[She waits for him to think on it, taking a sip of her tea as she does as well. There's been many a time in the last month and a half or so when she found herself thinking on those words, either unable to sleep or while doing something. When he reaches the same conclusion she has when running into a brick wall in her thinking, she bites her bottom lip, nodding.]

Aye. I keep coming back to that conclusion. Last I saw of my mother she was a bear...and home. That's why th' dogs were able to take me by surprise.