*grin* You did not miss a chapter. I've been hanging onto this for a while, and it felt like this was the right place to drop it. There seems to be a rhythm going with the timeline jumps, and this starts a new (or rather, returning) thread in the tale. It'll get filled in, I promise.

Poor Zeke. Whatever virtues he has as a person come directly from his mother, and he knows it. So her loss was enormous even though her presence had been scarce for a while. Loss seems to be the defining thread of his life. *sigh*