Angel Falls by Kristin Hannah Read Free Book Online Page A

it scary?”
    “No.” Liam positioned himself against the bed’s headboard and pulled Bret up beside him. Opening the book, he flipped to the first page and began to read aloud. “Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy …”
    The words gently bound father and son, and transported them to a world where children could step into an armoire and discover a magical land.
    Finally Liam came to the end of a chapter and closed the book. The bedside clock read ten-thirty, well past time for Bret to go to sleep. “That seems like a good enough place to stop for tonight. We’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow.”
    Bret looked at him. “Do you believe in magic, Daddy?”
    He smiled. “Every time I look at you or Jacey or Mommy, I
know
there’s magic.”
    “Tell me about when I was born again.”
    It was a well-worn legend, a quilt of often-told stories that could warm them on the coldest night. “She cried,” Liam said. “She cried and said you were the most perfect, most beautiful baby she’d ever seen.”
    Bret smiled. “And you said I looked like I wasn’t done cookin’ yet.”
    Liam touched his son’s soft, soft cheek. “You were so little …”
    “But I had big lungs, and when I got hungry, I cried so loud the windows rattled.”
    “And the nurses had to cover their ears.”
    Bret’s genuine smile warmed Liam’s heart.
    “Daddy, the kids that went through that … armwar. Do they come back?”
    Liam wasn’t surprised that Bret wanted a guaranteed happy ending. “Yes, they do. Sometimes they get lost, but sooner or later, they always come back to the real world.”
    “Will you read me more tomorrow night? Promise?”
    “You bet.” He leaned down and kissed Bret’s forehead. As he did it, he remembered the “Mommy Kiss.” Mike had invented it when Bret was three years old. A magical kiss that prevented nightmares. “Should we start a daddy kiss? I have a bit of magic myself, you know.”
    “Nope.”
    Liam understood. Bret wanted to save that kiss for his mom. Trading it would make it feel as if she wasn’t ever coming home.
    Bret looked up. Tears flooded his blue eyes. “I think about her all the time.”
    “I know, honey,” he said, pulling Bret close. “I know.”
    For a moment, perhaps no more than a heartbeat, life settled into a comfortable place. Liam smelled thesweet scent of his little boy’s hair, felt the soft twining of arms around his neck, and it was enough. A dozen treasured images came back to him, memories he’d collected over the years of their lives together. And in remembering what had been, he found the strength to pray for what could be.

Chapter Five

    Rosa moved into the small cottage beside the main house, set her few personal items in the pink-tiled bathroom, and stocked the refrigerator with iced tea and a loaf of wheat bread. There was no point in doing more; she planned on spending all of her time with the children or Mikaela.
    The next morning, after Liam left for the hospital, Rosa made the children a hot breakfast and tried to take them to school.
    Not yet, Grandma, please …
    She had not the heart to deny them. She granted their wish for one more day at the hospital—but after that, she said, they must go to school. The waiting room was no place for children, not hour upon hour, day upon day.
    They drove the few miles to the medical center, and then Rosa settled the kids in the waiting room.
    She hurried through the busy corridor, head down,purse tucked against her body, counting the three hundred and eleven steps to Mikaela’s room in the ICU.
    The small, curtained room still frightened her—there were so many unfamiliar noises and machines. At the bedside, she gazed down at her beautiful, broken child. “I guess it does not matter how old we get, or that you have children of your own, you will always be my little girl,
sí, mi hija
?” She gently stroked Mikaela’s unbruised cheek. The skin was swollen and taut,