Kathryn Stockett - The Help

“Maybe we should get you up in the bed, Miss Celia. You think you can stand up?”

Miss Celia leans forward, tries to push herself up. I step in to help her and see that the blood has soaked through the seat of her nightgown, stained the blue tile with what looks like red glue, embedded in the grout. Stains that won’t be easy to get up.

Just as I raise her to her feet, Miss Celia slips in a spot of blood, catches the edge of toilet bowl to steady herself. “Let me stay—I want to stay here.”

“Alright then.” I back away, into the bedroom. “Doctor Tate be here real soon. They calling him up at home.”

“Come and set with me, Minny? Please?”

But there’s a waft of warm, wretched air coming off that toilet. After some figuring, I sit with half my bottom in the bathroom, half out. And at eye-level, I can really smell it. It smells like meat, like hamburger defrosting on the counter. I kind of panic when I put that one together.

“Come on out of here, Miss Celia. You need some air.”

“I can’t get the blood on the . . . rug or Johnny will see it.” The veins on Miss Celia’s arm look black under her skin. Her face is getting whiter.

“You getting funny-looking. Drink you a little a this Co-Cola.”

She takes a sip, says, “Oh Minny.”

“How long you been bleeding?”

“Since this morning,” she says and starts crying into the crook of her arm.

“It’s alright, you gone be fine,” I say and I sound real soothing, real confident, but inside my heart is pounding. Sure, Doctor Tate’s coming to help Miss Celia, but what about the thing in the toilet? What am I supposed to do, flush it? What if it gets stuck in the pipes? It’ll have to be fished up. Oh Lord, how am I going to make myself do that?

“There’s so much blood,” she moans, leaning against me. “Why’s there so much blood this time?”

I raise my chin and look, just a little, in the bowl. But I have to look down again quick.

“Don’t let Johnny see it. Oh God, when . . . what time is it?”

“Five to three. We got some time.”

“What should we do about it?” asks Miss Celia.

We. God forgive me, but I wish there wasn’t a “we” mixed up in this.

I shut my eyes, say, “I guess one a us is gone have to pull it out.”

Miss Celia turns to me with her red-rimmed eyes. “And put it where?”

I can’t look at her. “I guess . . . in the garbage pail.”

“Please, do it now.” Miss Celia buries her head in her knees like she’s ashamed.

There’s not even a we now. Now it’s will you do it. Will you fish my dead baby out of that toilet bowl.

And what choice do I have?

I hear a whine come out of me. The tile floor is smashing against my fat. I shift, grunt, try to think it through. I mean, I’ve done worse than this, haven’t I? Nothing comes to mind, but there has to be something.

“Please,” Miss Celia says, “I can’t . . . look at it no more.”

“Alright.” I nod, like I know what I’m doing. “I’m on take care a this thing.”

I stand up, try to get practical. I know where I’ll put it—in the white garbage pail next to the toilet. Then throw the whole thing out. But what will I use to get it out with? My hand?

I bite my lip, try to stay calm. Maybe I should just wait. Maybe . . . maybe the doctor will want to take it with him when he comes! Examine it. If I can get Miss Celia off it a few minutes, maybe I won’t have to deal with it at all.

“We look after it in a minute,” I say in that reassuring voice. “How far along you think you was?” I ease closer to the bowl, don’t dare stop talking.

“Five months? I don’t know.” Miss Celia covers her face with a washrag. “I was taking a shower and I felt it pulling down, hurting. So I set on the toilet and it slipped out. Like it wanted out of me .” She starts sobbing again, her shoulders jerking forward over her body.

Carefully, I lower the toilet lid down and settle back on the floor.

“Like it’d rather be dead than stand being inside me another second.”

“Now you look a here, that’s just God’s way. Something ain’t going right in your innards, nature got to do something about it. Second time, you gone catch.” But then I think about those bottles and feel a ripple of anger.

“That was . . . the second time.”

“Oh Lordy.”

“We got married cause I was pregnant,” Miss Celia says, “but it . . . it slipped out too.”

I can’t hold it in another second. “Then why in the heck are you drinking? You know you can’t hold no baby with a pint of whiskey in you.”

“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.