The Help

When I get home from the club, Doctor Neal pulls up behind me in his car. I take him back to Mother’s room, where Daddy’s waiting, and they close the door behind them. I stand there, fidgeting in the hall like a kid. I can see why Daddy is hanging on to his thread of hope. Mother’s gone four days now without vomiting the green bile. She’s eating her oatmeal every day, even asked for more.

When Doctor Neal comes out, Daddy stays in the chair by the bed and I follow Doctor Neal out to the porch.

“She told you?” I ask. “About how she’s feeling better?”

He nods, but then shakes his head. “There’s no point in bringing her in for an X-ray. It would just be too hard on her.”

“But . . . is she? Could she be improving?”

“I’ve seen this before, Eugenia. Sometimes people get a burst of strength. It’s a gift from God, I guess. So they can go on and finish their business. But that’s all it is, honey. Don’t expect anything more.”

“But did you see her color? She looks so much better and she’s keeping the food—”

He shakes his head. “Just try and keep her comfortable.”

On THE FIRST FRIDAY OF 1964, I can’t wait any longer. I stretch the phone into the pantry. Mother is asleep, after having eaten a second bowl of oatmeal. Her door is open so I can hear her, in case she calls.

“Elaine Stein’s office.”

“Hello, it’s Eugenia Phelan, calling long-distance. Is she available?”

“I’m sorry, Miss Phelan, but Missus Stein isn’t taking any calls regarding her manuscript selection.”

“Oh. But . . . can you at least tell me if she received it? I mailed it just before the deadline and—”

“One moment please.”

The phone goes silent, and a minute or so later she comes back.

“I can confirm that we did receive your package at some point during the holidays. Someone from our office will notify you after Missus Stein has made her decision. Thank you for calling.”

I hear the line on the other end click.

A FEW NIGHTS LATER, after a riveting afternoon answering Miss Myrna letters, Stuart and I sit in the relaxing room. I’m glad to see him and to eradicate, for a while, the deadly silence of the house. We sit quietly, watching television. A Tareyton ad comes on, the one where the girl smoking the cigarette has a black eye—Us Tareyton smokers would rather fight than switch!

Stuart and I have been seeing each other once a week now. We went to a movie after Christmas and once to dinner in town, but usually he comes out to the house because I don’t want to leave Mother. He is hesitant around me, kind of respectfully shy. There is a patience in his eyes that replaces my own panic that I felt with him before. We don’t talk about anything serious. He tells me stories about the summer, during college, he spent working on the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. The showers were saltwater. The ocean was crystal clear blue to the bottom. The other men were doing this brutal work to feed their families while Stuart, a rich kid with rich parents, had college to go back to. It was the first time, he said, he’d really had to work hard.

“I’m glad I drilled on the rig back then. I couldn’t go off and do it now,” he’d said, like it was ages ago and not five years back. He seems older than I remember.

“Why couldn’t you do it now?” I asked, because I am looking for a future for myself. I like to hear about the possibilities of others.

He furrowed his brow at me. “Because I couldn’t leave you.”

I tucked this away, afraid to admit how good it was to hear it.

The commercial is over and we watch the news report. There is a skirmish in Vietnam. The reporter seems to thinks it’ll be solved without much fuss.

“Listen,” Stuart says after a while of silence between us. “I didn’t want to bring this up before but . . . I know what people are saying in town. About you. And I don’t care. I just want you to know that.”

My first thought is the book. He’s heard something. My entire body goes tense. “What did you hear?”

“You know. About that trick you played on Hilly.”

I relax some, but not completely. I’ve never talked to anyone about this except Hilly herself. I wonder if Hilly ever called him like she’d threatened.

“And I could see how people would take it, think you’re some kind of crazy liberal, involved in all that mess.”

I study my hands, still wary of what he might have heard, and a little irritated too. “How do you know,” I ask, “what I’m involved in?”

“Because I know you, Skeeter,” he says softly. “You’re too smart to get mixed up in anything like that. And I told them, too.”

I nod, try to smile. Despite what he thinks he “knows” about me, I can’t help but appreciate that someone out there cares enough to stand up for me.

“We don’t have to talk about this again,” he says. “I just wanted you to know. That’s all.”