The Help

“I like . . . Help,” I say, because I really do. I add, “I think we’ll still have to put the description underneath, so the category’s clear, but I think that’s a good title.”

“Good is right,” Minny says. “Cause if this thing gets printed, Lord knows we gone need some.”

On SUNDAY AFTERNOON, with eight days left, I come downstairs, dizzy and blinking from staring at pica type all day. I was almost glad when I heard Stuart’s car pull up the drive. I rub my eyes. Maybe I’ll sit with him awhile, clear my head, then go back and work through the night.

Stuart climbs out of his mud-splattered truck. He’s still in his Sunday tie and I try to ignore how handsome he looks. I stretch my arms. It’s ridiculously warm out, considering Christmas is in two and a half weeks. Mother’s sitting on the porch in a rocking chair, swathed in blankets.

“Hello, Missus Phelan. How are you feeling today?” Stuart asks.

Mother gives him a regal nod. “Fair. Thank you for asking.” I’m surprised by the coolness in her voice. She turns back to her newsletter and I can’t help but smile. Mother knows he’s been stopping by but she hasn’t mentioned it but once. I have to wonder when it will come.

“Hey,” he says to me quietly and we sit on the bottom porch step. Silently, we watch our old cat Sherman sneak around a tree, his tail swaying, going after some creature we can’t see.

Stuart puts his hand on my shoulder. “I can’t stay today. I’m heading to Dallas right now for an oil meeting and I’ll be gone three days,” he says. “I just came by to tell you.”

“Alright.” I shrug, like it makes no difference.

“Alright then,” he says and gets back in his truck.

When he has disappeared, Mother clears her throat. I don’t turn around and look at her in the rocking chair. I don’t want her to see the disappointment in my face that he’s gone.

“Go ahead, Mother,” I finally mutter. “Say what you want to say.”

“Don’t you let him cheapen you.”

I look back at her, eye her suspiciously, even though she is so frail under the wool blanket. Sorry is the fool who ever underestimates my mother.

“If Stuart doesn’t know how intelligent and kind I raised you to be, he can march straight on back to State Street.” She narrows her eyes out at the winter land. “Frankly, I don’t care much for Stuart. He doesn’t know how lucky he was to have you.”

I let Mother’s words sit like a tiny, sweet candy on my tongue. Forcing myself up from the step, I head for the front door. There is so much work to be done and not nearly enough time.

“Thank you, Mother.” I kiss her softly on the cheek and go inside.

I’M EXHAUSTED and IRRITABLE. For forty-eight hours I’ve done nothing but type. I am stupid with facts about other people’s lives. My eyes sting from the smell of typing ink. My fingers are striped with paper cuts. Who knew paper and ink could be so vicious.

With just six days left, I go over to Aibileen’s. She’s taken a weekday off from work, despite Elizabeth’s annoyance. I can tell she knows what we need to discuss before I even say it. She leaves me in the kitchen and comes back with a letter in her hand.

“Fore I give this to you . . . I think I ought to tell you some things. So you can really understand.”

I nod. I am tense in my chair. I want to tear the envelope open and get this over with.

Aibileen straightens her notebook that’s sitting on the kitchen table. I watch as she aligns her two yellow pencils. “Remember, I told you Constantine had a daughter. Well, Lulabelle was her name. Law, she come out pale as snow. Grew hair the color a hay. Not curly like yours. Straight it was.”

“She was that white?” I ask. I’ve wondered this ever since Aibileen told me about Constantine’s child, way back in Elizabeth’s kitchen. I think about how surprised Constantine must’ve been to hold a white baby and know it was hers.

She nods. “When Lulabelle was four years old, Constantine . . .” Aibileen shifts in her chair. “She take her to a . . . orphanage. Up in Chicago.”

“An orphanage? You mean . . . she gave her baby away?” As much as Constantine loved me, I can only imagine how much she must’ve loved her own child.

Aibileen looks me straight in the eye. I see something there I rarely see—frustration, antipathy. “A lot a colored womens got to give they children up, Miss Skeeter. Send they kids off cause they have to tend to a white family.”

I look down, wondering if Constantine couldn’t take care of her child because she had to take care of us.

“But most send em off to family. A orphanage is... different altogether.”

“Why didn’t she send the baby to her sister’s? Or another relative?”