Phone Call

I was hoping he won't pick up my call for I did not know what to say. My hands were trembling, holding the phone tight to my ear.  My head, it felt like its frozen and lost contact with the rest of my body. My heart beat was getting weaker and weaker with every single beep. I was hoping he won't pick up the phone while waiting … and waiting for him to answer it. 

"Hello" – the question was evident in his voice. He didn't know who was calling him. His voice was still young. Anyone would easily mistake him for a 30 year old man.

“Hey” … I controlled every flooding emotion from entering the tone of my voice. I asked him, 

“Papa, How are you?”  

“Honey, my little Girl!!!” He exclaimed, the joy enlightened his voice. To my surprise, he was not shocked. It made it easier for me to continue the conversation.

“Yea Papa. Tell me how are you” .. I lost words. I mumbled “and ammm...How…how things are with you?”

“Girl. I am so happy you called me” He paused. “I can’t believe it”. His voice got thicker suddenly. I felt he was crying.

“Yes Paps, I know” I stopped my tears, held myself together. I could feel my soul collapsing; the cracks in my strength were about to break me, shatter me. But I held myself together, with every bit left of my dyeing strength.

“I called you a couple of times …ahhh….a few times before too. But you won’t pick up. I guess you were busy perhaps” I did not want him to feel like I was complaining; I had no right to complain. I never complain, I always give myself a reason against a reason and sleep satisfied, needing no answers having no complains left. I have always been like this. I never ask for more, like Oliver did.

“Oh you did? Did you? No doll. My phone must be off.” He hesitated. “I believe this is your new number kiddo”? He asked me, anticipating a clear “yes” I could feel what he wanted to hear from me. I have always known … how I can’t know. He runs in my blood. I am a branch of the same tree.  I am a part of him. But it was going to change.

“No”. My voice got firm. The volcano in me burst, it came flooding out and burning everything, every thought, every emotion that came in its way.

“No Papa. I have the same number for last ten years. It’s the same number that you had.” I went cold. Cold like the dead. He knew, that I know he lied.

“Honey. My Child. I think I had this number. Oh wait….Yes I think I had it. But you know I am old man. Your father is old now honey. I lost my phone. I lost it Child. You know I long to see your face every day. If I meet a girl your age I call her Honey.” Guilt, pity, misery. He began sobbing.

“Don’t cry Papa”. I said it to him like I was his mother in that moment and he was my child.   

I wanted him to stop because, because his cries were no longer affecting me. I was not feeling anything at all. I wanted it to stop. That process of knowing that you should be feeling something but not being able to feel any …that emotional numbness, that black hole of feelings pulling me inside every passing second, making everything dark and unknown around me. I wanted him to stop. I wanted him to make it easy for me.

“Tell me Papa. Where are you living these days and with whom? How is life treating you?” I had no other way, no other word left to stop him from crying. I began asking, straight forwardly, what I wanted to know.

“Girl, I am very happy“ he paused “with the blessing of God” . He took a moment; I believe to grab a tissue paper.  I heard him blow his nose.

“I live in Lahore. I work with the Minister of the state. He treats me like his own father. People respect me. Your father has a lot of respect”. He was going to go on about it but I did not find my answer, I interfered in his perfect story.

“Yea that must be good. But tell me, you are living with someone.” I paused. I realized it was difficult for him to hold such personal conversation with his youngest child and that also, his daughter! The daughter that he never wanted.

“I mean, you were living with this women I heard” I tried to search for better words, but in vain.”I mean, look you are old now and I think you know, you should get married. Have a family of your own”. Finally it was out. I said it all in one go. It was out, I felt lighter.... I felt empty.

He laughed the same old laughter, huge thundery laughter. Just, the same as he used to laugh ten years ago, the laughter that used to scare me, it still, scared me. He was still him and I was still me. He was the captain again.

“Honey, you tell this to your mother”. His words were toxic; the last word came out of his mouth dipped in thick hate and fury. All of us were back to square one. He was him, I was me and my mother, she was ‘her’ again. 

Ten years, a decade sacrificed and died on the door mat outside our home but could not enter, could not alter anything. It failed. It failed just like I did.

“Papa. Look, let’s leave her out of this conversation”. I took a deep breath. “I won’t tell her and please, you don’t tell her that we had this conversation ever. Papa, I just need you to settle and have a good life” I paused. It was getting harder for me to say what I wanted to say. “and Papa, I want you to save my number and if, ever you need anything, just about anything, please call me.” 

I was weak, my strength melted away drop by drop. But I said it, what I rehearsed to say for so many years.

He did not ask me how old I was, or how educated. Where I was working? Was I single or seeing some one? He asked me nothing. How did I look? How did I look? Will we, recognize each other on the street one day or are we just going to pass, cross each other like the rest of the millions of people. He did not ask me, to meet him. 

He never, never called me again. I think he never needed anything. “Call me if you need anything”. My communication skills are terrible. Why did I put a condition like this? 

I don't know how many more hollow years will come and pass through me...It’s been ten years now. Ten long years, of lies and fibs. Ten years of going quite, avoiding the subject, mumbling, stammering, avoiding eye contact, looking for anything to say, absolutely anything, when they ask me “Where is your father?”

The one lie, I never learn to master.