Realistic or Modern A Happy Family ( Жизнь лжи ) - Characters

[october sunrise]

Vera Pavlov
[ Solstice Avignon ]
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At thirteen years old, Vera Pavlov is a very bright girl, with a laugh that fills up a room and a heart that's maybe a little too forgiving. Star of her middle school track team, talented ballerina and violinist, and a straight A student, Vera is the envy of many of her peers, but is generally such a cheerful, friendly sort of person that none of them can really hold it against her. Armed with a bubbly attitude and an unwavering confidence that only comes from being raised with love, Vera is the sort to invite the new kid to sit at her lunch table and stick up for the underdog. Despite her warm disposition, however, she does have a snarky streak, though it only comes out under certain circumstances--loyal to a fault, most of these circumstances involved people that she cared about being demeaned or mistreated--and her ability to dole out scathing remarks endlessly shocks her peers. As does her rather dark and cynical sense of humor, since she generally comes across as an innocent, flowers-and-rainbows sort of girl. A noticeable downside to Vera's unshakable confidence is that she can be a little domineering, with a tendency to take control of situations and boss others around, though she does make a conscious effort to do it as little as possible. Still, she doesn't take well to being bossed around or disrespected, as those who take her kindness as a sign that she's a pushover learn the hard way.

Vera tans well in the summer and maintains a peachy complexion during the colder months, with a spattering of freckles over her cheeks, the bridge of her nose, and the tops of her shoulders. Her golden blonde hair is a mess of wild curls that she struggles to control, hanging down to her mid-back and framing a round, heart-shaped face. Her features are delicate, lips thin and pink and nose a dainty button shape, and have earned many a comparison with porcelain dolls. Her eyes, in her opinion, are her best feature: big and with a distinctly doe-eyed look, they're a warm amber brown in color, framed by long eyelashes. No matter how well she lies, her eyes will always betray how she really feels. They're the windows to her soul, to be sure. There's a very distinctive birthmark on her left inner elbow, which her best friend Esperanza is prone to blowing raspberries on. Build wise, she's in a bit of an awkward stage, standing a little taller than the rest of the girls her grade at 5'6. Her limbs are long and lined with lithe muscle from her involvement in ballet and track, with small feet and hands with long, slender fingers. In spite of her gangling physique, however, she's widely considered to be a pretty young girl.

All of her life, Vera has been raised exclusively by her single father, Dmitry. She asked only once about her mother, and decided not to do it again when she saw how it pained him to talk about it, explaining that she had been a bad woman who had hurt them both, so Dmitry had taken Vera and run away to give her a better life. The absence of a mother figure never did Vera any harm, however, as her father was the most dedicated parent she could have asked for. He always sat down to help her with any homework she struggled with, never missed a single recital or track meet, and read her as many bedtime stories as she needed to drift off. Although they were far from wealthy, he made sure Vera never went without, and the two have a very tight, unique sort of bond that many of her friends have bemoaned they don't have with their parents. Never once has Vera had any reason to question her father's story, but undoubtedly, everything would change if she knew the truth: she isn't Dmitry's daughter at all. If she knew that Dmitry snatched her from the maternity ward, leaving her real family grieving the disappearance of their new baby girl, and fabricated a whole new life for the two of them, who knows how she'd handle the life-altering reveal.

 

[october sunrise]

Dmitry Pavlov
[ Kirill Lamovsky ]
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Kirill Lamovsky is an ex-figure skater with a history of crime in his teenage years that he isn't too proud of. His mother spent more time drinking than he did parenting and his father was never in the picture, so he turned to mischief to get any attention at all, even if it were negative. He has a few DUIs to his name, is notorious for getting into fights, and has stolen his fair share of other people's belongings. After graduating high school, though, Kirill discovered a passion for ice skating, and having that to keep himself busy stopped the cycle of all the crime. He never made it big in the sport, but it was still a hobby he fell in love with. He finally felt like his life had purpose but this would all change when he faced an injury at 22-years-old and was told he'd have to stop skating for good. Not being able to skate and having wasted away most of his youth, Kirill became depressed and lost. He didn't know what to do with himself. He always wished he had a good family, though, which lead him to the idea of trying to adopt. He wanted nothing more than to give a child the life he couldn't have due to his negligent parents. But his history of crime came back to haunt him and he was denied the option of adopting.

He tried his luck at having a surrogate mother, but was still deemed unfit to become a parent due to his past. He left the hospital absolutely devastated and had a moment of sheer madness while passing by the maternity ward. An unattended baby was staring right at him and it felt as if it were fate that they had saw each other. Or at least that's what Kirill told himself as he left with the baby. For the next 13 years, Kirill lives under the name "Dmitry Pavlov" and plays the part of a perfect parent. He loves his daughter, Daisy, more than words could describe and even fits in well with their local community. He tells Daisy that her mother was abusive and that's why they have no contact with her. He's been too consumed with parenting to date anyone else anyways, but if he did, he's more attracted to men than women. But that's something he'd rather not discuss with his daughter, and he's glad he's never had a reason to.

Physically, 'Dmitry' is a lanky man, standing at about 6'3, and being on the thinner side. He has shoulder length, wavy brunette hair with speckles of grey at the roots, and luckily for him, he also has a freckled, pale complexion. His eyes are bright blue, though he tells Daisy that her mother had brown eyes and blonde hair, to avoid any suspicions. His facial features are defined, his cheekbones being prominent, and his nose slightly pointed. He often dresses in darker clothing, long cardigans, turtlenecks and black boots being his favorite staples to wear.

