Josh considered his mother to be a nice mother and person. She was kind and she smiled and she gave tender hugs and was concerned with his well-being. Josh also considered his mother to be a difficult mother and person. She was unforgiving and she demanded kindness back and she killed with silence and said sharp but subtle things that cut deeply.

“You still have a lot of maturing to do,” Diane had said to the thirteen-year-old Josh, who was one of the last boys he knew to get through puberty. He had no defense because the only thing worse to a late bloomer than thinking about late blooming is talking about late blooming.

For her part, Diane did not have a good reason for why she wouldn’t tell Josh anything about his father. She didn’t have a good reason for most of what she did. Mostly, she went by what seemed right in the moment, and justified it to herself later, and in this way she was no different than anyone else she knew.

There were times—like that day in the movie theater or after her speeding ticket—when she had wanted to tell Josh about Troy, but the shape of his name felt wrong in her mouth, and the thought of talking about him made her feel dizzy, like she was waking up from a dream that had been almost exactly like her own life and was now trying to differentiate the two. She did not hate Troy. She did not hate anyone. But she just didn’t want to talk about him, and so she didn’t.

At age fifteen, Josh had not asked his mother who his father was. He did not want to upset her, partially for her sake and partially for his.

Instead, Josh wrote that note to a friend of his who knew some people who knew some of the hooded figures who knew an agent from a vague yet menacing government agency who had full access at City Hall. And that agent might be able to get some information on who Josh’s father was.

Now his mother thought it was a note about a boy he liked. She seemed not upset at all, and he wasn’t going to give her any reason to be upset.

“Oh! That note. I wrote that to my friend DeVon,” Josh said, truthfully, before going on to fail at accomplishing either element of a good lie. “His cousin, um, Ty goes to the new charter school on . . . DuBois Road, near Route 800? And DeVon keeps telling me that Ty’s single and really cute, and I said I wanted to meet him, and DeVon is like I’ll see what I can do, and I’m like do you have a picture, and DeVon’s like hold up, I’ll get you one but just wait. Let me see if he’s interested.”

“Did you get a photo?” Diane said.

“Yeah.”

“And?”