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“Unfortunately, Carter and Riley did encounter their grandfather last night. They know he’s here.”
“How?”
Hannah sighed. “When I saw the pickup parked outside my parents’ house, I called Wes. He and Kodi confronted him to find out why he had been parked by my house on and off for several days.”
“I bet Dad loved that,” Morgan said, her voice dry.
“Well, after Ed told him who he was and why he was there, Wes brought the man inside my parents’ house so he could explain the situation to me as well.”
“I’m sure I can see where this is going.”
“Right. Carter happened to come into the room when we were talking. He was delighted to see his grandfather and immediately went to find Riley so she could see him too.”
Morgan closed her eyes. “The separation from my dad has been hard enough on them. Now they’ll be upset all over again.”
“They were thrilled to see him,” Hannah admitted.
“His relationship with my kids was never the issue. He would never hurt them. But he was hurting me.”
Hannah didn’t want to push, but she still didn’t feel as if she had the full picture. “What happened? Can you tell me? Why did you cut things off with your dad?”
Her friend focused on something off screen for a long moment. When she looked back, her features were troubled. “It wasn’t any single reason. More like a last-straw kind of thing.”
She drew in a ragged-sounding breath. “After Josh died, I was . . . broken, lost in a place of grief and pain that I thought I would never emerge from. I honestly couldn’t function for the first few months. I couldn’t work, which meant I couldn’t pay my bills.”
Morgan’s voice caught, and Hannah could see her struggling to maintain her composure, her hands trembling slightly as she tried to cope with the memories.
“My dad never liked Josh. He thought he was reckless and irresponsible. When he died in a motorcycle accident where he wasn’t wearing a helmet, that only confirmed it.”
Hannah found herself thinking that she couldn’t entirely disagree with Ed on that. The man had been a father with a young family and should have been thinking about what was best for them.
“When my dad realized how much I was struggling, he just . . . took over. Everything. Our whole life. He insisted we come to stay with him. He packed up my apartment and we moved from Cleveland to Columbus to live with him.”
Morgan paused, visibly trying to gather herself and speak calmly. “I just went along with him. I didn’t know what else to do. I was lost. I loved Josh so much, and after he died, I was broken.”
Hannah understood on some level what she meant. Though their circumstances had been completely different as Wes hadn’t died, losing him twelve years ago had sent her into a spiral of loss and grief.
“My dad handled every detail. He enrolled the kids in school in Columbus, he paid off all our outstanding debts from his retirement fund, he even did the grocery shopping and cooking for us because I could barely get out of bed.”
“It sounds like he was trying to take care of all of you.”
“We became his latest project. My mom had died of cancer just a year before Josh’s accident.”
“That’s a lot to deal with in a short time.” And now Morgan had cancer, like her mother. Hannah couldn’t imagine how scary that must be.
“My dad had retired from the police force when Mom was first diagnosed. He devoted himself to caring for her. After she died, he was at loose ends too, grieving in his own way.”
Her mouth tightened. “Instead of dealing with his own loss, he threw himself into caring for us.”
“It sounds like you needed each other.”
“At first, yes. I was grateful for his help. Except my dad, being my dad, couldn’t stay in a supportive role. He had to be in control.”
Morgan’s voice grew more strained. “He started making decisions about the children’s schedules without consulting me. He would sign them up for activities, make doctor appointments, even choose their clothes. When I started to push back and tried to reassert my place as the children’s mother, Dad didn’t like it. He insisted he knew what was best, for all of us.”
She paused, her fingers worrying the edge of the blanket. “And then I found out he was keeping things from me. He had learned from friends in the Cleveland police force that Josh had been over the legal limit when he died. Dad never said a word to me about it.”
Hannah chose her words carefully. “Maybe he was trying to protect you.”
