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Reasons - We Regret to Inform You…

by:  J.A. Moniz

April 10, 1970

It was a warm and sunny afternoon early in April. Spring had stopped hinting of its arrival and it was ready to make a full-fledged appearance. Sam had just gotten home from school and put his books in his bedroom and was changing preparatory to doing his chores when he heard the car pull into the drive way. He took a quick look out through the curtains and saw the dark-colored, official-looking sedan park and two men dressed in military uniforms step out and walk to the front porch. As soon as he saw the uniforms he felt his heart quicken in fear and he ran down the stairs.

His mother was just opening the door to the two officers when he hit the bottom step and hearing him she quickly looked over in his direction. “Sam,” she said with a quiver in her voice, “Go get your father. He’s out in the barn.”

While his mother showed the two officers to the parlor, Sam took off at a run going out the backdoor. He was slightly out of breath when he arrived in the barn.

“I’ve never seen you so eager to start your chores,” John Beckett said with a small chuckle when he saw his son.

Sam paused for a few seconds to catch his breath and to order his thoughts. “Mom sent me to get you. There’s two military officers inside.”

John dropped what he was doing and quickly took off for the house. Sam followed along behind his father at nearly the same pace.

When they arrived back at the house John headed straight into the parlor while Sam stopped just outside the door in the hallway unable to bring himself to cross the threshold into the same room with the officers. They're arrival could only mean one thing and waited to hear the confirmation of his fear.

The two officers were sitting quietly and politely on the sofa, their covers in their laps. Thelma Beckett was sitting in the chair opposite them wh her posture was ramrod straight and her hands folded in her lap. Worry and fear were clearly etched on her face and neither she nor the officers were speaking.

When John arrived in the room both officers rose to greet him, putting out their hands to him. John ignored their greeting and instead took up a place behind Thelma, both hands on her shoulders in suport. “Let’s get rid of the pleasantries and get right to the point. What’s happened to our son, Tom?”

Both officers looked down at their shoes for a brief moment before meeting John’s gaze. The older spoke for the two. “Mr. and Mrs. Beckett, we regret to inform you that on the afternoon of 8 April, nineteen hundred and seventy….”

It was all Sam heard before turning and running from the house, the screen door slamming in his wake. He tore past Katie, just arriving home from school, without even seeing her. Her shouted question of who was in the house never even reaching his ears.

He ran until he found himself in the newly planted rows of corn and fell to his knees, his tears blinding him to all around him. Hugging himself and rocking back and forth on his knees the only sound to escape from him was the word “why” sobbed over and over.

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