Archive of Our Own

When Shane was six, he came up to Yuna after practice one day looking like a tiny thundercloud.

“What’s got you making that face, baby?” she soothed, kneeling to pull him into a hug.

“DeShawn got in trouble today,” he told her. “They said he was too rough with me. And nobody is listening when I tell them it isn’t any rougher than anyone else plays.”

Yuna’s heart broke. She had always known she’d have to have this discussion someday, but it didn’t make it any easier. “Let’s go home, okay? We’ll talk in the car.”

She buckled Shane into his booster seat and got into the driver’s, desperately trying to think of the most child-friendly way to explain racism. Finally, as she pulled the car out of the parking lot, she said, “People pick up ideas from the world around them, based on the media and the people they know. Sometimes those ideas aren’t kind. But a lot of the time, this is happening at a level where they aren’t consciously aware of it, so it’s hard to convince them they’re wrong.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hmm. You know how when the doctor hits your knee with the rubber hammer, it makes your leg kick, even though you didn’t mean to?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s happening below the level of where you had to think about it. This is kind of like that.” The perfectionist in Yuna complained at the comparison of subconscious beliefs to a normal reflex controlled entirely by the spinal cord, but it was the best she had at hand. “One of those ideas is that black men are violent. People think that, but a lot of the time, they don’t know they think that. So they see DeShawn acting like any other kid, but they build it up in their heads and they think they’re seeing him being too rough.”

“Because he’s black.”

“Yes.”

“That’s messed up.”

“It is,” she agreed. “It’s important that you pay attention to your own thoughts, baby, so those ideas don’t win. You knew, today, that DeShawn wasn’t treating you any different than the other kids were, and I’m so proud of you for that. And you need to keep doing it forever, okay? When you find yourself thinking that a black man was doing something violent, you have to ask yourself if he was really doing anything different, or if it’s those ideas talking.”

“Can we tell Coach he’s letting the ideas win?” Yuna couldn’t help but smile at that. She loved her kid so much.

“It’s not usually that easy, baby. People don’t like to hear that they’re letting the ideas win. They get defensive about it. Even mean. A lot of times, you end up in a worse place than you started. When to have those conversations and when not to is a thing you’ll get better at knowing as you get older.”

Shane was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said quietly, “Did it have something to do with me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Coach said Shane can’t handle that kind of play. Was it me?”

Yuna’s heart broke again. She took a deep breath. “It might not mean anything. He might just have said that because you were the one there.”

“But it might have been something else?”

Her kid was so smart. She was so lucky. Even if it meant she had to have conversations that felt like pulling her own teeth out.

“Another one of those ideas is that Asian boys are supposed to be more into math and science than sports, that you aren’t as tough. So Coach might also be thinking that you need more looking out for than you do, on the ice.” She pulled into the driveway and parked the car. Finally, she could turn around and look at Shane for the first time in the conversation. He looked sort of solemn, and a little angry still.

“It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not. It’s not, honey. Believe me, I hate it just as much as you do.” She got out and unbuckled Shane, pulling him into a hug. “We have to work twice as hard to get what they have, and it’s not fair at all.”

When Shane was a teenager, Yuna sat him down after dinner and said, “Honey, we should talk about whether you want to continue to Juniors.”

“Not this again,” groaned Shane. “Of course I want to continue to Juniors, why is everyone so surprised by that?”

“Your coaches are surprised because deep down they still think Asian boys should go to college and be math majors, and your teammates are surprised because they assume your mother will make you,” said Yuna frankly. “I’m asking because I want to make sure you’ve actually thought this through.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you go to Juniors, your high school education falls by the wayside. That’s just how it works. You’ll miss half your classes because you’re on roadies, do half your homework because you’re exhausted from the amount of time you’re spending on the ice, and there won’t be any consequences unless you decide at the end of it all that you actually do want to go to college, and then it’ll be a damn nutroll trying to get a good application together. If you go to Juniors, you’re saying you want to play hockey professionally. And honey, if that’s what you want, I will make it happen. But I need to know that you know the choice you’re making. You can still play without doing Juniors. You can do NCAA and try to get scouted from college while you get your degree.”

Shane was quiet, and she patted him on the shoulder and left him to his contemplation.

A few hours later, he came to her and said, “I’m sure. I want to do Juniors, and I want to play MLH.”

“Okay, baby. Then you’ll go to Juniors, and you’ll play MLH.”

Some years later, Yuna read through probably thirty or forty resumes before she went to Shane and asked if it would be a problem if she managed his career herself.

“What do you mean?” He gave her that same cocked-head expression he’d given her all his life.

“I just don’t trust anyone else,” she confessed. “If I’m being a helicopter parent, if you want to keep your mother and your career separate, you can tell me, okay? And I’ll shut up and pick one. It’s just—most of these people are white, for one thing, and they aren’t going to understand how much more important your image is than for any other player, how easy it would be for the League and the public to demonize you over something every other player gets forgiven for, or that you’re going to be a role model whether you like it or not. They’re not going to realize that it’s crucial that you never come off as anything other than a gentleman or everything could fall apart from underneath you.”

