A Letter from a Ghost

As Christmas approaches, a letter from Sunny's estranged father reopens old wounds, forcing a confrontation with his past and creating a new distance between him and Lin.

The memory of Lin’s hand, the phantom warmth on his sleeve, lingered like an afterimage against the cool December air that now seeped through the cracks around the front door. Sunny had spent the morning trying to shake it off, trying to return to the neutral hum of his daily tasks, but it was like a buzzing in his bones, an unsettling clarity that he wasn't alone anymore. He hadn't asked for it. Hadn't even realized he'd wanted it. And now it was there, a thread he hadn't woven, suddenly tied to him. It was… too much, maybe. Especially with the way the days were shrinking, pulling closer to Christmas, each passing one a heavier weight on his chest.

The world felt sharper these days. The bright, relentless cheer of holiday decorations appearing on every lamppost, the jingle of bells piped into grocery stores, the forced smiles of strangers wishing each other 'happy holidays.' It all felt like a pointed finger, reminding him of everything he didn’t have, everything he’d lost. His mother, gone. His father, absent. A broken family, a shattered sense of normal. He just wanted it to pass. To simply… endure.

He was crouched by the hallway table, a stack of envelopes in his lap, the rhythmic ripping sound of opening bills a small, satisfying rebellion against the encroaching festivity. Gas bill, electric bill, credit card statement – all the usual mundane paper dragons. The kind of mail you sorted, sighed over, and promptly forgot. But then, tucked between a flyer for discount furniture and a political pamphlet, was an envelope that wasn't like the others.

It was heavier, for one. Cream-colored, a good quality paper, the kind you saved for formal invitations or… condolences. His name and address were handwritten, a neat, almost fussy script he didn't recognize at first. Then, a cold knot formed in his stomach. The return address, a small, elegant stamp in the corner, was from out of state. The last time he'd seen that address was on a card sent after his mother’s funeral. A card that had offered platitudes and kept its distance.

His fingers, suddenly clumsy, scraped against the thick paper as he fumbled to open it. No elegant tearing, just a jagged rip. The scent of faint lavender, or maybe just old paper, wafted up. He pulled out a single folded sheet. The letterhead was embossed, subtle, barely visible unless the light caught it just right. 'David Miller & Associates.' His father’s firm. The name of the man who had been a ghost in his life for years.

He unfolded the letter, the paper crackling slightly. The words were printed, precise, a formal font that offered no warmth, no personal touch. He scanned the first few lines, his breath catching, then forcing itself out in a shaky exhale.

‘My Dearest Sunny,’ it began. The endearment felt like a violation, a poorly chosen costume for a stranger. He hadn't been 'my dearest Sunny' in years. Maybe never, not really. It felt like a polite fiction. Like a lie.

‘I was so sorry to hear of your mother’s passing. My sincerest condolences during this difficult time. She was…’ There was a pause here, a deliberate gap in the printed words, then a phrase inserted in that same neat, fussy script. ‘…a truly remarkable woman.’ The handwritten addition felt forced, an afterthought to an otherwise sterile message. It amplified the distance, rather than closing it.

Sunny felt a low, simmering heat bloom in his chest, working its way up his throat. Grief, sharp and sudden, pricked behind his eyes, but it was immediately smothered by something else. Something colder, harder. Resentment. This man, offering condolences from afar, years after he’d effectively abandoned them, years after his mother had struggled, alone. Now, *now* he sends a letter. Now that she’s gone.

He wanted to crumple the paper, tear it into confetti. He wanted to scream. He wanted to throw it into the nearest fire. Instead, his eyes darted to the next paragraph, a sick curiosity overriding the anger.

‘I’m considering a trip East around the holidays. Perhaps a brief visit could be arranged. I would like to see you, Sunny. To… reconnect.’

