1979
"I had a brief affair some years back" she admitted grimly. "But I swear it's long over."
"Like you swore to be faithful on our wedding day?" Alan's eyes glistened with unshed tears, and his face was red with rage. "So Charlie isn't mine, is he?"
Suddenly, the phone rang and she answered it. After listening for bit, she told Alan, "It's your father, he just had a heart attack." Alan ran to get dressed, and Margaret got the name of the hospital. Then, she called her mother to come watch the kids.
2005
As he made dinner, Alan found himself haunted by those nude sketches of that man in Margaret's notebook. The drawing had brought it all back.
"Dad?" Don interupted his thoughts. "You okay?"
"Yeah yeah, just thinking"
"Where's Charlie?"
"In the solarium" Alan said. " Tell him that dinner will be ready soon"
Don saw Charlie working at his laptop.
"Dad said to tell you that Dinner will be ready soon."
"Did you ask him about the drawing?" Charlie figured that Don, being a trained and experianced F.B.I agent, could better get the information from Alan.
"No!"
"Aren't you just the little bit curious?"
"I've got more important things on my mind" Don snorted.He didn't want to share his theory with Charlie.
1979
Soon, Margaret's mother came.
"The kids are asleep, and I'll call when I can" Margaret said. Then she and Alan left.
The couple drove to the hospital in silence. Their focus was on Alan's father right now. By the time they arrived at the right waiting room, Alan's brother, Robert, and his wife, were there. Thankfully, the heart attack was mild and Alan's father was released from the hospital after a few days, with a strong medical admonishment to eat healthier and exercise.They had a serious conversation about their marriage, once it was seen that his fatherwould recover from his first heart attack.
"What of us?" she asked him tenatively.
"I don't know" he told her. "How can I trust you again?"
"I'll work to reearn your trust"
"I just need time" Alan still loved Margaret, and didn't want the kids to live through a divorce. Charlie didn't ask to be the product of an affair any more than he asked to be a prodigy. Despite what Alan now knew, he still cared for the little boy, who needed a father in his life.
Eventually, Alan agreed to try to make things work and the couple went into marital counseling.
2005
"I can't believe Don doesn't want to find out about the drawing!" Charlie said with exasperation to his friend Larry, at the latter's office on Friday.
"Charles," Larry began. "Some things are not meant to be known" He, like Amita and Don, figured that perhaps a woman had given Alan the drawing.
"What are you saying, Larry?"
"Perhaps your brother has his reasons for not pressing the matter" Larry knew that Don would also think that a woman was responsible for the drawing.
"Like what?"
1980
Alan found out the identity of Charlie's father one Sunday as he read the paper. After looking at the sports section, he switched over to the arts section and on the first page, saw a large picture of the man Margaret had drawn in the nude. Shocked, he choked on his coffee. Apparently, his name was David Lev and he was a rather well known artist.
"Dad?" Donnie asked with worry. Charlie was too busy staring at his cheerios. Margaret was with a sister, who had just given birth.
"I'm fine, Donnie. Eat your breakfast" Alan said, then thought wryly, "You sure know how to pick'm, Margaret"
2005
"Any uh..number of reasons" Larry sidestepped the question
"Like what?" Charlie repeated.
"I've got a class" Larry said tenatively and tried to leave.
"Your next seminar isn't for an hour!" Charlie began to get impatient.
1980
"The Cheerios aren't made in a perfect circle" Charlie said suddenly.
"That sure doesn't stop you from eating them" Alan teased.
Later that day, Don's little league team had a game.Charlie and Alan went to see him. The latter hoped that maybe, just maybe, Donnie could get a baseball schlarship. It looked to him like Charlie was going to college sooner rather than latter.
2005
"Larry..." Charlie said in a warning tone. After some more badgering, Larry finally told him.
"Perhaps, at ..some level" Larry began, as his gestures became twitchier. "Your brother thinks that a woman drew the sketch."
"Why would he think that?" Charlie, despite his brilliance, could be clueless.
"Because the drawing might have been for your father" Larry gently finished in a whisper.
1981
"Donnie, where's your brother?" Margaret asked one summer's day.
"He's practicing basketball." Donnie said. Alan had given Charlie a mini basketball hoop for Christmas.
"Tell him that it's time for lunch"
"Okay" Don reluctantly got up from the couch. He went outside to find Charlie doing some freethrows.
"Mom says that it's time to eat lunch."
"Okay" Charlie kept throwing baskets, but Donnie got the ball from him.
"Come on! Mom'll blame me if you stay out here." Donnie said with annoyance.
"Gimme the ball!" Charlie tried to get it from him. As Donnie teased him with the ball, Margaret got a call, from David.
"Hi! Remember me?" the man tried to sound casual. He had recently seen Margaret at the park with Charlie and Don. Given the younger boy's age, he could not help but wonder.
"Wrong number!" Margaret hung up before he could ask the inevitable question. She sat down to calm herself. It had beensurreal to hear his voice again after a few years.
2005
"What?" Charlie finally grasped what his friend meant and his troubled face showed it. "That's impossible. Dad would never..."
"Maybe all they did was talk" Larry said quickly.
"Could you give me a ride?" Charlie asked.
1981
David called again the next day, while Alan was at work.
"Margaret..don't hang up!"
"He was born eleven months after we broke it off! Stop calling me!" she insisted from the phone in her bedroom.
"I'm gonna sue for visitation rights, Margaret!" He threatened and was angry that she had kept the boy from him. He, at this point, had a one year old daughter. His wife supported his trying to gain access to the boy.
"How are you gonna prove that he's yours?" she asked sardonically. "It's not as if there is some special test that you and he could take to prove your paternity and if it did exist, it would come out negative!"
"Let's meet and you can show me his birth certificate" he suggested.
"I dont' have anything to prove!" she hung up on him again.
2005
"Do you think Dad cheated on mom?" Charlie demanded from a startled Don, who did paperwork.
"What would I think that?"
"Isn't that why you don't wanna ask him about the sketch?"
"Charlie, calm down" Don said. "All I think is that maybe, Dad chatted with some woman one day, when he took me to the park, and she drew him the sketch. He then put it in the garage to avoid having problems with mom."
1981
David went to see a lawyer that afternoon and explained the situation.
"Do you have any witnesses to the fact that you two were in a sexual relationship?" he asked him.
"She was and still is married, so we had to be discreet" David said, then asked. "What about blood typing?"
"It's not totally reliable."
"If there was only some special test that could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that I was his father..." David remembered what Margaret had said.
"My job would be so much easier!" the lawyer nodded. "But as things stand now, it's easy for a man to avoid parental responsibility, but much harder to gain it."
"So there's nothing I can do?"
"We can try." the lawyer said. "Are you sure that there is no one who can testify to your involvement with this woman? A clerk at some motel? A server at a favorite restaurant?"
"We mostly met at my studio or home."
"Do you have any assistants, who might have seen her come to visit?"
"I don't use assistants"
"What about someone who might have seen her car parked near where you live or your studio?"
"She made a point to park two blocks away."
After several weeks of worrying, Margaret did not get served, nor did David call again. She breathed a sigh of relief.
TBC