Title: Frostiana
Author: Deemus

Prompt: Ann

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
--Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”

Rating: OK for anyone

Disclaimer: I don’t own the show, or any of the characters. Unfortunately.


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In the end, it hadn’t been enough. All of Harm’s eloquence, all of his obvious sincerity, had been to no avail, as Uncle Matt had been found guilty and sentenced to ten years at Leavenworth. Harm had argued, very logically and persuasively, Mac thought, that Uncle Matt had been set up, that he had been enticed into taking the Declaration of Independence. It would have been difficult to argue Uncle Matt’s innocence, but Harm had hoped there was enough evidence to win him a suspended sentence. The jury hadn’t agreed, and had spent only a couple of hours bringing in the verdict. Ten years! That was almost half a lifetime! Half her lifetime, anyway. What would she do without him, without his guidance and support? Even though she hadn’t seen him much since she’d first been stationed overseas, they had kept in frequent contact by letters and phone calls. She was really on her own now.

Mac swung her hip at the door to open it, all the while juggling a suitcase, her uniform bag, and a bundle of mail. Her kind old neighbor, Mr. Teeven, kept watch of
her apartment and picked up any mail and packages when she was away. He had seen her climb the stairs to the second floor, and he had come out to give her the accumulated stack.

She draped her uniform bag over the back of the sofa and tossed the mail onto the end table, then carried the suitcase to her room and heaved it up on the bed. It isn’t worth it to unpack, she thought to herself, when I’ll be off again so soon. She’d have to get started figuring what to take up with her to her new posting in Washington, and what could be left for the packers and shippers to do. Heaving a sigh, she trudged into the kitchen and filled the tea kettle. A good, strong cup of tea would help. She had stopped for a meal at the little diner on the outskirts of town. It wasn’t gourmet fare, but it was comforting. It also meant she didn’t have to stop for groceries.

Holding her tea mug, Mac wandered back into the living room to check through the mail. There was a heavy item at the bottom of the bundle, something about the size of a small book. There was no return address on the envelope, and she didn’t recognize the block printing on the front. It was indeed a book, she found when she opened it, a book of collected American poems. Inside the front cover was a short note, and she was surprised to see that it was from Uncle Matt. He must have mailed it just before all this began, she thought to herself.

“Dear Sarah,” she read aloud. “I hope you will find comfort and wisdom in some of these poems. I especially appreciated the ones by Robert Frost.”

Mac stared at the note in surprise. Poems? From Uncle Matt? He had never seemed to be the type who liked poetry. Uncle Matt was a down-to-earth sort of man,
someone who took his responsibilities and values seriously. He believed in doing things,not in talking about them or reading about them. Yet the book was far from new, and there was a small slip of paper near the middle. Mac opened to that page, and read the title. “The Road Not Taken.” She skimmed the poem, noting the last lines:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

“So that’s where that came from,” Mac said thoughtfully. “I never did know.”

She closed the book, holding her finger in the page. It sounded like the author had some doubts about choices he had made. Was that true of Uncle Matt? Did he take that particular poem as an expression of regret over something he had done? Or maybe it was something he was planning to do, right after he sent the book to her. Did he wonder if he was doing the right thing, with the Declaration? Could it be he wished he had done something other than spend his life in the Marines? She had never thought he wasn’t content with the life he had chosen. He had forged a successful and highly decorated career. She shook her head in bewilderment. It didn’t seem to make sense.

She glanced through others in the Robert Frost section. There were a few vivid descriptions, the kind of writing she had always connected with poetry, but most of the poems were brief snapshots of country life, unglamorous but solid. There was one about clearing out a spring in the pasture, and another about a runaway colt. Mac began to think she saw what Uncle Matt had liked about these poems. It was precisely because they weren’t fancy and elegant. They depicted everyday life, reliable and good, like the life Uncle Matt had lived for years. What a change it had been, when he had joined with The Defenders and hijacked the Declaration of Independence! Maybe that’s what he was thinking about as the road less traveled. No one else had been upset enough about the problems of modern life to do anything like that! It certainly had made a difference in his life, a huge one. So far, she didn’t think it was a good difference, but Uncle Matt had seemed to think he had done what needed to be done.

One other poem caught her eye as she was closing the book. "A Passing Glimpse," was the title:

I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.

I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.

I name all the flowers I am sure they weren’t:
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt—

Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth—
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.

Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?

Heaven gives its glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.

