"Well, hopefully someone decided to paint over the grease stain or something," Thomas joked. "Or I guess it might have made for an interesting story whenever you had people over. Here's the living room, here's the dining room, here's the big stain leftover from when my dad through meat at the wall."

For a second, Thomas wished he had a story like that. He wished he remembered something ridiculous about his father that he could share. Maybe he'd fallen into a pool once or put a whole in the wall while trying to hammer a nail. All he had was the memory of his father screaming and ranting, threatening his mother while in the grips of the Flare.

"Does it bother you not to know?" Thomas wondered. "Or is it something that you've gotten used to over time?"