Dewey Dell's Secret in the Barn — As I Lay Dying

He could do so much for me if he just would, Dewey Dell thinks, and he don't even know it. Everything in the world sits inside a tub full of guts, his and hers and Lafe's, with no room left for anything else important, though God gave women a sign when something bad has happened. Mother died and she cannot grieve alone because alone everybody would know, and she cannot grieve with anyone because then everybody would know.

In the kitchen she lights the lamp over jagged fish bleeding quietly in the pan and hides it quick in the cupboard. Cash asks where Vardaman is; Peabody's team has run away. At supper Anse looks like right after the maul hits the steer and it no longer alive and don't yet know that it is dead, then says she would not begrudge him eating. Peabody tells him to eat like Cash and me. Dewey Dell says she don't know how to worry and she don't know how to cry.

She goes out to milk before rain sets in, the cow nuzzling her hot nakedness through the dress. In the dark barn she almost calls Lafe, her body beginning to part and open upon the alone, and then Vardaman comes out of the stall. You durn little sneak, she says, shaking him hard. He kilt her, Vardaman cries about Peabody, and she hushes him and sends him to supper. Alone again with sheet lightning staining the hill and the cow's warm breath on her hips, she still does not know whether she is worrying or crying. She feels like a wet seed wild in the hot blind earth. What does a girl do when grief has no room because another life is growing inside the same tub of guts?