He doesn’t take his eyes off the game. “Okay. Is Tim coming for dinner?” At school, Josh has to call him Mr. Reese, which makes him giggle, but at home, he’s just Tim.

“Josh…” I slide a few inches closer to him. “Margie told me you were asking some questions about Tim.”

Josh pauses his game and throws the controller to the side. I don’t know what he’s thinking. He probably thinks Tim is my boyfriend, just like Margie does. I’m going to have to set him straight. I’m not sure if the truth will disappoint him or if he’ll be relieved.

“Well,” he says, “I was wondering…”

“Yes?”

He takes a deep breath. “Is Tim my dad?”

I feel like I just got punched in the gut. I had no idea whatsoever that he had been thinking that. “Josh…”

“Because you knew him from before you moved away,” Josh points out. “And you were really close. And also, he’s really nice…”

He’s looking up at me with a hopeful expression on his face. I wish more than anything in the world I could tell him that Tim is his father. I wish Tim were his father. Or that his father were a decent human being who there was some chance in hell I could possibly end up with… or at least allow my son to spend a few minutes in his company.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” I say. “Tim isn’t your dad.”

Josh looks crushed. He looks so sad that a tiny part of me wishes I had just lied about it and dealt with the consequences later. But of course, I couldn’t do that. I had to tell him the truth.

I start to put my arm around him, but the doorbell rings, echoing through the house. When Josh hears it, he grabs his Nintendo controller and restarts his game. “I just want to finish this level before dinner,” he says.

“Josh,” I say, “I want to talk to you more about this… I know you’re disappointed…”

“No, I’m not.” His eyes are back on the TV screen. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Fine. There’s no chance of competing with Nintendo, so I may as well answer the door. Of course, it’s almost certainly Tim, having arrived for dinner. I should just give him a key. Not in a relationship kind of way, but in the kind of way that you give your neighbor a spare key. Like for if I get locked out or something. I mean, the only other person who has the key is Margie, and she lives all the way in the next town.