Summary:

When he presses the button on the doorbell, he hears the digitally-produced ding-dong echo from inside. There is a tiny box halfway up the adjacent wall that immediately beeps and emits Shane’s voice. “Hey, you can just leave it on the step, thanks.” Ilya presses his nose into the digital doorbell, which he knows to also contain a camera, and says, “Shane.” A pause. “What the fuck.” A brief cacophony of noise that Ilya can hear even from outside the house. The multiple successive thumps of something falling, Shane swearing loudly and the sound of what can only be a hockey game being paused on the television. He opens the door to reveal that he is nap-rumpled, wearing two pairs of socks and carrying a child in his arms. The only really surprising part is that the socks don’t match, though the child is interesting. Ilya takes an impromptu trip to Montreal. There are unforeseen consequences.