My daughter opened her Christmas gift and found an empty box. My father laughed and said kids like her didn’t deserve presents

My father set the framed photo on his lap, but he didn’t look at it—not directly. Instead, he stared past the edges of the colorful buttons, past the printed words, as if the picture had opened a door to something he had spent years trying to keep closed. He cleared his throat. “Where did you get this?” he asked Ava, though the question wasn’t really about the photo.

“I made it,” she replied. “Mom helped me print the picture. I wanted you to remember the day you pushed me on the swing.”

That day had been the only visit he’d made in nearly three years. Ava remembered every detail. I remembered the way he seemed almost gentle, as though he were trying on kindness like a shirt he wasn’t sure fit him anymore.

My father pressed his lips together. “I thought your mother threw away all the old pictures,” he murmured, still not meeting my eyes.

“I kept some,” I said carefully. “For Ava.”