Yeah. So I guess you could say the first thing...is that I remember my stepmom saying my mom should've taken me with her, when she left. She didn't know why my dad bothered to keep me.

[Now at last, he picks up the teacup and smells its contents, buying himself a moment.]

I'm about five, six years older than my half-brother. I remember my stepmom making me follow her through the house while she broke everything my mom had left behind. Any trace of her, anything that'd been hers when she was the Lady Albrecht...she wrecked it all. She wouldn't even sleep in the bed that'd been my mom's; she had 'em cut it up for firewood, and her family paid for a new one.

It was a pretty clear message, yeah? Anything that was my mom's, gone. And I was my mom's.