One way or another, Ilya gets some of his childhood items back (presumably from Svetlana).
The items are things ranging from grocery receipts with Irina's rushed handwriting on the back to a faded copy of his birth certificate, a note and an old, yellowed at the edges photo of her and Ilya, with him tucked against her side and smiling. He looks a lot like her, same hair, same nose and bright eyes, same bright and blinding smile only contracted by the barely perceptible grey in Irina's gaze. Among these things is Irina's note to him, slipped in between the cover and an elastic band of her notebook. Ilya knows the note by heart, even if he hasn't seen it in many years, he knows it best by the torn edge made by him trying to hastily shove it in his drawer at 15 when he'd been expected to be over it, or at least to hide it better. He's never opened the journal. He does now.
Shane sits with him as he pours over the items, gingerly picking them up from time to time and filling in the blank spaces and time frames of his spouse's childhood. The notebook stays on the table for a few hours after everything else has found its place in their home.
It's midnight or later when Shane feels the bed shift and hears Ila’s soft sigh, something heavy for all its quietness. He hears the floor creak, Anya's paws across the wood and the silence that follows her plopping down near Ila’s feet in the living room.
He debates getting up; this is Ilya's life, his memories, but something in his chest withers at not being there again, for the younger version of Ilya that had Svetlana and nobody else to turn to for comfort. He joins Ilya in the living room, grabbing a blanket from beside the couch before quietly sitting down next to him.
The Journal sits on the table, pristine and leather-bound in a deep plum purple. Ila picks it up and opens it, Irina's handwriting scratchier and clunkier than he remembers it. He glances at the date 'November 18th of 1981" he does the math. It makes her sixteen, newly sixteen, her birthday only having been a week ago. Her entry is long, she talks about school friends, graduating, skating on the pond, brutal practices and the feel of the skates as they cut through Ice. She talks about her friend, Stefania, about their routine and the way they swap hair accessories and gossip. The entries continue through the years, her handwriting becomes more defined and the writing moves away from figure skating from friends and schoolmates and by the time Ila is born, her penmanship is smooth, expected of a woman married to his father. In one of the last entries, Stefania is mentioned, with two paragraphs dedicated to her. She talked to Stefania in person. They met in a quiet shop tucked away from the noise of Moscow. She writes about their conversation. Stefania is leaving, leaving for England and never looking back. Irina describes the meeting as pleasant, something she'll miss almost as much as her sons.
Ilya stops reading that entry then and there. He moves to something else, to the letters she wrote to Ilya and his brother. He doesn't go back to her fourth to last entry, not until he's made a piece with the rest of it. He finishes the entry containing Irina's recap of her favorite memories with Stefania, of her goodbyes to her best friend tinged with something he hates that he's able to name.
Between this entry and the other final three, there are two blank pages with a photo tucked into them. In the photos there is Irina, the same curls, same smile, brighter eyes and wearing a dress implied for going out. The photo is dated March 18th, 1984. Irina is twenty-two years. Standing next to Irina with an arm around her shoulder and smiling wide is Stefania, dark brown with almost straight black hair. Her eyes are a warm, amber brown, and she's only half paying attention to the camera. Underneath the photo in Irina's handwriting and what must be Stefania's, are the words "From Soul to Soul".
