Reconciled for Easter Read Online Free PDF Page A

dinner with me and Daddy. What else did you do this weekend?
    “He made pancakes,” Mia said, her sober face starting to glow as she remembered. “They were great big, and he made faces on them. One of them looked like Baxter!” She held up her favorite stuffed dog to emphasize her point.
    “He did?” Abigail couldn’t help but smile at her daughter’s obvious delight at the memory. “Did he use chocolate chips and whipped cream to make the faces?” For a moment, she wanted so much to be part of the pancake-making episode that her chest ached with the feeling. Thomas was usually a very serious man, so the times he relaxed and had fun had always meant so much to her. She could picture his smile even now, and she felt a pull of longing so strong it took her breathe away.
    She was convinced the break they were taking was a good thing for both of them. She was starting to feel refreshed, like she might have the energy to tackle their relationship again.
    But she hadn’t seen him much lately because of it, and she missed him.
    Mia hadn’t noticed her distraction and was answering the question happily. “No. I wanted whipped cream, but he said it would mess up the faces. He used blueberries and strawberries and dried cranberries and raisins and pieces of this orange fruit.” Her forehead wrinkled. “I don’t remember what it was called. He said it grew in tropics.”
    Abigail hazarded a guess. “Mangoes?”
    Mia gave a satisfied nod, her glasses slipping down her nose. “Yes. Mangoes.” She giggled. “They were funny faces. He made one that looked like you.”
    “He did? Did it have a big nose and funny hair?”
    “No,” Mia said, frowning disapprovingly. “It was pretty. We both thought so.”
    Abigail felt another emotional tug at the idea that Thomas still thought she was pretty—even her representation on a pancake. “What else did you do besides eating pancakes?”
    “We read a lot. We read two whole books. Long ones!”
    “What do you mean 'we'? He read them too?”
    Mia huffed like her mother was being dense and slow. “Yes, he read them. We read them together. He reads and then I read.”
    Abigail blinked, vaguely baffled by the incongruous picture her daughter’s words evoked. “You mean you read them out loud?”
    “Yes. That’s how we read.”
    Swallowing, Abigail tried to process what she’d heard. She was so overwhelmed by the knowledge that Thomas had starting sitting with his daughter and reading for hours that her vision blurred over briefly.
    He hadn’t come home until after bedtime on Mia’s third birthday, causing the girl to cry herself to sleep. Sometimes, when they’d been together, days had gone by when he hadn’t seen his daughter at all because of his long hours at the hospital. He hadn’t wanted to take his current position, even though his work schedule would be much less stressful and he’d have a lot more time for family, because it wasn’t as impressive a step in his career.
    He’d ended up taking it anyway, but that was after their marriage had already crashed and burned. And he’d made it very clear that he was taking it begrudgingly and resented Abigail for making him do it.
    The knowledge that he’d changed—that he was trying so hard and keeping it private so she wouldn’t even know—meant so much to her that she literally started to shake.
    “Are you okay, Mommy?” Mia asked.
    Abigail quickly pulled herself together, not wanting Mia to get concerned. “Yes, I’m okay.”
    Mia had obviously been doing some thinking of her own. “Do you think Daddy loves me more now than when I was little?”
    Abigail tensed up and focused again on Mia, who was frowning thoughtfully. “What? Why do you ask that, sweetie?”
    “Because he seems to love me more now.”
    Evidently, Mia’s thoughts had gone down the same paths as Abigail’s, but the girl was even less equipped to understand the transformation than Abigail was.
    With a catch in her throat, Abigail