Cranberry Point (Cedar Cove #4)(60)

A few minutes later, just after Peggy had settled into her morning routine, Hannah stepped quietly into the family room. Her hair fell in thin brown tendrils about her face, which was ashen. She bit her lower lip, hesitating as if she wasn't sure she should interrupt Peggy.

"You heard?" Peggy asked softly.

The young woman nodded. "I'm so sorry.... I didn't mean to leave out the milk."

Peggy tried to reassure her with a smile. "I know you didn't."

"I'll pick up another half gallon before I leave for work this afternoon."

"Don't worry about it." Peggy gestured for Hannah to sit across from her. The girl looked shaken and Peggy hoped to comfort her.

"Did you sleep well?" Peggy asked.

Hannah's nod was tentative. "My dad used to yell, too."

The last thing Hannah needed was for Bob to do the same. "Bob didn't mean anything by it."

"I.. .know. It's just that when I hear a man yell, especially one who's around my dad's age, it... affects me, you know?"

"Of course it does." Peggy's irritation with her husband rose.

"My father was an unhappy person most of my life."

Hannah rarely mentioned her father. Peggy didn't know whether that was because of her grief at his death or because her memories of his accident were too painful to talk about.

"Sometimes at night, when I was a little girl, I'd wake up to the sound of my father shouting."

Peggy felt a moment's shock—and a rush of pity for Hannah. Having lived with an alcoholic for years, she wondered if Max Russell drank, too. "Did your father have a drinking problem?"

Hannah shook her head. "Sometimes he drank too much, but it wasn't a problem. Not a bad one, anyway. Some days he was mean for no reason. He used to shout at Mom and me for the littlest things."

"I'm sorry."

"He wasn't a bad person, you know. I really loved my dad."

"Of course you did." Peggy wondered if Hannah fully understood what her father had experienced during the war.

"My mom stood by him through all the times we had to move and all the fights." Tears filled her eyes. "It's so wrong that she died, so wrong."

"You moved around a lot?"

Hannah needed a minute to compose herself. She swallowed visibly. "Dad was never able to hold down a job for long. He'd be fine for a while, and then he'd drift into this...dark place."

"Dark place?"

"That's what Mom called it. He'd be happy, and suddenly it would be like someone had turned off the lights. I could always tell when it happened. So could Mom. She'd ask me to go to my room and I would, because I knew what was going to follow."

"What was that?" Peggy asked.

Hannah was silent for several minutes. "Nothing pleased him. The napkins had to be put on the table just so or he'd throw them on the floor. Dinners were a nightmare. Mom always did something wrong. The meat was tough, the vegetables were overcooked, the milk was too cold. Either the silverware wasn't properly lined up or the saltshaker wasn't full enough. Everything had to be perfect for Dad. Hard as she tried to please him, it was impossible. Dad found fault with the smallest thing."

This was much worse than Peggy had realized.

"We moved at least once a year. Dad would sometimes use other names, and I had to remember what my name was because he'd change it."

"Your dad used other names?"

Hannah's head snapped up. Her eyes widened. "I never told the sheriff that. Please don't mention it, all right? Dad hadn't done it in a long time and I was afraid that if Sheriff Davis found out, he'd think my dad was a criminal or something."

Peggy sighed, but she managed to swallow the exasperated response that sprang to her lips. It would've helped had the girl revealed this earlier. Apparently, there was still a great deal they didn't know about Maxwell Russell—including why he'd come to Cedar Cove. A chill raced down her spine. They'd been on edge ever since the night someone had followed Bob home, although nothing had happened since.

"My mother was a saint," Hannah whispered.

"She put up with your father's moods all those years?"

Hannah nodded. "Sometimes I'd find her sitting on her bed reading his letters. She said it helped her remember what he was like before the war."

Peggy understood why Tammy Russell had done that. Why she'd kept on hoping, and supporting her husband and—worst of all—putting up with his verbal abuse. She'd still loved him and wanted him to become, once again, the person he used to be. No matter how hopeless that desire.

Peggy understood because she'd done something very similar. She, too, had held on to memories of the past, letting them form her hopes for the future. Before joining Al-Anon, Peggy had tried to manipulate Bob into not drinking. She'd used pressure, guilt, punishment, anger and every other behavior she could think of. None of it had worked until she'd stepped aside, forcing Bob to deal with the consequences of his drinking. But through it all, Peggy had stood by her husband, just like Hannah's mother.

"Dad was in one of his dark moods when the car accident happened," Hannah whispered. "I wanted Mom to leave him, but she wouldn't. I had a job.... I could have supported the two of us, but she wouldn't do it."