The Road Not Taken

Author's Note: I've been promising the last two chapters to some since January. Unfortunately; RL has gotten in the way. Here are the last two chapters of the first book. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 32

June 24, 1974

In the four years and two months since the funeral of Thomas Beckett, the little town of Elk Ridge, Indiana had undergone significant changes. While once the community had consisted of mostly farmers with a smattering of town folks who ran the local stores, the loss of family farms had changed that.

While Sam's idea to support a farmer's market had helped the local farmer's significantly, those who had kept their farms operational based on taking on more and more debt found themselves unable to maintain this as a sustainable business strategy. Their farms were foreclosed and while many had been able to keep the family homestead, their land had been auctioned off to the highest bidder.

Initially, the people who bought the farms were farmers themselves although often it as the larger outfits. They handled large tracts of farmland, using mechanized farming techniques and utilized the minimum number of personnel to do the work. However, over time, developers, selling the concept of "country living" to the city folk of Terre Haute, had been buying up large tracts of land to build homes on. As a result, a huge influx of people, most of whom wouldn't know a tractor from a combine, were living in Elk Ridge while those for whom farming was their life's blood had hired themselves out as farm labor, had taken on different types of jobs, or had simply moved away.

Thus it was that the funeral for Katie Beckett was not as well attended as her brother's had been. The cadre of friends and neighbors who had offered their sympathies and had been there for the moral support of the Beckett family had grown smaller.

There was another difference in this situation as well, though. Whereas Tom had been given a hero's sendoff the circumstances of Katie's death did not seem as cut and dried for many in the community. Since the facts of her abuse at the hands of her husband were not common knowledge, many felt what Sam Beckett had done was pure and simple murder - a result of bad blood between him and Chuck Parnell.

Never a community of sensational news, the deaths of Chuck and Katie Parnell and the subsequent arrest and arraignment of Katie's brother, Sam, had created quite a buzz, allowing gossip to fly like a 707.

As a result of the various stories and constructions of the events, while many felt that the quiet Sam Beckett who had lived his entire life in Elk Ridge, who had played on the high school basketball team, and who had often played piano at the church or other community events must have a good reason for killing Chuck Parnell, others were not so sure. The Parnell's certainly didn't support that sentiment and they were vocal about their discontent that their son's murderer was out on bail, continuing to live at his parent's house and going on as if nothing had happened. It resulted in the town divided like it had never been before.

The neighbors who believed that there was no way that the gentle soul they knew Sam Beckett to be could ever be guilty of murder, even though several had heard words that could be construed as threatening to Chuck just days before he was killed, were sitting towards the front of the church, surrounding the remaining three Becketts. The others, while wishing to offer their condolences to John and Thelma over what all believed was the tragic loss of their daughter, Katie, sat towards the back, many openly glaring at Sam.

There were a few eulogies pointing out the vibrant and beautiful girl that Katherine Olivia Beckett had been. Her friends, Sarah, Elaine, and Mary Lou had all spoken about how much they would miss Katie. To a stranger coming to this sad event, it would be strange that no-one seemed to speak about the past six months of Katie's life, almost as if she had passed on half a year earlier instead of earlier in the week.

At the gravesite, even fewer persons stood in the bright June sunlight, listening to the pastor's last words over Katie Beckett's coffin before it was lowered into the ground. Sam Beckett had placed a single red rose on the casket and that was the last memory that many had of the ceremony. John had held his wife, distraught over the loss of her only daughter, providing a rock of solid support which she leaned against.

Back at the house, the supportive neighbors stopped by for awhile, making their sympathy for the family known. Those who were not supportive felt that they had done their duty to the family by attending the church service. All neighborly debts had been paid in full.

Sam, the remaining Beckett child, was quiet throughout all the proceedings. Those who knew him well understood this was his way. Sam was shy and generally under spoken. Those who did not know him felt that perhaps he was too quiet - that he certainly should be making noise about his innocence, if he indeed was. Otherwise, his silence seemed to them to confirm his guilt.

Sam had stayed on the main floor of the house for awhile but ultimately found himself in Katie's room, taking in the bits of her life she had left on the walls and shelves. He found a small, cloth-covered book on the desk and opened it, finding in it various poetry which Katie had penned. He hadn't known she was a poet.

He read through her works, amazed at the insights that Katie had made through her short, too-soon-ended life. There were simple poems that she had written, the funny quirky little sister he loved so well coming out in rhyme. There were the poems written in angst, about boy issues or girlfriend thoughts. There were poems that tugged his heart as he saw her fall into a belief that she was lacking as a person, a self-attack on her esteem. And there were poems that she had written alluding to the brutal life the last few months of her life had become. It was these last that filled Sam with shame that he hadn't been there to keep her from making that mistake. He found the last entry, written just days before she died. It was a poem she had written about her brothers. As he read it, tears dripped down his face, tracing salty tracks.

MY BROTHERS

Shy with goofy grin

My brother, Sam

So different from my brother, Tom

Who died in Vietnam.

Tom was like a bear

Strong and ready to defend

While Sam is more

Ideas and gentle thoughts to tend.

I love them both

Though one is in the ground

And the one who's left on earth

My soul he has re-found

For I was lost

Sure there was nothing good in me

Until he stood up and fought

And he has set me free.

Sam lay down on Katie's bed, his body curled into a fetal position and crying into her pillow. The stress of the last few days was finally breaking through. The horror of Katie's last moments, the rage he had felt when her head had exploded onto him, the jail, the initial court, trying not to unduly burden his parents who were also dealing with the pain of Katie's loss, the looks and stares that people gave him. It was too much.

Sam shut down. His tears stopped and he folded into himself. He would learn later that his mother found him like that, non-responsive to her calls, to her touch. They'd called the doctor who suggested that they should have Sam admitted to the psychiatric hospital in Terre Haute. Sam was admitted that night.