“I think it fell out of your notebook. And it was short. Normally I wouldn’t read something that looked this personal, but I saw it and took it all in before I could even tell what it was.”

This lie also accomplished one of the two things that make a good lie.

“What note?”

Josh knew what note. He had been looking for that note. Dreading his mother would find that note. Hoping he would not have to talk about that note.

Diane would occasionally find notes he had written. This had happened before. Sometimes it was actually happenstance, and sometimes the faceless old woman who secretly lives in their home would move his notes to where Diane would see them because the faceless old woman was bored and found the troubles of others interesting. Always Diane said she believed in his privacy and always she meant it, but also it always happened that she had read the entire note before she realized what it was. This was not a pattern that she was aware of, but it was one that Josh was very familiar with.

“It was a note where you were asking your classmate about a boy. A boy you were interested in.”

Josh started to sigh in relief and stopped himself just as the air was coming out, so that it came out sounding like an exasperated huff. The note was not about a boy, but a man. Here is what it was about the note.

When he was six, Josh had asked his mother who his father was. Diane told him he didn’t have a father. Some kids have fathers and others do not. Josh was one of those other kids.

When he was ten, Josh had asked his mother where his father was, knowing at that age that it was improbable for babies to be born without a biological mother and biological father. Diane told him she didn’t know.

When he was thirteen, Josh had asked his mother who his father was so he could track him down. Diane told him that would not happen. That he was not old enough to go looking for his father yet. When he turned eighteen and was living on his own, not under her roof, he was welcome to do whatever he wanted, but that he’d be much happier not trying to track down a man who didn’t care enough to raise him in the first place.

Diane did not talk much to Josh for a couple weeks after that, except to ask him what time he was coming home and whether he had homework or choir practice or a Boy Scout function. (Josh was only a few tasks away from getting his Blood Pact Scout badge.)