He wonders what it would be like to belong somewhere and never doubt it.

....he will always live in a place he is not from. For a long time he thought that habit would counter this fact and custom would disguise it. He thought, in the beginning, that such things would not matter in the long run. But they did, they do, they always will.

There is always the fantasy of maternal love, but it does not accommodate a mother's fear of her children.