 

[october sunrise]

The Avignons & Chief Harbour
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Marcel and Celeste Avignon had their lives entirely together, and to most outsiders, appeared to be the perfect, Barbie-and-Ken sort of couple. With their matching golden blonde hair and radiant smiles, precocious son Emilien, and tendency to throw enjoyable little garden parties in the backyard of their pretty, perfectly manicured house, it wasn’t hard to see why. While they were, for the most part, as happy as they appeared, their life was not as idyllic as it seemed. Marcel was work-obsessed, and though he deeply loved both his wife and son, he tended to neglect them in favor of his work. When Celeste found out she was pregnant again when Emilien was five years old, she was ecstatic to find that Marcel was properly paying her attention again, pampering and doting on her and the bundle of joy growing in her stomach. For nine perfect months, everything was as wonderful as they seemed from the outside...but it was not to last. After Solstice's birth, a long, arduous, and premature one, Celeste made Marcel swear to stay with Solstice at the maternity ward, insisting she had an bad feeling in her gut. To soothe her worrying, Marcel agreed, lingering outside the glass window for approximately twenty minutes before his phone rang--an important call from work. Glancing in at Solstice and telling himself Celeste was just being paranoid, he walked off to take the call, figuring that nothing could possibly happen in the few minutes away. He returned to find the door ajar, and his baby girl gone.

In the aftermath of Solstice's disappearance, the once seemingly flawless relationship fell to shambles. Marcel, wrought with guilt over allowing the tragedy to occur, especially after promising Celeste that he'd keep an eye on her, slipped into alcoholism. He did everything he could to make up for his one fatal error, but Celeste, an emotional wreck, pulled almost entirely away from him. The final thread holding their marriage together was Emilien, too young at the time to understand what happened or why nobody was happy anymore. It wasn't until he got older that he began to understand why the younger sister he'd waited for never came home, and even after the police officially closed the case, he never let it fade into obscurity, making websites and sticking up posters with a righteous fire in his eyes. He'd never let the tragedy that tore his family apart be forgotten, and if it was the last thing he did, he was going to find out what happened to his little sister.

It was Emilien's persistence and fury that encouraged Officer James Harbour to reopen the case when he was made Chief of Police. A broad shouldered, dark haired man in his forties with seemingly permanent stubble and dark brown eyes, he was a long time family friend of the Avignons. He'd known Celeste since high school and was actually Emilien's godfather, and as such, he had mourned with them when Solstice disappeared from the maternity ward. It never felt right to him that the case was dropped so quickly, and it tore him apart to watch his dear friends sink into their despair and self-destructive habits, so he took it upon himself to start the search up again, and, with the aid of eighteen year old Emilien, plans to learn the truth of what happened to Solstice after her disappearance.

 

[october sunrise]

Esperanza Santos
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Esperanza is, without question, the closest friend that Vera has ever had. They met in the second grade, when Esperanza's family moved to town, and she and Vera immediately got on like a forest fire. Esperanza was a little spitfire, with a wild mess of pitch black curls and intense dark eyes, band-aids on her knees and dirt under he nails, and Vera, equally bold but softer around the edges, took to her immediately. Now, in middle school, they're still attached at the hip. They run track together, sleep over at each other's homes almost every other night, and know each other's family as well as they know their own. There likely isn't anyone else who support the girls' aspirations and dreams more than each other; Esperanza goes to every single one of Vera's ballet recitals, bearing a bouquet she begged her mother to buy, and Vera is absolutely convinced that Esperanza is going to be a famed artist one day. It's rare to see one without the other, always laughing and whispering amongst themselves, signing little sticky note letters Espie and Vee.

Unbeknownst to anyone, they've kissed in secret, but only once. For practice. Though both pulled back scoffing, going on about how it wasn't anything special and they didn't see what all the fuss was about, they were both flushed ruby red, and both have spent more time than they care to admit thinking about the kiss.

It was actually Esperanza's mother, Leticia, that made the fateful call to the police. She'd had Vera over to play in their pool often enough to have noticed the birthmark on Vera's left inner elbow, and had even joked around with the girls when Vera was little, rambling off increasingly bizarre things that the birthmark looked like. When she watched the news one evening and heard about the missing baby, she felt pity for the family for the suffering they endured and the same surge of relief and affection every parent feels upon being made privy to such a tragedy and knowing it wasn't something they'd had to experience, but nothing more. It wasn't until they mentioned an identifying birthmark on the baby's inner elbow that Leticia felt her blood run cold. Many a time she'd curiously noted the lack of resemblance between Vera and Dmitry, but had never thought anything of it. Now, perhaps, it made a disturbing amount of sense. She hesitated to call the police--perhaps she was overreacting. Maybe it was a coincidence? She knew Dmitry well through their daughters' close friendship, and couldn't imagine him to be capable of such an act. But then, she figured, if her suspicions proved to be false, then Dmitry and Vera would not face any consequences except an interview with police, and since she doubted her name would be mentioned as the person who called them in, their relationship with her wouldn't suffer. So, just to be safe, she reported them to the authorities.

When she found out three days later from Esperanza that she hadn't seen Vera and couldn't get in contact with her, she realized, horror washing over her, that her suspicions had been right after all, and her daughter's best friend--the little girl she'd watched grow up, the little girl she'd loved as one of her own--was actually a child stolen from her birth family, and raised under a lie.

 

[october sunrise]

+ Sammy Atwood

 

[october sunrise]

+ Ellis Atwood