They say time mends wounds, but grief doesn’t keep a calendar. Thirteen years after my father passed, I still felt him in the smallest things—the hiss of a kettle, the first notes of his favorite record in a random store, the reflex to reach for my phone when life felt too heavy. He wasn’t just my dad; he was the one who stayed when no one else did. My mother had walked out the day I was born. He stayed for every day after.
When he died, the house became unbearable. After the funeral, I turned the key in the lock and couldn’t bring myself to open it again. The silence inside had teeth, and it felt like stepping in would let it bite down and never let go. I always told myself I’d return—maybe to collect old documents, maybe to sort through keepsakes. But really, I was afraid.
Then one cool September morning, something shifted. Maybe it was age, maybe exhaustion from carrying my grief like contraband, but I knew it was time. I drove out there, parked under the oak tree my dad had planted on the day I was born, and just sat. That tree now towered above the roofline. I remembered him lifting me to its branches when I was small. “Strong roots, kiddo,” he’d said. “Reach for the sky, but hold your ground.”
I stood at the door with the old copper key trembling in my hand. “You can do this,” I whispered to myself, though I didn’t believe it. The key turned. The hinges groaned, and for a heartbeat, I could have sworn I heard his voice, warm and teasing: “Welcome home, kiddo.”
“Dad?” I almost said, before realizing it was just the wind rattling through a broken pane of glass.
I told myself I was there for one reason only—to find financial papers I needed. No wandering. No nostalgia. No ghosts. But grief ignores plans.
The house smelled the same: wood polish, dust, and the faint sweetness of Sunday coffee. I found the file cabinet, but before I knew it, my feet had carried me to the attic hatch. Muscle memory guided me—the attic was where we stored everything: holiday decorations, his old jackets, the boxes of my childhood he never threw away.
The ladder creaked under my weight, as though scolding me for taking so long. Dust floated in shafts of sunlight, turning the air to fog. My throat tightened. Everything was still there: my school trophies, his worn flannel shirts, a tin of mints that must have been older than me. I picked up one of the shirts and pressed it to my face. It still smelled like him—cedar and soap. “You promised you’d see me graduate,” I whispered. In my mind, I heard him answer the way he always did: “I’m sorry, pumpkin. I would’ve moved heaven to get there.”
And then I saw it—a battered leather bag tucked behind a pile of old paperbacks. My chest constricted. That bag had been a fixture of our weekends. Inside it lived our game console, two controllers, and the countless competitions that filled our Saturdays.
I pulled it out, my hands trembling as I unzipped it. On top of the console lay a folded piece of paper with my name scrawled across it in his unmistakable handwriting.
It read: “We’ll play together after you pass the entrance exams, pumpkin. I’m proud of you.”
The attic blurred. My throat closed. “You didn’t get to see it,” I choked out. “I passed, Dad. You were right about me.”
I carried the console downstairs and set it up exactly the way we used to. The TV flickered to life, and there it was—the old racing game that had ruled our living room. The startup jingle hit like a punch to the ribs. And then I saw it: his ghost car, sitting at the starting line. The game saved your fastest lap as a translucent car, replaying it forever.
“You left me a race,” I whispered.
I remembered the last time we’d played before the hospital. I’d been so close to beating him. “Promise me you’ll keep racing,” he’d said, half-joking, half-serious. Back then, I didn’t understand what he meant. Now I did.
I picked up the controller. My hands shook as the countdown began. Three, two, one—go.
His ghost car shot forward, smooth and perfect, every turn a memory etched into the game. He had always been unbeatable, graceful even in pixels. “Push, kiddo,” I could almost hear him say. “You’re holding back.”
“I’m trying,” I muttered, my voice breaking. Crying over a video game felt absurd, but grief doesn’t care about logic. Lap after lap, I got closer, falling into his rhythm—the way he braked just enough, the way he cut corners. For the first time in years, I felt like I was with him again.
After an hour, I finally edged past his ghost. The finish line flashed ahead. My thumb hovered over the accelerator. One more second and I’d win. One more second and his ghost would vanish from the leaderboard—replaced by mine.
“If I let you win, do you stay?” I asked the screen.
No answer. Just the hum of an old TV and a digital sky locked in eternal noon.
“I miss you every day,” I whispered. “Sometimes I still call your number just to hear your voicemail.”
My thumb lifted. I let him cross first.
His ghost drifted across the finish line, and I laughed through tears that felt cleaner than any I’d cried in years. It hurt, but in a way that made space for air again.
I packed up the console and brought it home. Now, on nights when work at the hospital leaves me hollow, I plug it in and race. Sometimes I talk to him. I tell him about my patients—the stubborn old man who reminds me of his jokes, the teenage girl who survived chemo and smiled like she’d won a war.
“You’d tell me to keep my chin up,” I say to the screen. “You’d tell me I’m doing good.” His car always pulls ahead in the first lap, just like he used to. I never try to beat him now. It’s enough to chase him.
One night, after a long shift, I finished a race and stood by the window, city lights flickering below. “If you can see me, Dad,” I said softly, “I’m okay. Not perfect. But okay.”
The console hummed, a soft electric heartbeat. I rested my hand on its warm plastic. “Every time I race you,” I whispered, “I get a piece of you back.”
When I finally went to bed, I left the console on, the ghost car looping endlessly around the track. Just before sleep claimed me, I thought I heard it again—that warm, laughing voice.
“Same time next weekend, pumpkin?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I murmured into the dark.
Love doesn’t die. It changes shape. Sometimes it’s a laugh you still hear in the hum of an old machine, or a hand you still feel in the empty space beside you. Sometimes it’s a ghost car circling a digital track, pulling you forward, reminding you that the race isn’t over yet.
And I’ll keep driving—lap after lap—until the day I finally catch him.