A visit. Here. In his home. The notion was absurd. He hadn't seen his father in person since he was twelve. A stiff, uncomfortable lunch in a sterile restaurant, all forced smiles and awkward silences, ending with a check being discreetly slid across the table. Reconnect? What was there to reconnect with? A phantom, a name on a ledger, a ghost of a man who’d chosen ambition over family.

But beneath the anger, beneath the bitter taste of betrayal, an unwelcome, insidious flicker of something else sparked. Longing. A tiny, almost imperceptible warmth, like a pilot light trying to catch in the wind. A desperate, foolish part of him, a younger, wounded part, still wanted a father. Still wanted to be chosen. It was a humiliating, gut-wrenching realization.

He hated that flicker. Hated its persistence. It made him feel weak, vulnerable. This man had broken him once, fragmented his world, and now, with a few printed lines and a handwritten platitude, he was trying to do it again. Sunny wouldn’t let him. He wouldn't let that tiny spark of hope catch fire. He wouldn’t allow himself to be hurt again.

He folded the letter with deliberate, shaky hands, then folded it again, and again, until it was a thick, unyielding square. He didn't want Lin to see it. Didn't want to explain. Didn't want to explain *anything*. The words felt too heavy, too intimate, too raw to share. This was his, a secret wound, and he would keep it hidden.

He walked to the small, antique writing desk in the living room, the one his mother had treasured. He pulled open the bottom-most drawer, the one that stuck sometimes, holding old bills and forgotten documents. He tucked the folded letter deep inside, beneath a stack of yellowed bank statements and an expired passport. Out of sight, out of mind. That was the plan. His secret, his control.

Later that afternoon, the light outside was already fading into the bruised purples and grays of an early winter dusk. Lin walked in, carrying two steaming mugs of cocoa, the scent of chocolate and peppermint preceding him. He’d been working in his studio, the smell of turpentine and burnt sugar clinging faintly to his clothes.

“Hard at work?” Lin asked, his voice soft, easy, a counterpoint to the turmoil brewing inside Sunny. He set one mug down on the coffee table, the ceramic warm against the wood. “Figured you could use a break.”

Sunny nodded, forcing a small smile. “Just… getting through the mail.” He gestured vaguely at the sorted stacks, the benign, innocent bills. He avoided eye contact, focusing instead on the condensation beading on the mug’s surface. Every instinct screamed at him to keep the lie, to keep the distance. It felt safer, somehow. More protective.

Lin settled onto the sofa beside him, not too close, but close enough that Sunny could feel the gentle warmth radiating from him. It was the unsettling warmth again, the one from the day before, now overlaid with the deceptive comfort of the cocoa. Lin was so… present. So genuine. And Sunny was a knot of barbed wire and secrets.

“Christmas is coming up fast,” Lin mused, stirring his cocoa slowly, the spoon clinking against the mug. “Seems like everyone else is already halfway there. Decorations, lights…” He looked around their somewhat bare living room. “We should probably get a tree, shouldn’t we? Get into the spirit?”

The words, innocent as they were, landed like stones. *Get into the spirit.* The spirit of what? Loss? Abandonment? The hollow ache of a family that wasn't. Sunny felt the careful façade he'd constructed around the letter begin to crack, splintering into sharp, uneven edges.

“A tree?” Sunny’s voice came out sharper than he intended, edged with a sudden, disproportionate hostility. His hand, reaching for his own mug, paused mid-air. “Why would we do that?”

Lin’s spoon stilled. His head tilted slightly, a question in his eyes. He looked genuinely surprised, almost hurt. “Well… for Christmas. It’s a tradition.”

“A tradition,” Sunny repeated, the words laced with something bitter he couldn't quite control. “What tradition? Sticking a dead piece of wood in the living room to remind us of… what, exactly?” His tone was low, cutting. He didn’t mean to hurt Lin. He didn’t. But the words were out, fueled by the fresh sting of the letter, the ghost of his father, the suffocating weight of everything he felt he’d lost.

