Cora Judges Who Loved Addie — As I Lay Dying

It was the sweetest thing I ever saw, Cora says, and from that sentence she builds a whole trial. Darl almost begged on his knees not to leave. Jewel missed a goodbye kiss for three extra dollars. She always knew Darl had his mother's nature. She always knew Addie was partial to Jewel, which makes his leaving worse. Mr. Tull reports what he saw on the porch. Cora writes the verdict before she asks Addie a single question.

In between she praises her own three weeks at the bedside, neglecting her own family so Addie would not face the Great Unknown alone. She attacks the plan to haul Addie forty miles to Jefferson. Vernon says it was her wish. Then why didn't she go alive, Cora says. A woman's place is with her husband and children, alive or dead. She will die surrounded by loving kin, thank God, not like Addie propped up to watch Cash build the coffin while men chase one more load before the rain.

Then she returns to Darl at the door, looking at Addie without entering, heart too full for words. What you want, Dewey Dell says, fan still moving, keeping even him from her. Cora calls that true love. She never heard Jewel's one lick less. She never counted the three dollars Darl kept naming plain. What happens when the daughter who answers for the bed tells her own story next?