2005
"Look, Charlie, I kinda have a full plate right now, so I need to get back to work!" Don used his authoritative tone.
The next day, Charlie cancelled his afternoon classes and went home early to search his father's room, but found nothing that could lead him to any conclusions. Carefully, he tried to put everything back where it was. He scoured the garage and basement a second time, but to no avail.
Again, two days later, he went to visit Don.
"Do you remember mom and dad fighting a lot when you were little?"
"I don't remember back that far" Don sighed.
Finally, Charlie decided ask his father directly.
1981
Two months passed, and David went to visit a P.I, that he hired to help him keep track of Charlie.
"He's a math prodigy, so he gets private tutors coming to the house." the P.I , a former F.B.I agent, reported.
"What makes you think he's a math prodigy?"
"This." the man showed him a picture of Charlie studying an math book that was advanced for someone his age. Then he showed David photos of the tutors coming into the house.
"How's his family life?"
"Good, here's a picture of him at his brother'slittleleaguegame" the P.I took out some other pictures "Here, he's biking with his brother."
He showed the pictures to his wife.
"You were right! He does look like you and your dad!" she told him.
"I can't believe I have to hire a P.I to see my own son!" he sighed.
2005
"Dad, did a woman draw that picture for you?" Charlie asked him that night at dinner.
"Yes" Alan said, as much as he didn't want to. However, he loathed the idea of telling Charlie about Margaret's affair. The mathematican had adored his mother. She was the only one who could understand him. "But it's not what you think!"
"Really?" Charlie's tone grew sharp as did his facial expression.
" On a Saturday, I took your brother to the park, and this woman, sat next to me. We talked for a while, and she made that sketch of Donnie for me. I hid it in the garage, so your mother would not find it"
"Why didn't you just tell me that before?" Charlie asked with doubt.
1981
"Do you really think's it's the best thing to sue for visitation?" David's father, Isaac asked the next day. David was still thinking about doing that.
"He's my son!"
"Why should the boy suffer just because of his parents' indiscretions?" the retired professor realized how devasting the revelation could be to the little boy.
"Dad..."
"Is her husband good to him?"
"He seems to be... but..."
"There's more to being a father than donating sperm." he knew how David was going to finish the sentence.
"I know that dad. That's why I want to take responsibility and be a part of his life!"
"How do you explain to a young boy that the man he calls daddy isn't his father , but a stranger, is?"
"That's a good point" David said grimly.
2005
"You were so close to your mother" Alan said.
"I thought we were getting closer" This bugged Charlie, so he pouted.
"I'm sorry."
"Okay..." thankfully for Alan,Charlie believed him.
1981
"I guess you're right." David continued. "I'll wait until he's older and there exists some test that could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt"
"Like with DNA?"
"DNA?"
"It contains a person's blueprint." Isaac said. "I had a brilliant friend in the biology department of UCLA who claimed that it could someday be used to solve crime."
"How?"
"Here's how he explained it to me. Let's saw a man murders someone, who, during the struggle, scratches him. The dead cells underthe victim's fingernails could contain his DNA. If the police find him, they could do a test to make a match. I'm sure that this could have many applications in family law, making your paternity lawyer obselete. Children get DNA from their parents."
"Is he working on that?" David asked with hope.
"I doubt it. He's a DNA expert, but science is a long way from that. Most of what I just told you are speculations on his part.
2005
Alone in the house, Alan wistfully looked at Margaret's wedding picture, and could feel her presence. So, he began to talk.
"Don't worry, your secret's safe..." he turned to the large photo, as unbeknownst to him, Charlie walked into the living room. Alan was too in the moment to notice. "Charlie will never know about anything. From the first time I held him in my arms, I loved him, and that love never wavered, even when...I found out. "
"Found out what dad?" Charlie demanded with shock. "And what's mom's secret?"
"Charlie!" Alan groaned inwardly and kicked himself. "You're home early."
"Today's my early day!" Charlie glared at his father. "What was mom's secret?"
At that moment, Don came in and could feel the tension.
"What's going on?"
"Mom had a secret!" Charlie told him.
"What?" Don didn't understand.
"I heard Dad talking to Mom's photo. He sa-said th-that he loved me even when he found it out!" The thought that his mother had some deep secret disturbed him to the very core.
Don, right away, knew that that meant. "Oh my God"
1985
Micheal, one of Charlie's tutors, decided to take the boy to the exhibition of an artist, who specialized in geometric art. As the two discussed the various paintings in terms of math, David talked with the artist, who was a friend,but stopped listening, when he saw Charlie.
"David?" the artist doubted that he was paying attention.
"I'm sorry,my mind drifted, you were saying?"
After the artist decided to attend to some collectors, David discretly went closer, but at enough of a distance so that neither Charlie nor the tutor would pay him any notice.David could tell that the boy, in how he spoke to the tutor,had the soul of an artist yet the brain of a mathematician and was happy to see him in person.
