Even if Lex were the sort of person with any proficiency in assuaging grief, he wouldn't know how to do it when survival is so much more paramount. What does he tell her, she did her best? She can't control the highway? The last would make him, personally, spit nails--there's nothing he can't control if he finds the right reach.

This is something he suspects she understands. So instead of any of that: "It hurts," he more ...remarks than inquires, although there is something of curiosity about it too. He doesn't remember whether it was the same for him; his mother died when he was far too young to remember, and his father--well. The less said about Alexander the elder the better.