Excerpt from I Am the Ghost Here by Kim Samek, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I try to imagine the kind of relationship I would have with this unmanned brother who quietly broods over his noodles. This guy doesn't seem capable of organizing pickleball games. Instead of accompanying him to concerts, I would see him only at holidays. I refill Jeff's whiskey glass, but the alcohol does nothing to lubricate him. As he sits hunched over in his chair, I hold out hope that the brother I love is somewhere in there. My mother is wearing a sweater that features a panda bear made of Swarovski crystals. Michelle leans over to inspect her face in the crystals, as Jeff would. She pretends to pick food out of her teeth.

"Where do you get a sweater like that, anyway?" she asks. "Do you have to insure it?"

My mother only glares.

I know what Michelle is doing. She is showing off her ability to embody Jeff. She doesn't care that we are upset. I tell her to read the room, but she won't stop doing her Jeff bit. After another fifteen minutes, my mother has apparently held in her feelings as long as she can, and now she erupts. She is a small woman, just four-¬foot-¬ten, but the anger makes her tall. My father leans back as she leaps out of her chair.

"This is sick," she shouts at Jeff. "This woman is a stranger! You let a stranger control you?"

"Let's give her a chance," I say. "He's done well with Michelle. Look at what he's accomplished!"

I don't understand why my brother has chosen to be controlled, but after he went to college, he became a good older brother, more like a father or uncle at times. I think back to his holiday visits home when, during my parents' explosive fights, he did his best to reassure me. He said their mutual dysfunction had created two puzzle pieces that could never fit with anyone else.

"It's counterintuitive," he told me. "When they say they want a divorce, what they actually mean is that they want to remain fighting with each other forever. If they really wanted to leave each other, they would have by now." I would have run away from home if not for his assured tone.

"What if this lady drives you to murder someone?" my mother asks. "Only a weirdo would do this job."

"You can trust Michelle," he replies. "I checked her references."

"Michelle seems like a trustworthy person," I say, even though I don't know if that's true.

My mother is upset I am siding with my brother. She stomps out of the dining room, flinging her chicken bones at Michelle on her way out. My father follows, with a look that says, See what you've done? Michelle picks the bones out of her lap. My brother looks distraught.

"This was a mistake," he says.

"Give them time," I reply, even though I know time won't help.

Michelle doesn't bother popping back into him now that the evening is ruined. She leads Jeff out with her hand pressed against his back like she is still guiding him, even from outside. A few days later, I text my brother to ask if he wants to play darts. He doesn't reply. The next weekend, he misses our standing NBA Jam date at the arcade. I eat my mother's pad woon sen noodles alone in my bedroom. Jeff doesn't contact my parents. As weeks pass, he sees me only sparingly. I ask him about Michelle, but my questions disappoint him. He says I remind him of our parents, that I have absorbed their views. He is mad that I didn't leave them. I lived at home during college and have only recently moved a few blocks down the road, close enough to make my mother happy but far enough that I can shut the door on them when needed.

The holidays are triggering for my parents. They stir up secret memories from their childhoods. Ghosts of angry relatives fly around during these fights. My mother's mother is the one who haunts us the most. She'd once said it was a mistake for my mother to move to America. She said my mother was no longer Thai because she left. My mother is racked with guilt even though her mother is dead.

Excerpted from I Am the Ghost Here by Kim Samek. Copyright © 2026 by Kim Samek. Excerpted by permission of The Dial Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.