The Help

THAT NIGHT I lay in bed thinking. I am so happy for Miss Skeeter. She starting her whole life over. Tears run down my temples into my ears, thinking about her walking down them big city avenues I seen on tee-vee with her long hair behind her. Part a me wishes I could have a new start too. The cleaning article, that’s new. But I’m not young. My life’s about done.

The harder I try to sleep, the more I know I’m on be up most a the night. It’s like I can feel the buzz all over town, of people talking about the book. How can anybody sleep with all them bees? I think about Flora Lou, how if Hilly wasn’t telling people the book ain’t Jackson, Miss Hester would a fired her. Oh Minny, I think. You done something so good. You taking care a everbody except yourself. I wish I could protect you.

It sounds like Miss Hilly’s barely hanging on by a thread. Ever day another person say they know it was her that ate that pie and Miss Hilly just fight harder. For the first time in my life, I’m actually wondering who gone win this fight. Before now, I’d always say Miss Hilly but now I don’t know. This time, Miss Hilly just might lose.

I get a few hours sleep before dawn. It’s funny, but I hardly feel tired when I get up at six. I put on my clean uniform I washed in the tub last night. In the kitchen, I drink a long, cool glass a water from the faucet. I turn off the kitchen light and head for the door and my phone ring. Law, it’s early for that.

I pick up and I hear wailing.

“Minny? That you? What—”

“They fired Leroy last night! And when Leroy ask why, his boss say Mister William Holbrook told him to do it. Holbrook told him it’s Leroy’s nigger wife the reason and Leroy come home and try to kill me with his bare hands!” Minny panting and heaving. “He throw the kids in the yard and lock me in the bathroom and say he gone light the house on fire with me locked inside!”

Law, it’s happening. I cover my mouth, feel myself falling down that black hole we dug for ourselves. All these weeks a hearing Minny sound so confident and now...

“That witch,” Minny scream. “He gone kill me cause a her!”

“Where you now, Minny, where the kids?”

“The gas station, I run here in my bare feet! The kids run next door . . .” She panting and hiccupping and growling. “Octavia coming to get us. Say she gone drive fast as she can.”

Octavia’s in Canton, twenty minutes north up by Miss Celia. “Minny, I’m on run up there now—”

“No, don’t hang up, please. Just stay on the phone with me till she get here.”

“Is you okay? You hurt?”

“I can’t take this no more, Aibileen. I can’t do this—” She break down crying into the phone.

It’s the first time I ever heard Minny say that. I take a deep breath, knowing what I need to do. The words is so clear in my head and right now is my only chance for her to really hear me, standing barefoot and rock bottom on the gas station phone. “Minny, listen to me. You never gone lose your job with Miss Celia. Mister Johnny told you hisself. And they’s more money coming from the book, Miss Skeeter found out last night. Minny, hear me when I say, You don’t have to get hit by Leroy no more.”

Minny choke out a sob.

“It’s time, Minny. Do you hear me? You are free.”

Real slow, Minny’s crying wind down. Until she dead quiet. If I couldn’t hear her breathing, I’d think she hung up the phone. Please, Minny, I think. Please, take this chance to get out.

She take a deep, shaky breath. She say, “I hear what you saying, Aibileen.”

“Let me come to the gas station and wait with you. I tell Miss Leefolt I be late.”

“No,” she say. “My sister . . . be here soon. We gone stay with her tonight.”

“Minny, is it just for tonight or . . .”

She let out a long breath into the phone. “No,” she say. “I can’t. I done took this long enough.” And I start to hear Minny Jackson come back into her own self again. Her voice is shaking, I know she scared, but she say, “God help him, but Leroy don’t know what Minny Jackson about to become.”

My heart jumps. “Minny, you can’t kill him. Then you gone be in jail right where Miss Hilly want you.”

Lord, that silence is a long, terrible one.

“I ain’t gone kill him, Aibileen. I promise. We gone go stay with Octavia till we find a place a our own.”

I let out a breath.

“She here,” she say. “I’ll call you tonight.”

WHEN I GET TO Miss Leefolt’s, the house is real quiet. I reckon Li’l Man still sleeping. Mae Mobley already gone to school. I put my bag down in the laundry room. The swinging door to the dining room is closed and the kitchen is a nice cool square.