“What is he like?” I asked. “How aware is he of the world around him?”
Miss Greer smiled warmly. “Oh, he’s lovely. Very kind and good-spirited. He’ll hug you for no reason, pick you a flower at the drop of a hat. He’s not incoherent like some of our other residents. It’s more like he’s permanently frozen at ten. The other residents love him, and the employees do too. He’s really quite a charmer. You’ll see.”
We set off down the lawn, toward a figure in a chair who was facing the mountains, watching something move in the grass. “Charlie?” she said, when we got within earshot. “Charlie, there’s someone here to see you.”
He turned around and smiled broadly, and my heart froze in my chest. This was my own flesh and blood. And if I had harbored any doubt about his parentage before, it vanished in that moment. The curly dark hair, the full cheeks, the bright smile were Nora’s. But the square nose and high forehead, the olive skin and oval eyes, were clearly mine. His face was both shocking and completely familiar. It was as if I had contained the knowledge of that face for all of these years, and had spent my life waiting to find it. “Miss Greer!” he said happily. “There are kittens!”
“Oh, Charlie, how delightful!” We stopped at his side, and he pointed out toward the bushes, where several small kittens were scurrying about and climbing on top of each other.
“Charlie, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Mr. Nakayama.” Then, turning to me, “This is Charles Riley. He loves cats and big difficult puzzles.”
“And baseball,” he said, still watching the kittens.
“And baseball!” she added. “Sorry, I forgot. He watches the games on television, and last year we even took a group of residents to a game at Dodger Stadium. I’m not much of a sports fan myself, but Charlie talked about it for months.”
“Can you take cats to baseball games?” he asked, looking up at her.
Miss Greer laughed. “Oh, Charlie. I don’t think so.”
“Miss Greer,” I said, “do you mind if I spend a few minutes with Charlie alone?”
She hesitated for a moment, and I could see that in fact she did mind. In the end, however, she shrugged and said, “Just call out if you need anything.” Then she left me alone with my son.
I pulled a chair up beside him. He appeared younger than his forty-two years, as if the worries of life that normally cause gray hair and wrinkles had passed him by completely. I did not know what to say to him, and he didn’t seem to notice my presence. He hummed softly, a happy tune that I recognized but could not quite name. Finally, I ventured, “Who’s your favorite player?”
“Gil Hodges,” he said. I knew too little about baseball to formulate another question, so I asked, “What else do you like, Charlie?”
“I like puzzles, and cats, and baseball,” he explained again patiently. “And Bugs Bunny, and tacos. And movies.”
I moved a little closer and studied his face. In it, I saw bits of myself, and my brother, and even, faintly, my father. As I looked, my whole life, its choices and errors, seemed to lay itself out plainly before me. “What kind of movies do you like?”
“Pirates. Musicals. Cowboys. ‘We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!’” Then he sang, in a surprisingly beautiful voice, “Maria, I just met a girl named Maria!”
“You’re very talented, Charlie.”
“I know,” he said. “My parents were movie stars.”
I must have started to cry at this point, for now he looked at me with a worried expression. “Mister, are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Charlie.”
“It’s okay to cry. Miss Greer always tells me it’s okay for boys to cry.”
“Yes, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I said, as if it were he who needed comfort.
We gazed off toward the kittens again; two of them were wrestling and yowling.
“Tell me, Charlie,” I asked when I’d regained my composure, “do you ever get lonely out here?”
He looked at me directly now, and I got my first real glimpse of his eyes. They were warm but not entirely occupied; he was like a rough sketch that had never been completed. All those years he had lived so close to me, just a car ride away. All this time I’d had a family and did not even know it. “Oh, no, sir,” he said, “I’m very happy. I have Miss Greer, and Dr. Stevens, and all of my friends. I’m always very busy, you know.”
I leaned closer to him, until we were almost knee to knee. “Do you ever wish you had a family?”
“I have a family. They all live here.”
“No, Charlie,” I said, and my intensity was scaring him, so I leaned away again. “Do you ever wish you had a mother and father?”
“I have a mother and father. They were movie stars.”
“Do you know who they were?”
He stared at me as if I were the one who was perhaps a little slow. “My mother and father,” he insisted, as if that clarified the issue. Then he turned toward the cats again and said to me sadly, “I never met them, you know. They were always so busy. They were always too busy for Charlie.”
EPILOGUE
May 5, 1966
On the occasion of Charlie’s forty-fourth birthday, the staff at Seven Acres threw him a party. They do this for all their residents—I have visited several times when someone else was having a birthday—but in Charlie’s case, the celebration was bigger.
