Bond of Nature

It was just passed noon, the sky was cloudy and the road was almost empty as most people had chosen to remain indoors on a day like today. Something felt off about today, but why?

Two people walked silently down the pathway the only thing heard was the crunching of the ground below their feet. One was a tall dark haired man, his eyes a dark brown, so dark they could have been taken for black, he was young and fit no older than twenty seven at first glance. The other a pudgy old fellow, his hair was gray as were his eyes, his skin soft and wrinkly, he was quite frail, one would have assumed he was over sixty when he was only fifty seven.

The two men continued on their way as negotiations between the two were held in silence until they stopped at a fence overlooking the scenery.

“It’s nice isn't it?” The old fellow asked adjusting his glasses and straightening his hat.

The younger one nodded, “I suppose so,” he responded with little emotion.

“What’s the matter with you?” The old one asked turning towards him.

“It’s nothing to be concerned of.”

“Oh really, I may have been gone a while, but in that time you haven’t changed a bit.”

“That’s exactly the problem!” The younger one snapped, his elder looked at him oddly silently asking for detail. “You left me, and my mother fifteen years ago, you said you’d be back in a month and you never returned. Now you pop up out of the blue expecting to be accepted back in to the family. Mom said yes because she missed you beyond comprehension and was convinced the only reason you were gone so long is that you died! I knew better than her and I had to be the strong one, I needed to be the adult in the house. Then you came back. I was beginning to believe mom and her rant about you dying, now I’m just mad, mad at you, mad at you’re betrayal and mad that you would have the nerve to show your face here after what you have done!”

The old man stepped backed and looked at his son, he sighed and turned back to the forest behind him.

“What, don’t you have anything to say to me?” the young one asked again.

“Yes, I do, but give me a minute.”

“Why do you need a minute? Fifteen years wasn't long enough?”

“You really think I would have run off if I had a choice, pack a bag and disappear in the night, that’s how little you think of me?”

“What else is there to think?”

“I said I’d be gone a month, I was, when I returned home while you were asleep I found you’re mother with another man. I threw him out of the house and confronted her. She yelled at me for being a bad husband and neglecting her, picking my work over love, so I packed a bag, and as I was leaving your mother told me by doing this I was forfeiting my right to see you again.”

The young one looked at his father dumbfounded, then he shook his head “No, I don’t believe you.”

“I was always in the city, move to the other side of town, you would never have expected me there so it worked out.”

“You could have come to see me you know, I was old enough to-“

“I know you were, but you’re mother said that if I came close she would call the police. I still watched you though.” The old man fumbled through his pocket and pulled out his wallet which contained some photo’s, one of his son participating in a sporting event, one of him graduating from his high school and one of him and his fiancée.

“How did I not see you?”

“Friends, they owed me favors, so I asked them to help me watch you grow. I also helped pay for your education, that private funder was me, as well as paid your fine for… I’m actually not sure, my friend never told me what it was for.”

His son steeped back and fell against a tree. “All this time… I… you…and she, damn... would you have told about this, had I not asked?”

“Yes, why do you think I asked you here? When you were young this was are special place to go, I may be old but I can remember that much, we would play hide and seek down in the bushes over there. We've walked this road a hundred times and even now, it’s the most important place I've been, and it’s the place where I wanted to restart. I’m not a good man to you right now and I know a speech won’t make up the years that have passed but I hope one day you will choose to forgive me.

The son looked back at his father, then to the trees and he began to ponder…

Who truly is the one in the wrong?