Sheldon set the letter down with a sigh and looked at the headed page on the blotter.
Every year since he had taught himself to write, aged three, his mother had made him write a wish list to Santa. All through middle school then college and everywhere around the world he went, every Christmas he was chased by his mother in a hand written letter. Living in Pasadena he had hidden his mother's insistence by enforcing a rule that he be the only one allowed to touch his own mail, and so had lured Leonard into letting him have the only key to the mailbox exclusively. This did mean that for eleven months of the year Sheldon had laboured himself with retrieving the mail but to hide this embarrassingly childish secret in the twelfth it was worth it. And now almost exactly on time, delayed a few days until Sheldon retrieved it from the bottom the UNM Physics and Astronomy dpt PO Box (for he had the key to this now too), here once again was the letter enclosed with the reply already started for him and a self-addressed return envelope. Even now completely alone in his lacklustre holiday accommodation somewhere on the Texan / New Mexico border, deliberately chosen for being equally too far from home and work, Sheldon still felt compelled to look over his shoulder to make sure no one saw it. This year it was adorned with a stamp bearing the new born Christ in His manger surrounded by angels and animals in a stable inexplicably dusted with snow.
Sheldon had never disclosed his secret holiday address to anyone save for one person (so he wouldn't be socially obligated to reply to Christmas cards). But hide as he might the demand still found him, and this year opening with the words 'Just because you are forty one now and I'm an old woman does not mean you aren't still my little Shelly. Jesus created Santa so that all good little girls and boys get what they deserve, salvation and presents.'
Sheldon clicked on the only channel the radio had received in three years, some local mariachi station. The reception was not clear and crackled and fizzed quietly on the ancient speakers. He stood for a moment in the heat of the night and listened to the music. Then he returned to the desk, picked up a pen, licked his lips, and set nib to paper willing the pen to write.
"For how long?"
"Indefinitely."
How he abhorred this time of night. Heat makes him think, gets his brain working. And in this unprecedented Christmas Eve heat wave his brain was too tired to work but just would not switch off.
"What about... You said we'd only be here a few weeks. We were going to go back together. What about our life in California, at home –"
"I'm not expecting you to stay with me Penny. I thought you would be pleased for me, my work is expanding. What better way to leave my mark in the field than by inspiring the next up and comers in theoretical physics?"
"You aren't even asking me to stay."
The arguments were small at first and seemed unrelated. Then one day they argued about birthday presents. In November Sheldon wasinspired to write a new paper on the dynamical theory of gases, and he had become so engrossed in the task he had neglected to purchase a birthday present for Penny. Sheldon tried to explain it away by sharing yet again his views on the exchanging of presents on birthdays and other occasions she was still angry. She called him selfish.
After this birthday-gift-spat Sheldon finally sensed a pattern in these arguments, then after plotting it all out on a white board the following afternoon he saw indeed one common denominator connecting them. Selfishness. Penny was convinced he was dedicated more to his work than to her.
Selfish.
At the time Sheldon couldn't understand why she thought this. How could it be selfish to dedicate your life and mind to furthering man's understanding of the universe and everything therein? But years of reflection since had taught him the significance of what Penny meant. He had stood there gawking perplexed at the whiteboard at every argument up to that date plotted there and he had not seen. It was as though he'd mapped out the meaning of life but had looked too closely at it and not stood back to see it all, answer in front of him.
Stronger and longer and louder the arguments became until it lead them to the very house he sat in now with the distant mariachi and the peeling wallpaper walls. If he turned around right now he would see them.
The song on the radio ended and another began. At last the pen steadily began to move across the page.
He concentrated hard on the ink spreading across the paper not daring to take his eyes away or else he would see them, there behind him, the Ghosts of Christmas Past. A shade of Penny in the dusty armchair and the impression of himself perched on the footstall inches from where he sat now.
Then, as it was now, it had been Christmas Eve. He sat down with her here and told her.
His temporary cover as head of the department had turned into a permanent position. He had received a phone call that afternoon offering him a post as the Head of a new course program he was asked to create, to stay to lecture in his own right at UNM in a partnership program with CalTech and to lead in all new research. Sheldon somehow thought she'd be pleased for him. But her eyes welled. She deflated in the chair, covered her face with her hands. She asked him if he was going to take it, and when he did not answer Sheldon saw in her face the realisation she had always been afraid to submit to.
"You aren't even asking me to stay."
"It's your choice Penny."
"No it isn't. It was never my choice. You aren't asking me if we should stay because...you've already decided you are."
And the broken record that was the old fight scratched under the needle and started over again, but this time when Penny fled in tears and screeched out of the driveway in her car things was different.
On the morning of December 27th she sent him a short email sending for her things. And would be the last he heard from her.
Soon after he contacted Leonard, who told him Penny had been back to their apartment very briefly to pack a suitcase and left saying she was going to spend some time at her parents', but a month had gone by and she hadn't come back. Leonard promised to call again when she returned. The phone call never came.
The radio station ended its daily programming and closed for the night. The mariachi faded but the speakers remained on churning out a quiet rotation of white noise fizz. The sound pulled Sheldon from his reverie. He set the pen down and walked away from the desk. The desk light shone onto the page and glistened in the drying ink. The top line of the page helpfully enclosed by his mother was already printed on behalf of the letter writer:
'Dear Santa Claus,
This year as I have been good I would be thankful if you could bring me for Christmas...'
And just below that in Sheldon's hand was one word.
He reached to click the wretched radio off. The hollow white noise died away and the ghosts of himself and Penny from a Christmas passed vanished with it, leaving Sheldon alone in the room with nothing, just a chorus of cicadas ringing from a distant place.
Every Christmas Eve a letter from his mother hit the doormat asking Sheldon what he thought he deserved. Since taking on the job at the University Sheldon believed at last he had been granted it.
He curled up in the dusty arm chair, unfolded a blanket Penny had once cried into over the arm and wriggled down deeper into the cushions so he could lay his down on it. Every now and then he ran his thumb against the fibres as if it were a real being. At every touch Sheldon almost let himself believe he could still smell her scent woven through. Each year Sheldon curled up here, hoping foolishly that when he opened his eyes again Penny would be there kissing him awake.
Absently Sheldon listened to the cicadas beyond the window. Just before he fell asleep he reached over and clicked the lamp off letting the room and the name on his wish list in his handwriting fade into darkness. As sleep finally settled over him, Sheldon had an empty feeling inside as he had every year since his first here, and his last thought before slipping away into sleep was the unsettling knowledge that he did have at last exactly what he deserved.
Inspired by the song 'Lady Rosales' by Mariachi El Bronx.
This story is not my usual style of fic but I'm dipping my toe back into the writing waters.