Chapter Twenty-Five
Letters to Ghosts
Staring down at the half-written note, Felipe drummed his pencil against the notepad resting on his lap and sighed.
He didn’t know why he was bothering with this when he could have been reading, napping for a third time, or literally anything else.
Even the dog had given him concerned looks before he fled to his owner.
As Felipe set the pencil down, he wondered if he was doing it again.
Oliver had pleaded with him to stop throwing himself onto swords, and while a letter from his parents was far less dangerous than a bullet or a knife, it cut just as deep.
He had spent his whole life running headlong into danger because at least then he could control the pain and hurt to some extent.
Waiting for it to come to him was its own agony, and he would rather get it over with.
At the sound of panting, Felipe looked up in time to see Argos trot in with a potato in his mouth.
The dog shoved his hippopotamus head in his lap as he offered Felipe the stolen vegetable with large, wet eyes.
“Um, thank you?” he said as the dog dropped the drool-covered potato directly onto the letter.
At the sound of his name being yelled from the kitchen, Argos wagged his tail at him and bustled out of the room. Felipe was about to set the soggy potato aside when Mr. Allen walked past, his eyes sweeping the hall floor.
“Looking for this?” Felipe called, holding up the offending vegetable.
“Yes, thank you.” Mr. Allen shook his head as he pocketed the potato and perched on the arm of the loveseat.
“I was hoping Argos didn’t tuck it away somewhere to rot.
Did he bring it to you?” When Felipe nodded, he laughed.
“Argos has it in his head that if you’re upset, he needs to give you something.
Sometimes, it’s an uncooked potato. Other times, it’s a dead bird or a stick.
Be happy you got a potato.” His eyes raked over Felipe’s body.
“How are you holding up? You took quite a hit last night.”
“Not too bad all things considered, but I’m a self-healer.
Give me a few days, and I’ll be good as new.
” Felipe adjusted the sling to take some of the pressure off his elbow.
He hated the sling and all it stood for, but he needed it if the pain in his shoulder and the dull throb in his arm were any indication.
Ignoring the lingering discomfort, Felipe gave the other man his best approximation of a winning smile.
“I had no idea you were such a good shot.”
“I did a bit of sharpshooting during the war, and once you shoot on horseback, doing it standing still is easy. I would have gotten to you sooner, but I couldn’t remember where I hid the damn bullets.
You aren’t too shabby with a knife yourself.
Too bad the dead didn’t seem to notice,” Mr. Allen replied with a huffed laugh. “Whiskey?”
“I’d love some.”
Rising from the chair with a wince, Felipe followed Mr. Allen into the kitchen.
As the innkeeper poured the whiskey into two glasses, he watched Felipe from the corner of his eye.
Felipe wasn’t sure what the other man could or couldn’t see written across his features.
He might have needed a reading glass, but he saw through him all too well.
Taking his drink, Felipe turned to the table and grimaced at the bloodstains that hadn’t come out.
In daylight, it looked even worse than it had the night before.
“I’m sorry I ruined your table. We will replace it for you after we leave. The holes in the stable too.”
“It’s seen worse, though Oliver already promised as much.
” Sinking into the nearest chair with a relieved groan, Mr. Allen motioned for Felipe to join him.
“What were you working on so diligently in the parlor? Every time I went past, you were staring at the paper so fiercely I thought it might catch fire.”
Felipe let out a mirthless laugh and took a long, burning swig. “I was replying to a letter from my parents. Or trying to. I haven’t gotten very far.”
Above his glass, Mr. Allen searched his features. “Estranged?”
“How could you tell?”
“It explains the potato. If you get yourself a second helping of whiskey, inspector, top me off as well.”
Glancing down, Felipe found his glass empty. With heated cheeks, he added a splash of whiskey to his cup and refilled Mr. Allen’s. The innkeeper murmured his thanks and gave Felipe a sympathetic shake of his head.
“Estrangement’s hard. My father and I were estranged for years, but it was for the best. What aren’t you saying in your letter?”
“Me? Everything,” Felipe replied, staring at the amber liquor in his glass. “I don’t think I’ve told them the whole truth in almost twenty years, not that they want to hear it.”
“Feeling guilty about it?”
“Not exactly. It’s just getting harder. It’s been hanging over my head for over a week, but every time I start, I freeze.”
“Have you thought about writing a letter to them that says everything you haven’t said?
” As Felipe opened his mouth, Mr. Allen held up a hand.
“I didn’t say you had to send it. It’s something we have the veterans at the Grand Army of the Republic do when what they can’t or couldn’t say weighs on them.
You wouldn’t believe how many people need to write letters to ghosts or to people they haven’t spoken to in twenty years. ”
“If they never see it, then what’s the point?” Felipe asked, hating the defensive edge in his voice.
“It’s less about the person you’re writing to and more about you.
Remember when I mentioned how men let their feelings fester until it poisons them?
This is something that helps combat that.
You write a letter to someone who wronged you or someone you wronged or a man you couldn’t save during a battle, and somehow, even if that person never sees those words, they’re out of you. And that’s all that matters.”
At Felipe’s dubious look, Mr. Allen hauled himself to his feet with a grunt. He plunked the bottle of whiskey in front of Felipe before grabbing a pen and paper from the drawer near the back door.
“Give it half an hour. If it doesn’t help or you can’t think of anything to say by the time I start preparing dinner, I won’t bother you about it again. How’s that sound?”
Felipe swallowed hard and stared at the blank page.
He wanted to shove it away and laugh it off as something he didn’t need, but the words he longed to say had been lodged in his heart like bullet fragments for over a week with no signs of going away.
His hand tightened on the cool glass, but he didn’t meet Mr. Allen’s eyes.
There were so many things he wanted to tell his parents that they would never understand even if he was brave enough to say them.
“What do you do with it after?”
“Keep it, burn it, send it. It’s up to you. You want to give it a try?”
When Felipe hesitantly nodded, Mr. Allen’s face broke into a gentle smile. Patting his shoulder, he left him to his note.
***
FELIPE SLIPPED OUT of the inn feeling drained and a little tipsy yet lighter than he had been since the letter from his parents arrived.
After Mr. Allen left, Felipe had managed to write a letter to his parents telling them all the things they had missed because their view of what was right was so narrow that it didn’t leave room for anyone, including him.
He came clean about who he really was and told them how wonderful his life with Oliver, Teresa, Louisa, and Agatha was in a way that would make anyone but them envious.
He wrote about how angry it made him that they were missing out on all the people he cherished most because they chose to be judgmental and cruel time and time again.
The people Felipe kept in his life were loving, kind, and accepting.
They were everything his parents weren’t, and they loved him for who he truly was, not the man they expected him to be.
Standing in the sunlight, Felipe shut his eyes and drank in the cool, clean air.
The further he got into the letter, the more Felipe realized how different his life had become in the nine months since he died.
There had been stretches in his life where he felt truly present in his skin, but they were few and far between.
Most of it had been spent running or doing things for other people, anything to keep moving.
If he was constantly in motion, then he didn’t have time to think about all the things that hurt.
When he and Louisa first came to New York, he threw himself into becoming the best investigator he could be, and after Teresa was born, he did everything he could to be a good father.
There were times he ran from Teresa for fear he would hurt her the way his parents had hurt him, but Agatha and Louisa had coaxed him back home like a stray cat until that fear finally quieted.
Over the years, the knife that had once turned pain into clarity had been replaced by being the best father and investigator he could possibly be.
As long as he was going above and beyond, no one thought to look for the glaring cracks.