Neal continued mixing, thinking everything over. It was sort of methodical as he was lost in a train of thought for a minute there - a runaway train, on fire, barreling down a hill. That tended to happen whenever he remembered his father, who really hadn't done much good for Neal at all. Prevented him from being recruited for the Ogre Wars, maybe, and forced to fight at the age of fourteen. But even then, he'd murdered the soldiers who had come for Baelfire - slaughtered them, even. And that didn't seem to be worth it at all.
"My mom's a whole other issue," he said, since Alex had brought up her own. "She left me and my dad when I was just a boy, because she was in love with someone else. I can see why, I mean, she wasn't meant to be a wool spinner. But I don't remember much about her." Other than how rejected she had managed to make him feel; that was why he was so desperate to get back to Henry. He'd have never, ever wished that feeling on his own son because he understood that nothing hurt worse. "My dad...chose power over me. He's always chosen power over me. I can't forgive him for that, not when my whole life became fucked up because of it."
The details he didn't need to go into. She probably understood. "Well, it doesn't taste too bad, right?" he asked, dipping a finger into the batter to have a test. Probably not sanitary, but whatever. He was clean!