My Ellen 2/5

After the funeral, Mr. Taylor guides his wife to their bedroom. Is that the Travelocity Gnome on their night table? Cal sits his wife down on the bed and offers to make her some tea. Reverend Alden walks in and offers a highlighted bible to comfort Mama Taylor. Mama Taylor is rather unresponsive, so the Reverend puts the book on her dresser. Before he leaves, she lets him know that she prayed for a miracle – specifically, that God raise her daughter from the dead. “He’s done greater things than that,” she claims. The Reverend starts to caution her, but she tells him not to tell her not to question the ways of God. Mama Taylor stands by the window and declares that God doesn’t care about her or Ellen. She tells the Reverend not to come by their house anymore. Mr. Taylor comes in to see what’s going on. Reverend Alden respects her request and starts to take his leave. “And take your damn book with you!” she screams as she throws the Bible at the Reverend. See if God does you any favors now, Mama Taylor.

The Ingalls family is riding back from the funeral. Laura is sitting in the very back of the wagon and looks to be still devastated by what Mama Taylor said to her. She hops off the wagon and slowly walks into the barn. Pa follows to console his crying daughter. He explains that people sometimes over react when they are mourning, which Laura acknowledges. He tells Laura that it wasn’t her fault but she says that swimming was her idea. Pa tells her that people can’t predict the future and sometimes things just happen. They hug, but it’s pretty evident that Laura is still processing the rapid series of events.

That night, Mr. Taylor comes out of his bedroom and checks on his wife who has set up camp in Ellen’s bedroom. He offers to heat up some soup, but she doesn’t want any since it was made by “that girl’s mother.” “She thought she’d cover up her daughter’s guilt by being nice,” she states, much to Mr. Taylor’s disgust. Mine too; that’s incredibly tacky.

Before he can say anything, Mama Taylor, AKA Heloise, holds up a picture Ellen painted for her birthday. She muses on the interesting color choices for a bit before asking Mr. Taylor why he wasn’t home that fateful Friday afternoon. He’s taken aback by the question and says that he was still at work. “If you had been home she wouldn’t have gone. You wouldn’t have let her,” Heloise concludes. He says he would have, but Heloise says he would have told Ellen to do her chores first. Ergo, it’s his fault that Ellen is dead. Before he can even respond to this, she screams “Get out of my baby’s room!” He can’t believe that she would blame Laura, then him, but before he can get out any more of his disbelief she accuses him of accusing her. Oh, jeez. This would be the anger phase of the grief process. He leaves the room and she grabs all of the drawings and holds them to her chest. The music suggests that the corpse of Ellen is living in the attic, but I’m not sure that is the case. Yet.