“We have to work twice as hard to get what they have, I know.” He smiled at her, a fond one, but which Yuna thought contained a hint of “my mother is catastrophizing again.”

“And of the ones who aren’t—are they going to understand how literal-minded you are and get how to make sure no one takes advantage of you?”

“Okay, now you’re starting to sound like a helicopter parent,” he teased. “I’m not that bad. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Will they care enough to make sure you’re comfortable?” Yuna continued, determined to get her entire thought process out. “And I know, I know that your safety and happiness is never going to matter to anyone as much as it does to me. Because you’re my son. I’ve been your advocate. I will always be your advocate.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “But it’s up to you.”

“If it’s important to you, of course I don’t mind,” he said. “But isn’t it going to be too much work? It’s not like I can pay you.”

“If it gets to be too much, I promise I’ll look into other options. And when you go first round in the draft, I’ll just quit my job and start paying myself out of your salary.” She smiled at him to telegraph the joke, and he laughed and bumped her shoulder with his companionably.

And so for more than a decade of his life, Yuna Hollander employed herself as her own son’s manager. She studied legalese to understand contracts. She sought out sponsorships, advertising deals, more than any other player had, because career-ending injuries and unfair scandals didn’t care if you didn’t have a backup plan, and if Shane was going to go around building houses with his MLH salary, she would make sure there was a nest egg he wasn’t touching.

In every other respect, he made it easy. He was such a good kid, always had been, always did his best to be polite even if he couldn’t quite fake enthusiasm. He thrived in the MLH, where the players were used to looking past his stiffness and seeing the brilliant playmaker underneath. Where his schoolmates had found him off-putting, here they gave him the C in just a few short years. He rarely got into fights, but kept his head down and focused on beating the other team with sheer skill. He was never crass with women or even so much as got caught making an off-color chirp. And really, building a cottage specifically designed to make him comfortable and happy wasn’t such a ludicrous expense. He could be out buying sports cars like Ilya Rozanov. Shane’s “Fortress of Solitude” barely even needed a press spin. While other athletes were out here getting caught up in cheating scandals, pregnancy scares, doping and worse, Shane was playing like it was the thing he was always meant to do.

It wasn’t that Yuna thought Shane wasn’t listening when she talked about maintaining his image, exactly. It was more that she assumed he didn’t worry about it too much, since the good Canadian boy schtick was barely removed from his actual personality (snark notwithstanding) and he had her to make sure no misunderstandings cropped up in his interactions with sponsors or his GM.

When Shane was well into adulthood, she found out how wrong she was. When her baby walked into her house and told her only under duress that he was gay and in love with Ilya Rozanov, had been fucking Ilya Rozanov for ten fucking years, she wondered if he thought she and his father were homophobic. When he followed her out into the yard to tell her that I tried really hard, she realized that no, Shane was just acutely aware of what this meant for his image and he thought he would disappoint her, that he was letting her down by being less than marketable. For a moment, Yuna hated herself. Somewhere in all this, she had forgotten that she needed to say the point out loud.

Later, when she got her thoughts together, she told him, “You know you don’t need to be perfect for me, don’t you?” She really thought he didn’t, but she was going to pretend for both of them. “You’re already perfect, because you’re my son, and nothing’s going to change that.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and buried his face in her sweater, and she clung back.

“Even if I’m with Ilya fucking Rozanov?” he joked weakly. She laughed.

“Even then. Just give me a little time to get my head on straight with that one, okay? You threw a lot of curveballs at me today. Shh, no sorries.”

“I didn’t want to,” he said anyway.

“It’s my job as your mother to handle your curveballs, let alone your manager. Honey, if you make a mistake—and I don’t want you to think I mean liking men is a mistake, or even your taste in men, I don’t—I want you to know you can come to me, okay? No matter what. I don’t want you to stress yourself out more worrying about what I’m going to think. Whatever happens, we’ll figure it out. The point is for you to be as happy and safe and well cared for as possible, because you’re my son and I love you more than anything.”

“What happened to ‘we have to work twice as hard to get what they have’?”

“Do you want what they have?”

“What do you mean?” Finally, he pulled away, far enough to look at her again.

“Most MLH players don’t have boyfriends who are also MLH players, so your happy ever after already looks a little different.”

He just blinks at her, confused or maybe just unconvinced.

“Baby. If someday you want to come out, your reputation takes a hit. I know you know this.” He nodded, staring at his hands. “But if that’s what you want, if you decide that matters more than your job security, then I’m right there with you. You’ve decided loving Ilya is worth the risk of something getting leaked, so I will have your back. Okay?”

He bit his lip and nodded. “I really love you, Mom.” She barely had a chance to smile fondly before he added, “I wish Ilya had something like this.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t want to get into the details behind his back, but I don’t think anyone has ever supported him like you support me.”

Well. She may have to learn to like Ilya Rozanov a little faster than she’d planned.