Motif · Book 7, This Inevitable Ruin

Carl's family

'After a stint in the US Coast Guard, I ended up working as a marine tech.' What Carl says of himself in the first chapter, and what leaks out after: a mother who locked him in the basement with his father's Frogger machine whenever his father's friends came over, and who left; a heavily tattooed father who laughed at him, broke his slingshot and never replaced it, and drove on past a wrecked moving truck saying it was a shame.

Segment appearances

• Chapter 10 — Hamed's club; the small wedding
• Chapter 15 — The Rolling Battle Formation Ball
• Chapter 20 — Christmas Morning; the Ramp-Up
• Chapter 65 — Bear Witness
• Chapter 70 — City of Broken Dreams
• Chapter 82 — Ursensus

Progression

His grandparents' fireflies in Texas (ch. 24) and their Anne of Green Gables (ch. 70); his father in himself with D'Nadia (ch. 29); his father's Louis L'Amour books (ch. 65); his mother telling his father to throw something away (ch. 27); Asher, his father, his mother mourned with Katia's head against his (ch. 69); 'Do you remember the circus?' (ch. 82).