2005

"Why am I not surprised?" Charlie asked cynically.

"She loved you so much"... Alan began softly.

"So much that she lied!" the professor snapped and continued.. "She could have told me when I was a teenager or an adult. David wasn't a psychopath or anything! It wasn't my fault that he wasn't the man she was married to!"

"Charlie's right!" David supported his son, but told him. "However, it's not good to get angry at the departed"

"It's kinda hard not to when I've been lied to for thirty years!" Charlie groaned.

2004

David, alone in his studio doing the finishing touches on a work, thought about Margaret. Greg had told him of her parting a while back.

"Margaret, wherever you are...I hope you've found peace" he said and meant it. Putting down the brush he remembered a conversation he had with her.

They had spent the morning together. Around eleven, she had to go.

"Where are you going?" he asked from cot, while she started to put on her bra.

"I gotta go home, shower, then go see Donnie's teacher after school." she got into the rest of her clothes.

"Oh yeah. He's got the morning kindergarten. Why does the teacher want to see you?" he asked.

"Donnie doesn't have much patience with other children" she told him. "He's gotten too many timeouts lately at school. "

"I'm sorry to hear that" he sat up.

"I don't know what to do about him! He's needy, and very demanding! Then, Alan wants another baby! I don't think so! Donnie needs our total attention!"

David shook his head at the irony of that statement, remembering how Margaret had gone to Princeton with Charlie, and had close those two were. Suddenly, he heard Marc.

"What's up?" the young man asked.

"Nothing, just remembering..."

"Are you thinking about Charlie?" Marc grabbed a chair and sat near his father.

"No..his mother."

"Are you still mad at her?"

" A little."

"You need to introduce yourself to him!" Marc said.

"I can't just go to his office and say 'Charles, I'm your father!' David argued.

"I guess you're right" Marc said. "if someone did that to me, I'd be really pissed off."

"Charlie was very close to his mother"

"Poor guy. I remember when mom died..." Sadness crept into Marc's eyes, and David put a hand on his son's shoulder.

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

Later on, David remembered a talk he had with his father two days after the breakup with Margaret.

"What's wrong?" his father had demanded upon coming into the studio. "You don't call, visit, or even answer the phone"

"My girlfriend dumped me" a slightly drunk David lamented.

"You mean the girlfriend whose existence you denied?" he asked. "Did she say why?"

"She dumped me for her husband!"

"Wait wait...You got involved with a married woman? Are you insane?" the retired professor sat down and gave his son a stern look. "Why?"

"She's was smart and beautiful."

"Aren't there any smart and beautiful single women?"

Davidtried to pour himself another glass of wine, but his dad took the bottle away."She said that her husband didn't deserve this, and that her son needed his firm and stable influence."

"This just keeps getting better!"

"I could have been a good father to her kid!" David insisted.

"Who would have hated you for being the reason for only getting to see his daddy on the weekends. That boy would have made you life a living hell" the man couldn't believe he had to say all this.As brilliant as David was, he sometimes lacked common sense ordidn't think things through."If she had been willing to leave a man she had a child with, how sure could you have been that wouldn't leave you as well?"

"I hadn't thought of that"

"Of course not! Come on! Let me take you to the house! We can order a pizza."

"Okay."

"Good thing that woman came to her senses." the professor muttered as they walked to the car.

"Her name was Margaret" the artist corrected him.

David returned to reality and hoped Charlie had this kind of relationship with his stepfather.

TBC