Chapter 6: Everything Ruth Knew
They found a small café attached to the university building — round tables, paper cups, the smell of burnt coffee and someone's leftover lunch.
Half the chairs were empty.
A student behind the counter was watching a video on her phone with one earbud in.
It was exactly the right kind of place for an enormous conversation.
Marcus carried two coffees to the table.
Maya had her hands wrapped around a tea she wasn't drinking.
Vanessa had followed them.
She sat across from them both with her bag in her lap and her coat still on, as though she hadn't fully committed to being there.
"Tell me about your grandmother," Marcus said to Maya.
"Tell me what she told you."
Maya looked at her tea.
"She started talking to me about you when I was about sixteen.
Not a lot at first.
Just small things.
She'd say your name sometimes.
Show me a picture she kept in her Bible." She paused.
"When I got older, I started asking more questions.
She said she'd answer them all when the time was right."
"And the time was right three weeks before she passed?"
"She knew she wasn't going to get better." Maya's voice was careful and steady, the voice of someone who had already done their grieving in private.
"She said she wasn't going to leave me without the truth.
She said she'd been carrying it too long and she refused to take it with her."
Vanessa looked at the table.
"She told me about the test," Maya continued.
"She said she was in the room when Mom found out the results.
She said Mom cried for about an hour.
Then she dried her face and made a decision." Maya glanced at her mother.
"She said you sat down and decided that it was easier this way.
That you'd already told Marcus there was someone else, and if the result showed he was the father, it would just make everything harder."
"I was twenty-four," Vanessa said.
Her voice was hollow.
"I know," Maya said.
"Grandma said that too.
She said she tried to argue with you.
She said you wouldn't listen." A beat.
"She also said she never forgave herself for not telling him herself."
Marcus looked down at his coffee.
"She wrote to me once," he said quietly.
"Ruth did.
About a year after Vanessa and I separated.
I always thought it was a condolence note.
Just her being kind."
Maya looked up.
"What did it say?"
"She said—" He stopped.
Thought.
"'Marcus, I hope that one day you will understand how much you were always the right person.'" He paused.
"I thought she meant for Vanessa.
I thought she was talking about the relationship."
Maya's eyes filled.
She blinked it away quickly.
"She meant you were the right person for me," she said.
"I know that now."
A long silence settled at the table.
Not uncomfortable.
The kind that accumulates around things that are too large to rush past.
Vanessa set her bag on the floor.
She pulled her coat off and set it over the chair.
Both small gestures.
An arrival of sorts.
"I want to say something," she said.
Marcus and Maya both looked at her.
"I know there is nothing I can say that fixes what I did.
I understand that.
I'm not going to try to fix it." She kept her eyes on the table.
"But I want you both to know that I never stopped — that I never wanted you to not love her, Marcus.
That wasn't — I didn't take the cards away because I hated you.
I took them away because every time she asked about you, I didn't know what to say.
And it was easier if there was nothing to ask about."
"Easier for you," Maya said.
"Yes," Vanessa said.
"Easier for me.
I know."
Marcus set his cup down.
"Who was on the phone?"
Vanessa looked at him.
"The call.
In the corridor.
Who was it?"
Her hands came together in her lap.
"His name is Derek," she said.
"He was someone I saw briefly.
A few months before you and I separated.
It was — it wasn't serious.
It wasn't anything." She paused.
"But I told you it was him.
When I said there was someone else, I used his name.
I thought that made it more believable."
"And now he's calling you."
"He's been calling me on and off for two years.
He found out that Maya graduated this year.
I don't know how.
He — he has ideas about things."
"What kind of ideas?"
Vanessa looked up.
Her face was tired in a way that had nothing to do with the day.
"He thinks he might be her father," she said.
"He wants a test."
Maya went very still.
Marcus looked at the folded document in his jacket pocket without touching it.
"He's not," Vanessa said quickly.
"I know people say that, but I know.
I knew before the test, I just — I needed to — I wasn't ready to—" She pressed a hand flat on the table.
"He is not her father.
You are.
The document says so.
My mother kept it for twenty-two years because she knew it too."
"But he doesn't know that," Marcus said.
"No."
"And he's not going to stop."
Vanessa's silence was its own answer.
Marcus looked at Maya.
Maya looked back at him.
Something moved across her face — exhaustion, yes, but also something that hadn't been there this morning.
Something with roots to it.
"Then we deal with Derek," she said.
"Together."
It was the first time she had used that word between herself and Marcus.
He heard it.
May you like
She saw him hear it.
"Together," he said.
