I forced a smile, though disappointment pressed heavy on my chest. “When are you leaving?”

“Tonight. I’m so sorry, honey.”

As I helped him pack, my mind drifted to memories of our first Christmas together. The way he’d burned the turkey trying to surprise me with a festive dinner. The matching ugly sweaters he’d bought last year, just for laughs. Shawn wasn’t perfect, but he always made the holidays feel magical. This year, it seemed, the magic was slipping away.

When Shawn left that evening, the house felt unbearably empty. I tried to distract myself by baking cookies and wrapping gifts, but the silence was oppressive. Around 9 p.m., my phone buzzed.

“Merry Christmas, beautiful,” Shawn said when I answered, his voice oddly strained.

“Merry Christmas! How’s Boston?”

“It’s… fine,” he stammered. “Listen, I can’t talk long. I’ve got to run to an emergency meeting.”

“In the middle of Christmas Eve?” I asked, frowning. In the background, I could hear muffled laughter and the clink of dishes.

“Yeah, uh, sorry. Gotta go!” he said abruptly before hanging up.

Something didn’t sit right. The strange tone in his voice, the background noise—it didn’t add up. Then I remembered my fitness tracker. I’d left it in his car last week. With trembling fingers, I opened the app to check its location.

Boston? No. Shawn’s car was parked at a hotel just fifteen minutes from our house.

My stomach churned. A hotel? On Christmas Eve? My mind raced through a dozen horrifying scenarios. I grabbed my keys and drove there, the short trip feeling like an eternity.

When I arrived, Shawn’s silver car was right where the app said it would be. Seeing it there sent a wave of nausea through me. I stormed into the hotel lobby, my heart pounding.

The receptionist hesitated when I asked for Shawn’s room number, but my tearful plea must have moved her. “Room 412,” she said softly, sliding a keycard across the counter. “But… sometimes things aren’t what they seem.”

I didn’t have time to process her words. I practically ran to the elevator, each ding of the floors like a countdown to disaster. When I reached the room, I swiped the card and burst inside.

“Shawn, how could you—”

The words died in my throat.

Shawn stood beside a wheelchair, his face a mixture of shock and guilt. But it wasn’t him that made my knees buckle. It was the man sitting in the wheelchair. A man with silver-streaked hair and familiar eyes—eyes I hadn’t seen since I was a little girl.

“Daddy?” The word escaped as a whisper, a plea, and a question all at once.

“My little girl,” he said, his voice trembling. “Andrea.”

The room spun as memories came rushing back. My parents’ messy divorce, my mother burning his letters, moving us across the country, and telling me he didn’t want to see me anymore. But here he was, alive, staring back at me with tears in his eyes.

“How?” I choked out, turning to Shawn. “How did you…?”

“I’ve been searching for him for a year,” Shawn said softly. “Your mom told me bits and pieces before she passed. I found him last week. He’s been living in Arizona, Andrea. He’s had a rough time. A stroke took his ability to walk. I drove down to get him yesterday. I wanted to surprise you.”

Tears streamed down my face as I fell to my knees beside the wheelchair. “I thought you didn’t want me,” I sobbed, reaching for my father’s hands.

His grip was weak but steady. “I never stopped loving you,” he said. “Your mother made it impossible to find you. But I never stopped trying, Andrea. Not for one second.”

Later, as we sat together in the room, Shawn explained everything. He’d wanted to give me the ultimate Christmas gift: my father. But the search had been complicated, and he hadn’t wanted to get my hopes up if it didn’t work out.

“You scared the hell out of me,” I said, managing a watery laugh.

“Not exactly the reaction I was hoping for,” Shawn admitted with a sheepish grin. “But I’ll take it.”

The next morning, we all shared Christmas breakfast together. My father told stories from my childhood, Shawn chimed in with embarrassing anecdotes about me, and for the first time in years, I felt whole.

“Thank you,” I whispered to Shawn when we were alone later. “This is the best gift I’ve ever received.”

He kissed my forehead. “Merry Christmas, Andrea.”

And for the first time in years, it truly was.