sounded like that when he brought home a snail he’d found on the sidewalk on his way home from school in February and couldn’t leave there in case it froze. She’d sounded like that when he’d gotten in trouble for pretending to sneeze around a very loud “bismillah” every time his science teacher gave too much homework. She’d sounded exactly like that when he came racing home from the frozen-over pond behind the neighboring high-rise, his father’s old skates clutched in his hands and the words “I want to play hockey” on his lips.

“Is everything all right? Is Papa sick again? Are you sick?”

She clicked her tongue impatiently. “No one’s sick. Who are you—Aunt Zeyneb? Can’t a woman call her son on a different day than she usually does?”

Damir settled on the couch, phone clenched between his cheek and his shoulder as he clicked the TV on and the sound off instantly. If she heard, she would accuse him of not paying attention. But he couldn’t talk to her without something happening in the background, just as he knew she had something bubbling away on the stove while she spoke. “Not for no reason. What happened?”

“I thought I would ask you the same question.”

“Me?”

“Mm.” Damir’s mother heaved a great sigh. She must be sitting at the kitchen table with the knife in her hand and something in need of chopping before her, her glasses on a countertop, where she’d forget about them and then search the whole apartment when she noticed their absence from her head. “Damyasha. The boy on your team?”

Dismay and homesickness flooded Damir in equal measure. He thought of himself as Tatar more than Russian most times, a member of a disparate group more than a person tethered to a certain location by birth. But hearing the nickname took him back to the tall apartment building, the narrow hallways, the icy winters, the happy fluent mix of languages surrounding him at all times.

How was it possible to miss a place he hated living in so much?

“You saw,” he said and wondered what she thought. He’d wondered what she thought about these things for a long time.

“I saw. He is your friend?”

Damir paused for a long moment. If he confirmed it, would she take it to mean they were more than friends? If he denied it, would she think him as full of hatred as so many Americans assumed a Muslim must be? “He’s staying in my spare room.”

“Hm.”

She was silent for so long that Damir watched the TV just to have something to occupy his brain. None of the good sports were on at this time of day. There was only a repeat broadcast of last night’s opening of the Darts World Championship, where two middle-aged men with beer bellies faced off while hundreds of drunken fans sang an off-key rendition of a British crowd chant. Damir should have gone into darts. He could eat as much butter and pastry as he liked, and the fans were largely too busy getting wasted to be assholes. They might still be homophobes, but they’d let a woman compete at some point, so maybe they weren’t quite as bigoted. Anyway, then he could choose his own walk-in music instead of the bullshit the team admins chose. He’d have so much fun if he got to choose what song played when he skated out onto the ice.

He’d still want to be on the ice, though, not in front of a dartboard.

“Is he all right?”

“Kilian?” Damir snorted. “Of course not. He won’t talk to me, but he’s not doing well.”

“You are taking care of him.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Someone has to,” Damir muttered, aware of his own defensive tone, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying it either.

“Hm,” Mama said again. Was she going to tell him off? Remind him what was at stake in Russia if he was too careless in America? “You know who I ran into the other day?”

“Who?” Damir asked on autopilot.

“Masha, you know, from your school.”

Off the top of his head, Damir remembered four girls at his school who went by the nickname Masha. “Mm-hm.”

“She was telling me all about your friend, Sasha, you know, the one who stays at your house sometimes. He proposed to her last month. It sounded very romantic, a bit much if you ask me. The wedding is next summer. Are you invited?”

Damir swallowed dryly. “I don’t think so. He doesn’t have my American address, though, so if I am, the invitation will be at the Moscow house.”