“I, the undersigned, request the court grant full and permanent legal parentage—” he stopped, his voice catching on the word permanent.
Behind him, I could see Mom pressing a hand to her mouth on the porch, and past her, Jonah and Lily standing frozen in the doorway, not fully understanding yet but clearly sensing this was the kind of moment you didn’t interrupt.
“Keep going,” I said. “It gets better.”
He didn’t keep reading out loud. He just kept reading, silently, his thumb pressed hard against the edge of the page like he was afraid it might disappear if he let go.
My father’s voice cut through the quiet driveway.
“What is this? Some kind of joke?”
I looked at him for the first time since he’d handed me the keys.
His face had gone somewhere between confused and offended, an expression I’d never actually seen on him before, mostly because I’d never spent enough time around him to catalog his expressions in the first place.
“No,” I said. “It’s the opposite of a joke.”
“You have a father,” he said. “Standing right here.”
“I have a father,” I agreed. “Standing right there. His name’s Marcus.”
“I paid child support for fourteen years,” my father said, his voice rising slightly. “I sent birthday cards. I showed up today.”
“You sent two cards a year,” I said. “Marcus showed up every single Tuesday for two years straight without ever once asking for credit.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” I said. “It’s not. None of this has been especially fair to anyone. I’m just done pretending fair means whoever arrives with the nicer car.”
Something shifted across my father’s face, anger trying to cover something that looked, for just a second, like real hurt.
“I gave you a car,” he said. “Do you understand what that cost?”
“I know exactly what things cost,” I said. “That’s kind of the whole point of everything I just handed him.”
For a second neither of us said anything, the whole driveway holding its breath along with the rest of us.
Mom stepped off the porch and put her hand on my shoulder, the same spot my father had touched a few minutes earlier.
“I think it’s time you left, Vincent,” she said quietly.
