Nicky motioned for him to quiet down, no matter that Nicky was the louder of the two of them. "The night Aunt Tilda died, she and Aaron got in a fight. That's how Mom and Dad finally found out Aunt Tilda was beating on Aaron. He showed up at their place with fresh bruises and cuts. Dad called Aunt Tilda over to sort things out, but she didn't stick around long. She took Aaron and left. They didn't make it home. She went over the median into oncoming traffic and wasn't wearing her seatbelt."

Nicky shifted in his seat, looking a little uncomfortable, and said, "It wasn't Aaron in the car. Aaron was standing in for Andrew at a study session. That was before Andrew was on his drugs, so it was a pretty easy act for Aaron to pull off. He didn't know why Andrew asked him to do it until the police called. I still don't know what happened, if Aunt Tilda panicked when she realized which son was with her or if they were fighting or if it was intentional, but…

"It's not like Aaron liked her, but she was his mother, you know? And Aaron never got to fix things with her, never got to understand why she was so messed up or why she messed them up so bad. Aaron can't accept that she's gone. He misses her. He can't forgive Andrew, and Andrew doesn't understand or care about how much it hurt Aaron. Stalemate."

Neil thought he understood Aaron's situation. He and his mother had serious issues, consequence of her background and his terrifying childhood. By the end he wondered if it was survival or love that kept them together so long. Knowing now she'd run to protect him skewed his perspective a little, but he'd violently disliked her for half his life. Despite that, losing her was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

Neil couldn't say that when his teammates thought both his parents alive and well, so he settled on the more interesting conclusion of Nicky's story. He spoke slowly, giving himself time to think and to bleach the grief from his voice. "Andrew did care. That's what went wrong."

Nicky blinked at him. "What?"

"Andrew came home for Aaron, right? It wouldn't have taken him long to realize Aaron was a wreck. Andrew would have traced Aaron's problems back to their mother. Maybe he didn't kill her for giving him up. Maybe he did it to protect Aaron."

Nicky looked skeptical. "That is a seriously big maybe, Neil."

"Is it?" Neil asked. "Do you remember how Andrew ended up on his medication?"

"Yeah," Nicky said, then went quiet as he thought about it.