2005
Feeling as if someone had punched him in the stomach, Don sat on the couch. Usually, when he found out secrets like this, they involved other people's familes.
"You know mom's secret?" Charlie asked with eyes of bewilderment.
"Well...dad should be the one to tell you" Don gave his father a look that made Alan realize that Don had figured it out.
After some thinking Alan thought he might as well. Don knew it, and there was no way, at this point, to keep it a secret.
1989
David went New Jersey to talk to the new P.I. he had hired the summer before to keep an eye on Charlie. The other P.I had decided to retire a few months ago.
"Your son is taking a full course load at Princeton. Here's the list of his classes, and some pictures."
"So did the whole family go with him?"
"Just his mother. Dad and brother stayed behind."
David thought about what the man said and had an idea.
The next day, the landlady told Margaret that someone had paid her rent for the rest of the school year.
2005
"When Don was little, your mother...uh...had a brief affair.Charlie was born a few months later." he told them in the gentlest way he knew how.
"Noooo!" Charlie interupted. He refused to believe it. "Not mom!"
"Charlie..." Don said softly and put a hand on his brother's shoulder.
After sitting down and some thinking, a pale Charlie asked . "So the..oth...drew the sketch for mom?"
"Yes, Charlie"
"Ho-ow ca-can you be sure that he's my father? Statistically..." Charlie could not continue. He was too upset.
"I just do"Alan said, but emphasized. "That doesn't mean I love you any less!"
The mathematician wasn't listening.Emotionally, he had checked out.
"Don't be angry at your mother, Charlie!" Alan continued. "I forgave her a long time ago!"
Unable to cope, Charlie went to the garage and began to work on P vs. NP. He stood there all night and only took a break to call in and have all his classes cancelled for the next several days.
1990
Little by little,Margaret wired him back the money,via Western Union.
"Can you believe this?" David complained to his father one day. "I just wanted to help."
"What if her husband had found out?" Isaac countered. "It could have caused problems, and it would not be good for the boy."
2005
Around ten in the morning,Alan came in. "I was hoping we could have breakfast and talk"
"Why? So you can lie to me again?" Charlie's voice seeped with anger and cracked with emotion as he roughly put up another board.
"Charlie..."
"Everything you and mom have ever told me has been a lie!" Charlie was almost screaming and his writing took a frantic pace.
"I've always loved you like a son, Charlie!" Alan said. "That's always been true." There's more to being a father than DNA"
"I had a right to know!"
"Charlie..."
"I would rather not enter any conversation right now!"
Sadly, Alan went back into the house.
1991
One day, when Charlie was at class, David decided to pay Margaret a visit , see if maybe he could get her to change her mind, at least maybe get the woman to introduce him as a friend of the family,let him get tutoring from Charlie or something else. Then from there, go towards revealing the truth.
Margaret, of course, turned pale, when she saw who was knocking via the peephole. So, She didn't answer the door.
"You're not the one who wanted your fridge fixed?" David knew how gossipy neighbors could be.
"No! I don't want anything fixed!" she yelled back. "You've got the wrong apartment!"
Sighing, he wrote, on a piece of paper and put it under the door "Couldn't you itnroduce me as someone who needs tutoring, or something?"
"No!" the note back to him read.
"I'll call myself something else, wear a fake moustache" he wrote and put it back under the door.
"No! Leave us alone! Charlie is Alan's son!" the paper returned to him.
With frustration, David desisted, at least for now.
2005
An hour later, Don came to the house to check up on Charlie.
"How's he doing?" he asked Alan somberly.
"Still in the garage"
"I'll go talk to him"
"Before you do, there's something I've got to say." Alan told him.
"Yeah?"
"Don't be angry at your mother" Alan remembered how early in his marriage, he was a bit of an workaholic.
"I'll go see Charlie" Don didn't want to talk about his mother all his feelings were still raw and rather repressed.
1991
The next day, a disapointed David went home to his wife and two children. His daughter was eleven and his son was five.Late at night, the couple talked.
"We were passing notes under the doorway like neighboring prisoners" he grumbled."Because she wouldn't open the door!"
"Did you give her the low key plan?"
"She would have none of it"
"I wonder if her husband knows" she mused.
2005
Soon, he was there.
"Hey buddy!" Don tried to sound cheerful despite how disturbing it was to see Charlie in the state he was in. "How's it going?"
Charlie growled. "You knew about this didn't you?"
"I figured it out like seconds before Dad told us!" Don defended himself.
"I should've been told!" Charlie banged his right fist on the chalk board with rage causing apart of thework on itto be blurred.
"How do you break something like that to a kid?" Don tried to be calm.
"What about when I was an adult?" Charlie snapped.
TBC