“I like that one,” Mac spoke aloud. “A glimpse of heaven that you can’t really look at closely. Sort of an idea that has promise, but you don’t see all of it yet. You have to appreciate it on the fly.” She thought about the bits of life she had seen that had appealed to her. There was the pride of making it through a tough boot camp session. She chuckled slightly at the idea of boot camp being in any way considered heaven! It had been great for her self esteem, though. Then there was the time in Okinawa, and her relationship with John Farrow. That had started out to be comforting and reassuring, with John being more fatherly than anything else. As she looked back, Mac wasn’t very proud of her actions, but it had been a warm and caring relationship. Law school had been hard, but interesting and satisfying. Heaven? Probably not. Her several postings as a JAG officer had been OK, but not wonderful. But now…maybe she had something really promising. She had been transferred to Washington, DC, to the main office, the headquarters. She was going to be able to work more with a brilliant lawyer, who was also strongly principled. It didn’t hurt a bit that he was so attractive, either! Maybe that was her glimpse of heaven. She hoped it wasn’t something that would quickly disappear as she got close to it.

Mac closed the book and put it aside, then began to poke through the other things in the mail bundle. There were the usual bills, and a few credit card offers, and some advertising circulars.

“To our friends at…” she read from the address block of a catalog, and snorted. Friends? This store wouldn’t know me from a hole in the ground! One other piece caught her eye. It was from her high school alumni association. Thanks to an active and persistent association secretary, the yearly newsletter always managed to catch up with her eventually. She checked the year of her graduation, and recognized a few names. One former classmate had become a branch manager at a local bank. Another had just returned from two weeks in Hawaii. Yet another had recently become a father for the third time. Mac smiled at the combination of career advancements and family news. What would she send in about herself, if she ever felt like sending in something? She chuckled dryly. Who would be interested in seeing anything about her, anyway? She hadn’t kept in touch with anyone from her school, and if they ever actually thought about her, they probably assumed she’d ended up on the streets with a bottle in her hand. That certainly had been the way she was headed. If it hadn’t been for Uncle Matt….She felt her eyes start to blur again, and grimly blinked away the tears. She’d cried enough; it was time to move on.

She tossed the junk mail into the wastebasket by the table, then piled the rest and set it aside as she headed back to her bedroom to sort and pack. Her mind kept returning to the poem she had read. A glimpse of heaven? Could that have been the news from her high school newsletter? What would her life have been like if she hadn’t gone into the Marines? What if Uncle Matt had helped her dry out, and then she had gone back to her hometown and continued her life there?

Mac sat down on her bed, then lay back and stared at the ceiling. A family. She had not had much of one growing up, and there had been even less of one since high school. She might have had her own family by now. Maybe two children, a boy and a girl. They could be seven or eight by now, at least the older one, if she had started right away. Two children looking like…looking like….She couldn’t think of anyone she would have wanted for a father for her children. Certainly not a deadbeat and loser like Chris Ragle! Surely there would have been someone else around, someone who hadn’t known her in her drinking days.

What about college? She had done fairly well in high school, despite her problems with alcohol. She didn’t have the grades to get into a good school on a scholarship, though, and there was nowhere near the money available to pay that kind of tuition. Well, there was a community college in town. She might have started there, maybe gotten a two-year degree. What could you do with a two-year degree?

You couldn’t be a lawyer, that’s for sure. Maybe she should think about what she did have that she would have missed by staying at home. Maybe that glimpse of heaven was something she really had seen, but not recognized.

Mac sat up and got back to work, thinking about the turns her life had taken since she had joined the Marines. She had seen some places she would never have otherwise visited, places like Okinawa. She had gotten the chance to go to law school, then to work in the field. She had been a JAG in Bosnia. Now, she had the wonderful opportunity to work at the JAG headquarters, for and with the top JAG officer himself.

With a slight smile, Mac considered the partner she had worked with on Uncle Matt’s case. Certainly she would never have met Harmon Rabb, Jr., if she had stayed home! She had been highly impressed by his dedication and confidence. He was probably overconfident, maybe cocky, but he also seemed to be sincere and loyal. She wasn’t going to fall at his feet, by any means, but she was looking forward to getting to know him better.

Dragging a stuffed suitcase behind her, she went back into the living room and picked up the book again, opening to the poem of "The Road Not Taken." She read the last few lines again, then noticed the beginning of the same verse:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

“With a sigh,” Mac said aloud. She’d read that first as a sigh of regret or unhappiness, but did it have to mean that? Contentment or happiness could also be marked with a sigh. Maybe that’s what Uncle Matt had had in mind. He had chosen the path, and even if it hadn’t worked out perfectly, even if he was now in federal prison, he was content with his choice. That made more sense, she decided. That must have been the message that Uncle Matt was trying to get across.

That fit her own situation too, Mac realized. She had chosen the road less traveled, by going into the Marines, and it had definitely made all the difference. Where would she be now without that choice?

Mac set the book back on the end table and returned to her room. As she finished packing the last few things she wanted to take up with her, she thought of the final verse of another Frost poem, the only one she had known before opening the book from Uncle Matt. It was "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," and that last verse stated:

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

She smiled at the lines, undaunted by the miles still to go, and prepared to go to work on those promises.