Chapter 7: What Derek Wanted
He was waiting in the parking lot.
Marcus saw him first — a man in a grey jacket leaning against a car that was slightly too clean for the kind of person who borrowed money and never mentioned it again.
Late forties.
Confident in the way that people are confident when they've never been properly held accountable for anything.
Maya stopped walking.
"That's him?" Marcus asked quietly.
"I've only seen one photo," Maya said.
"But yes.
I think so."
Vanessa had gone pale.
Derek saw them and pushed off from the car.
He walked toward them with the easy pace of someone who had decided the day was going to go his way.
"Vanessa." He looked at Maya.
"And this must be the graduate." His eyes moved to Marcus.
Assessed.
Moved on.
"I figured you'd come out this way."
"Derek." Vanessa's voice was locked down tight.
"This is not the place."
"I've been trying to reach you for two years.
The place is wherever I can find you." He smiled.
It didn't reach anything.
"I'm not here to cause trouble.
I just want what's fair."
"Nothing about this involves you," Maya said.
Derek looked at her more carefully.
He had the expression of a person recalibrating.
"You look like your mother," he said.
"Around the eyes."
"A lot of people look like their mothers," Marcus said pleasantly.
"It doesn't mean much."
Derek glanced at him again.
Longer this time.
"Who are you?"
"I'm her father."
Derek let out a short sound.
Not quite a laugh.
"Is that right.
That's a strong claim for a man who hasn't been around."
"I've been around longer than you know," Marcus said.
"I just didn't know I was allowed to be."
"Derek." Vanessa stepped forward.
Her voice had found an edge.
"We have a document.
A paternity result.
From the year Maya was born.
It names Marcus.
It's official.
It's been kept by my mother for twenty-two years.
Whatever you think you have a right to here — you don't."
Derek's jaw moved slightly.
"I'd like to see that document."
"You don't have a right to see it."
"I might have a legal—"
"You don't." Marcus said it simply.
"If you'd like to pursue something legal, you're welcome to.
That's your right.
But you'll be doing it without any cooperation from this family, and you'll be doing it against a twenty-two-year-old verified result with chain of custody documentation from a woman who had no reason in the world to lie."
Derek looked at him.
The easy confidence had shifted slightly.
Just around the edges.
"What do you want, Derek?" Maya asked.
"Actually want.
Say it plainly."
He looked at her.
The recalibration again.
"I wanted to know," he said.
Finally.
Something that might have been the truth.
"I had a right to know."
"You were told no," Maya said.
"More than once, from what I understand.
And you kept pushing." She tilted her head slightly.
"That's not about rights.
That's about something else."
"Maya—" Vanessa started.
"Let her talk," Marcus said quietly.
Maya kept her eyes on Derek.
"If the answer had been yes — if you had turned out to be my father — what would you have done?
What was your plan?"
Derek opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"I don't know," he said.
And that was the most honest thing he'd said.
"Right," Maya said.
"Then go home.
There's nothing for you here."
Derek stood in the parking lot for a long moment.
He looked at Vanessa, who was watching him with an expression that had aged ten years in the last three hours.
He looked at Marcus.
At the stillness of him.
At the lack of threat in it, which was somehow more effective than any threat would have been.
He looked at Maya one more time.
Then he nodded once — not agreeably, but in the way a person acknowledges a wall — and he walked back to his too-clean car.
He didn't peel out.
He didn't make a scene.
He simply drove away, and the sound of his engine faded into the general noise of the afternoon.
The three of them stood in the parking lot.
"I'm sorry," Vanessa said.
Barely above a whisper.
"I'm sorry I let that follow us here.
I should have handled it.
I should have—"
"Vanessa." Marcus's voice was not unkind.
"There are a lot of things that should have happened differently.
We both know that." He paused.
"But today, at least, this part is done."
Maya was still looking at the place where Derek's car had been.
"Is it?" she said.
Not afraid.
Just asking.
Marcus looked at her.
"Do you want it to be?"
She thought about it genuinely, the way she thought about everything — carefully, with her whole face.
"Yes," she said.
"I want to be done with things that were never really about me."
She turned away from the parking lot.
She looked at Marcus.
"Can we go get something to eat?" she said.
"A real meal.
The three of us.
Or just the two of us.
I don't mind either way." She glanced briefly at Vanessa.
"But I want to sit down with you and talk.
Like people who have time."
"We have time," Marcus said.
It was the simplest sentence.
It was also the one that nearly undid him.
"Okay," Maya said.
"Then let's go."
May you like
They walked toward the car together, and this time Vanessa followed a half-step behind — not excluded, not forgiven, but present.
Which was, for now, enough to work with.
