Days of Sunshine, Days of Shadow (Almanzo's POV)
Almanzo sat in the wheelchair staring at what remained of the farm he and his sister worked so hard to build up and maintain. The tornado had come and gone and taken with it what was left of Almanzo's hopes and dreams for a rich and fulfilling life with Laura and his new daughter, Rose.
He thought about how he had arrived at this point in time. He was finally clearing his land looking for a place to grow his own crops and sell them to replace a debt that had gotten much bigger thanks to several loans he had taken out. What he thought was a bad cold turned out be diphtheria and when his crops were threatened, he disobeyed Doc Baker's orders to stay in bed and ran out to try and save them.
And he had gotten a stroke for his trouble and that left him paralyzed, unable to move his arms or his legs. The arms recovered quickly, thanks to exercise, but the legs refused to cooperate.
And then Eliza Jane showed up at the door, the last person he ever thought would come back into his life. She had told Laura that she couldn't stay away from Walnut Grove knowing that her younger brother was sick.
After arriving, Eliza Jane took charge, as she usually did. She wanted Almanzo and Laura to sell the house and the two of them move with her to Minneapolis so that he could get a good paying job sitting down behind a desk.
This did not sit well with Laura when she found out from friends and neighbors that they would be moving as soon as Eliza Jane found employment for Almanzo and the house was sold. This led to a confrontation between Laura, her parents and Eliza Jane.
And it was then that he had had enough. He wanted her to leave.
"I've always taken care of you since you were a boy" Eliza Jane had explained to him.
"I don't want anyone to take care of me, not you, not Laura, nobody."
"You have no choice," Eliza Jane told him.
"I do," he countered. "I can die."
"Almanzo," she answered, "You don't mean that."
"I pray for it every night. If there's a God in Heaven, he'll let me die. Please go away, Eliza Jane. Go home."
The problem was she was that she hadn't left and wouldn't leave until she had gotten what she wanted, despite the house being gone and there was nothing to sell anymore.
Laura was still in a state of shock from getting caught in the tornado itself and wasn't well. The tension between everyone had gotten worse, especially after she and Grace took a walk over to the house to clean it up. That's when she discovered that it was in complete ruin. And he watched in horror as Laura's condition continued to deteriorate.
There was such despair in his heart that he couldn't even see a foreseeable future. All he thought about was dying. All he thought about was that he would be a cripple and be stuck in this wheelchair for the rest of his life. He thought about how much better it would be if he had died and save Beth and her family from constantly taking care of him, something that he never wanted.
Here he was staring at the house or at least what was left of it. He really hadn't any idea of how long he had been out there nor any idea what to do about it. Nothing had come into his head, nothing at all, except for thoughts of sadness and heart break. He literally did not know what to do and he couldn't see a clear path ahead for him and his family.
"Was starting to worry about you," a male voice called out behind him. "You've been gone for two hours."
Almanzo shook his head. "I don't know what I thought I would find here. Laura's right, it's hopeless."
"I'll take you home, okay?"
"Wait a minute," he said, stopping Charles from pushing him forward.
"What?"
"Look at that," he said, "Look at that plant. I can't believe it."
"It's just a geranium," his father in law answered him.
"A stupid geranium. I watered it, tended it; splinted it when it was broken. It just kept trying to die on me. Now look at it. A tornado hits it and it's growing up to the ruins of the house."
Almanzo stared it. "You know why, Charles? It's because I over tended it. All it needed was some time to be alone, to help itself. Just like me. As long as Laura and Eliza Jane kept doing things for me, I didn't see any need to change. Now Laura needs me, I gotta prove to her that I can be there."
"She's gonna be awful happy to hear that, son," Charles said with a smile on his face.
"I don't want her to know anything about this just yet. I gotta a lot of work ahead of me if I'm going to walk again. Let's make sure I can do it before we get her hopes up. I want to build her a house and walk in through that front door when she's it."
"That's a tall order," Charles answered.
"Will you help me?"
"Just tell me what you need," Charles answered. "And I'll be there."
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Almanzo looked around at the work they had done. The house was coming along beautifully. All the work he had gone through these last months had paid off.
"How are you feeling?" Charles asked as he walked over to where Almanzo sat, which was right by what would be the front door.
"I can't wait for Laura to see all of this," he said with a smile. His arms swept over the skeleton of the one room house.
Charles grinned. "She should be on the way, son," he told him clapping him on the back. "I'm proud of you, all that work you did, learning to walk again, building this house for you, my daughter and my grandchild."
"You know, Charles, I've never felt better in my life. I proved that to myself every single day. My goal now is to finish this house, furnish it and live in it. And this will all be accomplished with a little bit of love."
He looked up at Charles. "When do you think they'll get here?"
"Caroline, Laura and the kids should be here pretty soon, in fact, I hear the sound of buckboard now."
And sure enough, Charles and Almanzo watched as the wagon made a left turn onto their driveway.
They watched, Charles standing by an outline of a window and Almanzo in his wheelchair sitting in the outline of the front door.
"Ma?" Laura asked, as Almanzo watched Laura turn toward her mother.
"You don't have to look if you don't want to," Caroline told Laura.
Charles and Almanzo both watched as Laura picked her head up, a puzzled look on her face.
"Stay there a minute," Almanzo told her.
And he watched as Laura's puzzled turned into complete shock as he slowly rose from his sitting position. He had to use the cane Charles gave him to steady himself.
"Steady Almanzo", he thought as he took his first steps.
"I know it's small. We'll all be living in one room for a while."
Laura nodded. "I'm used to that."
"Keep going," he thought, "you're doing fine."
"You'll have to fetch the water from the well because there's no pump in the kitchen like before."
"I'm used to that too."
"Slowly, now, you're almost there."
"And we're gonna be downright poor for a time," he continued. "But the Farmer's Almanac predicts a good year. Cool summer, mild winter."
"If the Almanac says it's so, it's so."
Almanzo stopped walking. He couldn't believe that he made it. He was standing right in front of her.
"We're right back where we started, you might say. But the land is ours. And nobody can take it away from us."
She shook her head. "They better not try."
"Welcome home, Beth." Almanzo answered, looking into her eyes. He waited for her reaction.
Laura was crying as she rushed into his arms. Almanzo pulled her towards him and swept her into a bear hug. He closed his eyes and felt tears forming inside them.
It was then he heard Ma's voice. The two of them broke apart and faced her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. "Well, I don't know about all of you, but I'm starving. Think we can go into your new house for dinner?"
"You just make sure everybody wipes their feet off first," Laura said as everyone laughed. It was at that moment that Almanzo swept her into his arms again.
"It was all worth it, Almanzo," he thought as he hung on to her. "You did well. Now, let the healing begin."
He made a vow that night never to let her go again. She makes me complete, she makes me whole. And, he thought, I will stay with her forever, for as long as we both shall live.