The Help

by Kathryn Stockett

I was surprise to see the world didn’t stop just cause my boy did.

we sit anywhere we want to now thanks to Miss Parks—just cause it’s a friendly feeling.

That’s her job and she own the rights.

Maybe that’s why God took him so fast. He didn’t want a have to argue with me.

I want him to think I can do it on my own. I want him to think I’m…worth the trouble.”

“You gone have to ask yourself, Am I gone believe what them fools say about me today?”

I always order the banned books from a black market dealer in California, figuring if the State of Mississippi banned them, they must be good.

when I get to wondering, what would happen if I told her she something good, ever day?

“How we love they kids when they little…” she says and I see Aibileen’s lip tremble a little. “And then they turn out just like they mamas.”

“I don’t care if she can cook. I just want her here”—he shrugs— “with me.”

“These is white rules. I don’t know which ones you following and which ones you ain’t.” We look at each other a second. “I’m tired of the rules,” I say.

“Please, don’t give up on me. Let me stay on the project with you.”

“Aibileen, it’s alright. We’re…together on this.”

“‘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.”

“But why? I don’t want to eat in there all by myself when I could eat in here with you,” Miss Celia said.

But here’s the thing: I like telling my stories. It feels like I’m doing something about it.

that she’ll send money to colored people overseas, but not across town.

I wish to God I’d filled his ears with good things

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

“Bosoms,” she announces, with a hand to her own, “are for bedrooms and breastfeeding. Not for occasions with dignity.” “Well, what do you want her to do, Eleanor? Leave them at home?”

Miss Celia’s written the words in pretty cursive handwriting: For Two-Slice Hilly.

A voice in a can tells me his name is Bob Dylan,

“Don’t you let him cheapen you.”

“Well, I’m counting on good,” Aibileen says.

“Cause God made me colored,” I say. “And there ain’t another reason in the world.”

Then the Reverend hands me a box, wrapped in white paper, tied with light blue ribbon, same colors as the book. He lays his hand on it as a blessing. “This one, this is for the white lady. You tell her we love her, like she’s our own family.”

And then she say it, just like I need her to. “You is kind,” she say, “you is smart. You is important.”

Maybe I ain’t too old to start over, I think and I laugh and cry at the same time at this.

Mississippi is like my mother. I am allowed to complain about her all I want, but God help the person who raises an ill word about her around me, unless she is their mother too.

For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I’d thought.