The Help

by Kathryn Stockett

“Ugly live up on the inside. Ugly be a hurtful, mean person. Is you one a them peoples?”

“Ever morning, until you dead in the ground, you gone have to make this decision.” Constantine was so close, I could see the blackness of her gums. “You gone have to ask yourself, Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?”

All my life I’d been told what to believe about politics, coloreds, being a girl. But with Constantine’s thumb pressed in my hand, I realized I actually had a choice in what I could believe.

Ever afternoon, me and Baby Girl set in the rocking chair before her nap. Ever afternoon, I tell her: You kind, you smart, you important. But she growing up and I know, soon, them few words ain’t gone be enough.

“‘So we’s the same. Just a different color,’ say that little colored girl. The little white girl she agreed and they was friends. The End.”

“All I’m saying is, kindness don’t have no boundaries.”

I always thought insanity would be a dark, bitter feeling, but it is drenching and delicious if you really roll around in it.

“And you call yourself a Christian,” were Hilly’s final words to me and I thought, God. When did I ever do that?

“They say it’s like true love, good help. You only get one in a lifetime.”