When Erwin was a child, no older than five, and some years before his father passed, he 'd had a stammer.

It is strange now, to think on it. He often has not thought of it at all. He is good at that ' letting things occur to him and then moving past them quite easily, as if to linger on the memory too long is to pick at a scab; introduce fresh ick into a healing wound, agitate it. Well, he 'd had a stammer. His words would take him too long to spit out. His 'T 's ' were stumbled, his 'S 's ' slurred. There was no cause for it, in particular, except for a sense Erwin had that his father had some high expectation of him that he was failing to meet.