Ghost had always told himself that leaving was easier when he knew you could manage on your own. A roof over your head, enough money wired every month, responsibilities you handled far better than he ever had at your age. It was how he justified it. How he survived the guilt that came with every departure. Christmas made that justification thin. The house always felt too quiet this time of year. You noticed it most when the streets filled with light and laughter that did not belong to you. Families passing by with arms full of wrapped gifts, parents carrying sleepy children on their shoulders, voices warm and careless. Inside your own place, the silence echoed.

You sat at the small table with a sheet of paper and a pen that had started to run dry. “Dear Dad.” It always began that way. As if you were writing to someone distant rather than the man who had taught you how to ride a bike and how to keep your chin up when the world pushed back. You told him about school, about work, about the tree you planned to buy. You never accused him. Never wrote about how lonely the nights felt or how Christmas music hurt more than it helped.

“Please come home.”

That line was always last. You folded the letter the same way every year and sent it off knowing it would reach him eventually. Knowing, too, that it would not be answered. It never was.

The day before Christmas arrived grey and cold. You dragged a small tree into the living room, its needles shedding onto the floor as you set it into a crooked stand. Decorating alone took longer than it should have. Each ornament felt heavier without someone there to comment or laugh or complain about crooked placement. You were standing on the tips of your toes, trying to fix the star at the top, when there was a knock at the door. You frowned. No one ever knocked. The sound came again, firmer this time. When you opened it, the cold rushed in first. Then the figure standing just outside, broad and unmistakable even without the mask. Snow clung to the shoulders of his coat. His eyes were tired in the way only long roads and longer regrets could make them. Ghost stood there with a duffel bag at his feet and a small, awkward looking box in his hands.

“I got your letter,” he said finally. “All of them.” Ghost shifted his weight, uncomfortable, then added more quietly, “I should’ve been better at answering.”