Lin set his mug down, carefully, deliberately, on the coffee table. The faint clink was loud in the sudden silence. His brow furrowed, a slight wrinkle appearing between his eyebrows. He didn't look angry, not exactly. More like… he was searching for something, trying to understand a language he didn't speak. “Sunny,” he started, his voice gentle, cautious. “Is everything alright? You seem… upset.”

Upset. An understatement. Sunny felt like he was unraveling. The warmth from Lin, a moment ago so comforting, now felt suffocating. Like a trap. He felt exposed, seen in a way he didn't want to be. The idea of a Christmas tree, a symbol of family and joy, felt like a mockery. He knew it wasn't fair to Lin, but he couldn't stop the surge of defensiveness, the urge to push away.

“I’m fine,” Sunny snapped, pulling his hand back from the mug, clenching it into a fist. The abrupt movement was clumsy, his elbow knocking against the armrest. “Just… not really feeling the holiday cheer, okay? Not everyone has fond memories of… of all that.” He gestured vaguely, his gaze unfocused, seeing ghosts in the corners of the room.

Lin watched him, his expression softening, though the confusion didn't entirely leave his eyes. He picked up his mug again, holding it, but not drinking. He just observed. That silent observation, the steady, unwavering gaze, was almost worse than an argument. It made Sunny feel like an open book, and he hated it. Hated feeling that transparent. He just wanted to be invisible.

“Okay,” Lin said, his voice quiet, almost a whisper. He didn't push. He didn't argue. He just… accepted it. And that acceptance, rather than easing Sunny, tightened the knot in his stomach. It meant Lin was backing off. It meant a new fracture, a small, almost imperceptible widening of the space between them. And Sunny had created it. He just didn't know how to uncreate it.

The rest of the evening was strained, punctuated by polite silences. Sunny retreated into himself, feigning interest in a book, while Lin worked quietly in his studio. The scent of turpentine became heavier, a barrier. The earlier warmth, that unsettling connection, had dissipated, replaced by a cold, heavy silence.

Long after Lin had gone to bed, Sunny found himself unable to sleep. The house was dark, still, the kind of quiet that pressed in on you, filling every empty space with echoes. He found himself walking back to the writing desk, his bare feet cool on the wooden floorboards. The moonlight, thin and watery, filtered through the window, painting weak silver stripes across the room.

He pulled open the bottom drawer, the sticking one, the sound a soft groan in the stillness. His fingers found the folded letter immediately, almost as if it had been waiting for him. He pulled it out, unfolded it again, the creases sharp and stubborn under his touch.

The printed words shimmered in the weak light. ‘My Dearest Sunny.’ The false endearment still stung. He traced the handwritten addition, ‘…a truly remarkable woman.’ The irony was a bitter taste. This man, so removed, so sterile, attempting to connect with a memory he hadn’t truly shared, a grief he hadn’t truly experienced alongside them.

His gaze fell to the signature at the bottom: ‘Warmest regards, David Miller.’ Warmest regards. It was a formal closing, almost clinical, utterly devoid of parental affection. David Miller. Not ‘Dad.’ Not ‘Father.’ Just a name. A stranger’s name, attached to his own history.

Sunny traced the looping ‘D’ of David’s signature with the pad of his thumb. It felt unfamiliar, distant. A ghost of a connection, barely there. He wondered what his father looked like now. If his hair had grayed. If his eyes still held that sharp, calculating glint that Sunny vaguely remembered. He hated himself for wondering. Hated that he still carried these fragments of memory, these unresolved questions.

The letter, crumpled and smoothed, crumpled and smoothed again, felt like a living thing in his hand, a shard of the past that refused to stay buried. It pulsed with all the conflicting emotions he’d tried to suppress. Anger. Grief. Resentment. And that insidious, unwelcome flicker of longing, a desperate yearning for something that had never been truly given. The past wasn't just pressing in from all sides; it was unfolding right there in his hands, heavy and utterly, painfully unresolved.