"Whatever it was I haven't been able to figure it out yet. He's a lot like you when it comes to his personal life. Guarded. He also didn't have very much time with us." She left things at that since telling him the full truth about what happened in their future with the car crash and leaving Tony alone at only seventeen might send him back to drinking.
"We'll get through this Howard. But without you drinking alone in the dark." He could at least drink in the lights of the clubs or during Maria's hosted 'poker night'.