Honestly, he was a little worried about his family - that they hadn't ever been home to receive his calls, in that they didn't even know he was coming. But they'd be excited to see him when he showed up at the doorstep, right? How could they not be? He was both excited and terrified to see them, not knowing who he would find, what they were like, but praying that somehow they'd be able to do what the doctors, what Summer, couldn't. That they'd look at him and he'd look at them and suddenly remember, even though he knew deep down that wasn't going to happen.
He just made a little noise, noncommittal, when Summer said it wasn't his fault. If it wasn't his, then whose was it? The Japs? It was easy as hell to blame them for taking his life away with a single blast, but they'd never pay for it, so what could he do but curse the unknown name of whoever had fired at him? He'd started to think, in the hospital, that maybe he was just weak, his mind weak, but he'd tried to push that feeling down. It was hard, though, when he was faced with someone who wanted - needed - him to remember so desperately and he could give her absolutely nothing. And that felt more like failure than anything. "Yes, I do... I just don't know how to do it." He could see the look on her face, he wasn't blind. She looked more and more shattered with every step they took, and just knowing it was because of him, because of his weakness, made him want to run until this place was far behind him. But he couldn't.
"Oh - you have a brother in the service? Or your dad?" He didn't even imagine that star was for him, though when he looked at the houses across the street, none of them had stars; hadn't she said they were across from each other? Maybe she'd meant across from and then down a ways; he squinted at the houses on the side of the street, searching for one that looked familiar. But nothing looked right, nothing jumped out at him. There were flashes, all-too-fleeting glimpses in his mind's eye of a house, but the picture was fuzzy, dark, like a faded, scratched photograph. He couldn't make it line up with any of the houses he saw now.
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He just made a little noise, noncommittal, when Summer said it wasn't his fault. If it wasn't his, then whose was it? The Japs? It was easy as hell to blame them for taking his life away with a single blast, but they'd never pay for it, so what could he do but curse the unknown name of whoever had fired at him? He'd started to think, in the hospital, that maybe he was just weak, his mind weak, but he'd tried to push that feeling down. It was hard, though, when he was faced with someone who wanted - needed - him to remember so desperately and he could give her absolutely nothing. And that felt more like failure than anything. "Yes, I do... I just don't know how to do it." He could see the look on her face, he wasn't blind. She looked more and more shattered with every step they took, and just knowing it was because of him, because of his weakness, made him want to run until this place was far behind him. But he couldn't.
"Oh - you have a brother in the service? Or your dad?" He didn't even imagine that star was for him, though when he looked at the houses across the street, none of them had stars; hadn't she said they were across from each other? Maybe she'd meant across from and then down a ways; he squinted at the houses on the side of the street, searching for one that looked familiar. But nothing looked right, nothing jumped out at him. There were flashes, all-too-fleeting glimpses in his mind's eye of a house, but the picture was fuzzy, dark, like a faded, scratched photograph. He couldn't make it line up with any of the houses he saw now.