The Help

“Whiskey?”

Oh please. I can’t even look at her with that “what-whiskey?” look. At least the smell’s not as bad with the lid closed. When is that fool doctor coming?

“You thought I was . . .” She shakes her head. “It’s catch tonic.” She closes her eyes. “From a Choctaw over in Feliciana Parish . . .”

“Choctaw?” I blink. She is stupider than I ever imagined. “You can’t trust them Indians. Don’t you know we poisoned their corn? What if she trying to poison you?”

“Doctor Tate said it’s just molasses and water,” she cries down into her towel. “But I had to try it. I had to.”

Well. I’m surprised by how loose my body goes, how relieved I am by this. “There’s nothing wrong with taking your time, Miss Celia. Believe me, I got five kids.”

“But Johnny wants kids now. Oh Minny.” She shakes her head. “What’s he going to do with me?”

“He gone get over it, that’s what. He gone forget these babies cause mens is real good at that. Get to hoping for the next one.”

“He doesn’t know about this one. Or the one before.”

“You said that’s why he married you.”

“That first time, he knew.” Miss Celia lets out a big sigh. “This time’s really the . . . fourth.”

She stops crying and I don’t have any good things left to say. For a minute, we’re just two people wondering why things are the way they are.

“I kept thinking,” she whispers, “if I was real still, if I brought somebody in to do the house and the cooking, maybe I could hold on to this one.” She cries down into her towel. “I wanted this baby to look just like Johnny.”

“Mister Johnny a good-looking man. Got good hair . . .”

Miss Celia lowers the towel from her face.

I wave my hand in the air, realize what I’ve just done. “I got to get some air. Hot in here.”

“How do you know . . .?”

I look around, try to think of a lie, but finally I just sigh. “He knows. Mister Johnny came home and found me.”

“What?”

“Yes’m. He tell me not to tell you so you go right on thinking he’s proud a you. He love you so much, Miss Celia. I seen it in his face how much.”

“But . . . how long has he known?”

“A few . . . months.”

“Months? Was he—was he upset that I’d lied?”

“Heck no. He even call me up at home a few weeks later to make sure I didn’t have no plans to quit. Say he afraid he gone starve if I left.”

“Oh Minny,” she cries. “I’m sorry. I’m real sorry about everything.”

“I been in worse situations.” I’m thinking about the blue hair dye. Eating lunch in the freezing cold. And right now. There’s still the baby in the toilet that someone’s going to have to deal with.

“I don’t know what to do, Minny.”

“Doctor Tate tell you to keep trying, then I guess you keep trying.”

“He hollers at me. Says I’m wasting my time in bed.” She shakes her head. “He’s a mean, awful man.”

She presses the towel hard against her eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.” And the harder she cries, the whiter she turns.

I try to feed her a few more sips of Co-Cola but she won’t take it. She can’t hardly lift her hand to wave it away.

“I’m going to . . . be sick. I’m—”

I grab the garbage can, watch as Miss Celia vomits over it. And then I feel something wet on me and I look down and the blood’s coming so fast now, it’s leaked over to where I’m sitting. Everytime she heaves, the blood pushes out of her. I know she losing more than a person can handle.

“Sit up, Miss Celia! Get a good breath, now,” I say, but she’s slumping against me.

“Nuh-uh, you don’t want a lay down. Come on.” I push her back up but she’s gone limp and I feel tears spring up in my eyes because that damn doctor should be here by now. He should’ve sent an ambulance and in the twenty-five years I’ve been cleaning houses nobody ever tells you what to do when your white lady keels over dead on top of you.

“Come on, Miss Celia!” I scream, but she’s a soft white lump next to me, and there is nothing I can do but sit and tremble and wait.

Many minutes pass before the back bell rings. I prop Miss Celia’s head on a towel, take off my shoes so I don’t track the blood over the house, and run for the door.

“She done passed out!” I tell the doctor, and the nurse pushes past me and heads to the back like she knows her way around. She pulls the smelling salts out and puts them under Miss Celia’s nose and Miss Celia jerks her head, lets out a little cry, and opens her eyes.

The nurse helps me get Miss Celia out of her bloody nightgown. She’s got her eyes open but can hardly stand up. I put old towels down in the bed and we lay her down. I go in the kitchen where Doctor Tate’s washing his hands.

“She in the bedroom,” I say. Not the kitchen, you snake. He’s in his fifties, Doctor Tate, and tops me by a good foot and a half. He has real white skin and this long, narrow face that shows no feelings at all. Finally he goes back to the bedroom.

Just before he opens the door, I touch him on the arm. “She don’t want her husband to know. He ain’t gone find out, is he?”

He looks at me like I’m a nigger and says, “You don’t think it’s his business?” He walks into the bedroom and shuts the door in my face.