The Help

Mother, I think and I dash downstairs and look in the relaxing room. But suddenly I realize it’s not Mother who has it—the answer has come to me, numbing my entire body. I left my satchel at the League House. I was in such a hurry to get Mother’s car home. And even as the phone is ringing, I already know it is Hilly on the end of that line.

I grab the phone from the wall. Mother calls goodbye from the front door.

“Hello?”

“How could you leave this heavy thing behind?” Hilly asks. Hilly never has had a problem with going through other people’s things. In fact, she enjoys it.

“Mother, wait a second!” I holler from the kitchen.

“Good Lord, Skeeter, what’s in here?” Hilly says. I’ve got to catch Mother, but Hilly’s voice is muffled, like she’s bending down, opening it.

“Nothing! Just . . . all those Miss Myrna letters, you know.”

“Well, I’ve lugged it back to my house so come on by and get it when you can.”

Mother is starting the car outside. “Just . . . keep it there. I’ll be by as soon as I can get there.”

I race outside but Mother’s already down the lane. I look over and the old truck’s gone too, toting cotton seed somewhere in the fields. The dread in my stomach is flat and hard and hot, like a brick in the sun.

Down by the road, I watch the Cadillac slow, then jerk to a stop. Then it goes again. Then stops. Then slowly reverses and zigzags its way back up the hill. By the grace of a god I never really liked, much less believed in, my mother is actually coming back.

“I can’t believe I forgot Sue Anne’s casserole dish . . .”

I jump in the front passenger seat, wait until she climbs back into the car. She puts her hands on the wheel.

“Drive me by Hilly’s? I need to pick something up.” I press my hand to my forehead. “Oh God, hurry, Mother. Before I’m too late.”

Mother’s car hasn’t moved. “Skeeter, I have a million things to do today—”

The panic is rising up in my throat. “Mama, please, just drive . . .”

But the Deville sits in the gravel, ticking like a time bomb.

“Now look,” Mother says, “I have some personal errands to run and I just don’t think it’s a good time to have you tagging along.”

“It’ll take you five minutes. Just drive, Mama!”

Mother keeps her white-gloved hands on the steering wheel, her lips pressed together.

“I happen to have something confidential and important to do today.”

I can’t imagine my mother has anything more important to do than what I’m staring down the throat of. “What? A Mexican’s trying to join the DAR? Somebody got caught reading the New American Dictionary ?”

Mother sighs, says, “Fine,” and moves the gear shift carefully into drive. “Alright, here we go.” We roll down the lane at about one-tenth of a mile an hour, putting along so the gravel won’t knock at the paint job. At the end of the lane, she puts on her blinker like she’s doing brain surgery and creeps the Cadillac out onto the County Road. My fists are clenched. I press my imaginary accelerator. Every time’s Mother’s first time to drive.

On the County Road, she speeds up to fifteen and grips the wheel like we’re doing a hundred and five.

“Mama,” I finally say, “just let me drive the car.”

She sighs. I’m surprised that she pulls over into the tall grass.

I get out and run around the car while she slides over. I put the car in D and press it to seventy, praying, Please, Hilly, resist the temptation to rummage through my personal business. . . .

“So what’s the big secret, what do you have to do today?” I ask.

“I’m . . . I’m going to see Doctor Neal for some tests. It’s just routine, but I don’t want your daddy to know. You know how upset he gets every time somebody goes to the doctor.”

“What kind of tests?”

“It’s just an iodine test for my ulcers, same as I have every year. Drop me at the Baptist and then you can take yourself to Hilly’s. At least I won’t have to worry over parking.”

I glance at her to see if there’s more to this, but she’s sitting straight and starched in her light blue dress, her legs crossed at the ankles. I don’t remember her having these tests last year. Even with me being up at school, Constantine would’ve written to me about them. Mother must’ve kept them secret.

Five minutes later, at the Baptist Hospital, I come around and help her out of the car.

“Eugenia, please. Just because this is a hospital doesn’t mean I’m an invalid.”

I open the glass door for her and she walks in, head held high.

“Mother, do you . . . want me to come with you?” I ask, knowing I can’t—I have to deal with Hilly, but suddenly I don’t want to drop her off here, like this.

“It’s routine. Go on to Hilly’s and come back in an hour.”