I hung up. Then, the moment I could have hit the block option, the phone rang again. Steph was trying to limit her girlfriend’s alcohol consumption.

“Clara, don’t, you will end up having a hangover in the morning that too in a forest.”

“Why are you acting like my dad? Are you my dad?” Clara, who was not-so-sober anymore, whined.

My grip on the phone tightened. This guy had the nerves to call me again, that too at such a time.

“Sorry guys, I have to take this call.”

Mason gave me the look as if I had just betrayed him. “Hey… we were just getting started on this game…”

“Mason, let it be, plus I don’t think you are in proper headspace to even think further.” Chris said while taking away the can of beer Mason was holding.

“I am in the game. My head’s in the game.” He said it firmly.

Chris brought Mason on his feet. Mason had trouble standing still. Chris asked, “How many cans did you drink?”

I began walking away from the group. His call timing was terrible. Given the fact he has ruined the mood, I might as well clear out the question he needed to answer. From behind I could hear Mason, who had lost track of number of beer cans he had drunk complaining about going early to slumber.

I picked up the call. “Hello, who is this?”

A frustrated voice came from the other side of the phone. “You know very well, it’s me, your dad.”

“What makes you call at such a time?”

“I wanted to talk to you.” He paused. I heard him shuffling through some papers. “About your studies.”

Of course, no surprise over there. “Yes, I am doing fine in studies.”

“What do you mean by ‘fine’? that won’t be enough.”

I ran my hand over my head. “Yeah, I know, but what I do should not concern you anymore.”

He seethed. “You are my son.”

I glanced behind; I was at safe distance from camp. There was not much noise coming from the fireplace as it was before. I turned towards the phone. “Yeah, by blood, but you never really cared.”

“This is not the tim-”

“No, this isn’t the time for you to call me; it never was in the first place.”

“Look, I wanted to ask about where you are now.”

“Where am I?” I scoffed. “I am in the void.”

I heard a sigh from the other side of the phone. “Michael, are you drunk?”

“Why do you care?” I took a quick breath in and out and shook vigorously, trying to get back to my completely sober self.

“You know, I just answered you.”

“Why I m-mean What?”

“Michael, you’re my son.”

“Yeah, but you had the nerve to call me for years.” I kicked the rock in front of me in some far distance.

“Yes, about that, I did send some letters at New Lauran.” Oh yeah, right, those letters were the very first surprise. I read the very first he had sent me 1 year ago, and then I stopped and sent the other letters back to him without even opening them.

“I get it, you never opened them, but I sent more, and they never came back.”

“You should stop sending them; it’s of no use.”

I looked around; every time none of us spoke, there were only sounds of crickets and owls’s hooting. He asked, “Why?”

“Cause w-” I shook my head; no way am I telling him I am back in my hometown. He lives with his other woman, things will spiral back to a mess if he decides to show up in Haltin.

“Son, I am sorry for leaving you like that back then. It just was not a good time.”

"Yeah, sure, time wasn’t great, so you left that too, complaining and being ungrateful to mom about the efforts she was putting together for all of us.”

I heard him sigh, “Yes, I am sorry about.” He was probably covering his eyes with his hand.

"Yeah, you sure do!”

“You are acting like a child, Michael. That is not going to work; you have to pu-” I took a deep breath in. Here he goes again, asking me to man up, grow up.

“You still don’t know so many things. How will you work in society.”

“Everyone already knows these things; why are you behind?”

I kick another in-front of me. It hit the tree trunk so hard that the bird sitting on that tree flew away due to the shock. “There you go again, telling me to be all mature and good, when you could not even be that yourself!”

“Michael, you are not thinking stra-” His tone reverted to the times he would discuss my school grades.

“Cut to chase, why are you calling me??” I retorted.

The owl’s hooting got louder, or was it because of utter silence from both our ends. This silence was getting obnoxious for me.

“Why?” I asked again, this time checking if there was network in my phone. But the fact this whole forest-like area had a network in the first place was crazy enough.

His volume lowered. “I had been thinking about this for quite a while, and I know what I did was wrong, but the thing is, even though I left you, I still cared for you. You were good; you were not the reason I left you and your mom.”

His words felt heavy on my mind. If I was not in my complete sober state, I was definitely now.

“…It’s just that I had been seeing her for a long time behind your mom’s back. It was clearly as being friends. Just two friends hanging out... And then it sort of happened, and when I realized that it was too late to turn back… so I..”

“You left.” I gritted my teeth. “Why? You have not answered that. Was it because of the other woman?”

He abruptly said, “Do you want me to say the reason aloud. I already said it all right now. It’s all in front of you now. ”

My feet brushed against another rock. I was walking back and forth around the camp area. I kicked the rock and heard its sound of rolling against the grassy ground.

“Michael…..are you there?”

He was right; I knew. The reason in words was simple to state. But it was hard to say aloud for him. Well, it was ugly for me to hear it too. My mom had the worst time because of it, her drunken screams echoing in the room and now echoing in my ears again loud.

It was an ugly memory.