2004

It took another month for Charlie to bring himself to go visit Margaret's grave. Alan dropped him off.

"Call me when you're ready to come home." he told Charlie.

Whenthe professorfirst saw the headstone, he just stared at it. 'Beloved Wife and mother' it said. To Charlie, it seemed to simplistic a way to describe the kind of woman his mother was. To him, she had been a friend and confidant as well as a mom.

"Why did you have to go?" he lamented inwardly, as he got the bottle of polish. However, tears started to flow, before he could open it.

Then, the guilt hit Charlie again.

"I'm so sorry!" he said loudly, to the point of screaming. "You didn't deserve a son like me..!"

He cried himself to exhaustion, then called Alan.

2005

Charlie, abruptly had an idea."Why don't I quickly go to the house, and get you some of my baby photos?"

"I'd love some photos!" David accepted gratefully "You could just scan and email them. Being Margaret's second child, you probably don't have that many to spare"

"Dad's volunteering today!" the professor remembered inwardly, so he said. "Let's go to my house!"

"Okay" David agreed.

Don worried how it would go if they were to run into Alan.

Soon, they arrived . David liked the neighborhood, and was glad that his oldest son had been raised in it.

"I bought it from my Dad a while back" he explained, when they got in. "He was actually gonna sell it!"

"It's a very nice house" David commented, looking around, and stopping to admire pictures of a younger Charlie. He stopped for a minute, upon seeing Margaret's wedding picture. There, she looked a lot like how she did when they had first met that fateful day at the park.

"Would you like a tour?" Charlie asked lamely.

"Sure" he agreed.

Eventually, they both went to the professor's room. David examined it closly. There were books of all kinds, photos, and a big mess. After the tour, the artist waited in the living room, while Charlie, went to get the photo albums.

Before David knew it, Charlie had returned with three.

"This one has a few baby pictures." the professor handed David one. Soon, they were both looking over them.

"My father said that I was born with a mass of curls!" David said,when he saw a newborn picture of Charlie.

"My mother told me that my hair was the first thing my brother noticed" Charlie laughed.

--------------------------

"Math camp?" David asked, when they got to some pictures of Charlie at the age of seven.

"My mother wanted me to make friends, and figured that a math camp would be a good place for me." Charlie explained. "But it sucked. I was more advanced than most of the kids there, and they stuck in cliques!"

"My dad once put me in an art class,but it didnt' go so well" David began to share. "My drawings were much better than even the teacher's, though to be fair, the guy was a painter at heart. So, when I was teen, my Dad got Joe O'Kant to let me be his assistant."

"He's pretty famous!"

"He sure is!"

"How did your- my grandfather get someone famous like that to help you?"

"Their dads knew each other" David explained.

In their talking, neither had noticed, that Alan had come into the house.

TBC