Alek sat the way a king sits, but he sat. Rhea climbed into the chair beside him. Her eyes flicked to the leather patch over his bad eye, then away. She set the tip of the pastel to his temple on the opposite side, careful, deliberate, and drew a single small black star. Nowhere near the patch. She patted his other cheek once, gentle.
"You look cool," Rhea said.
"Thank you," Alek said. His voice was lower than usual.
"He's going to keep it on forever," Lily whispered to me behind her hand. "I know that face. He is keeping it."
Ivan was last, because Ivan was always last in any situation involving fun. He sat with the air of a man volunteering for surgery. Rhea chewed her lip. She picked up the pink pastel. Ivan saw the pink pastel.
"No," Ivan said.
"Yes," Rhea said.
She painted a tiny pink flower on his cheekbone. Five petals. Yellow center. The smallest, most masculine, least Ivan thing on the face of the earth. Mikhail had to turn away so he would not die laughing. He failed. He died laughing into his own elbow.
Jade had her phone up already. She lifted it.
"Smile," Jade ordered.
Mikhail made a face like he was being stabbed. Ivan glared into the lens hard enough to crack the glass. Alek looked at his sister-in-law the way a man looks at someone holding a loaded weapon when he has not yet decided what to do about it. Daniil, with his small red heart and his glittery pink hat, was the only one fully smiling, and he was smiling like a man at his own wedding.
The shutter clicked.
"I had not realized," Daniil said, deadpan, glancing around at his brothers, "my brothers do not like fun."
"This is not the fun I like," Mikhail shot back. "The fun I like has whiskey in it. And no pink."
"Games," Lily announced, clapping her hands.
She produced a Pin the Tail on the Donkey poster, a roll of blindfolds, and a piece of paper she informed us was the trivia round. Sienna produced a packet of balloons and announced the relay. The dining room became a chaos zone in which four grown men with face paint and party hats were ordered into competition by their wives.
Pin the Tail went first. Mikhail volunteered. Sienna blindfolded him with enthusiasm. He turned three times, walked confidently the wrong direction, and stuck the tail on a wall sconce.
"I won," Mikhail announced, blindfold still on.
"You lost," Ivan said flatly.
"I won at a different game," Mikhail said.
Ivan went next, because Jade pushed him into it. He grumbled through the blindfold and the spin. He walked four steps. He stuck the tail on. He took the blindfold off. The tail was, somehow, exactly where it was supposed to be.
The room went silent.
"How," Mikhail said, staring.
"I do not know," Ivan said, looking at his own work like it had insulted him.
"He has not even tried to play," Sienna said to Jade, "and he won."
"He is incapable of losing," Jade said proudly. "It is a flaw. I am working on it in therapy. His, not mine."
Trivia was Lily's invention. The wives knew absurd things. Daniil's favorite bread. Mikhail's first car. Ivan's least favorite vegetable. Which ballet Lily performed when Alek first saw her dance.
Alek, who had not visibly engaged in any of it, answered the last question without lifting his eyes from his coffee.
"Swan Lake," Alek said. "Second cast. Third row, second seat from the aisle. You wore a pale blue ribbon in your hair that night."
Lily went very pink.
