had her a baby girl with the colic and the only thing that stopped the hurting was to hold her. So I made me a wrap. I tied her up on my waist, toted her around all day with me for a entire year. That baby like to break my back. Put ice packs on it ever night and still do. But I loved that girl. And I loved Miss Margaret.”
She takes a sip of her tea while I type her last words. I look up and she continues.
“Miss Margaret always made me put my hair up in a rag, say she know coloreds don’t wash their hair. Counted ever piece a silver after I done the polishing. When Miss Margaret die of the lady problems thirty years later, I go to the funeral. Her husband hug me, cry on my shoulder. When it’s over, he give me a envelope. Inside a letter from Miss Margaret reading, ‘Thank you. For making my baby stop hurting. I never forgot it.’”
Callie takes off her black-rimmed glasses, wipes her eyes.
“If any white lady reads my story, that’s what I want them to know. Saying thank you, when you really mean it, when you remember what someone done for you”—she shakes her head, stares down at the scratched table—“it’s so good.”
Callie looks up at me, but I can’t meet her eyes.
“I just need a minute,” I say. I press my hand on my forehead. I can’t help but think about Constantine. I never thanked her, not properly. It never occurred to me I wouldn’t have the chance.
“You feel okay, Miss Skeeter?” Aibileen asks.
“I’m . . . fine,” I say. “Let’s keep going.”
Callie goes on to her next story. The yellow Dr. Scholl’s shoebox is on the counter behind her, still full of envelopes. Except for Gretchen, all ten women have asked that the money go toward Yule May’s boys’ education.
chapter 20
THE PHELAN FAMILY stands tense, waiting on the brick steps of State Senator Whitworth’s house. The house is in the center of town, on North Street. It is tall and white-columned, appropriately azalea-ed. A gold plaque declares it a historical landmark. Gas lanterns flicker despite the hot six o’clock sun.
“Mother,” I whisper because I cannot repeat it enough times. “Please, please don’t forget the thing we talked about.”
“I said I wouldn’t mention it, darling.” She touches the pins holding up her hair. “Unless it’s appropriate.”
I have on the new light blue Lady Day skirt and matching jacket. Daddy has on his black funeral suit. His belt is cinched too tight to be comfortable much less fashionable. Mother is wearing a simple white dress—like a country bride wearing a hand-me-down, I suddenly think, and I feel a rush of panic that we have overdressed, all of us. Mother’s going to bring up the ugly girl’s trust fund and we look like countryfolk on a big damn visit to town.
“Daddy, loosen your belt, it’s hitching your pants up.”
He frowns at me and looks down at his pants. Never once have I told my daddy what to do. The door opens.
“Good evening.” A colored woman in a white uniform nods to us. “They expecting y’all.”
We step into the foyer and the first thing I see is the chandelier, sparkling, gauzy with light. My eyes rise up the hollow twirl of the staircase and it is as if we are inside a gigantic seashell.
“Why, hello there.”
I look down from my lollygagging. Missus Whitworth is clicking into the foyer, hands extended. She has on a suit like mine, thankfully, but in crimson. When she nods, her graying-blond hair does not move.
“Hello, Missus Whitworth, I am Charlotte Boudreau Cantrelle Phelan. We thank you so much for having us.”
“Delighted,” she says and shakes both my parents’ hands. “I’m Francine Whitworth. Welcome to our home.”
She turns to me. “And you must be Eugenia. Well. It is so nice to finally meet you.” Missus Whitworth grasps my arms and looks me in the eyes. Hers are blue, beautiful, like cold water. Her face is plain around them. She is almost my height in her peau de soie heels.
“So nice to meet you,” I say. “Stuart’s told me so much about you and Senator Whitworth.”
She smiles and slides her hand down my arm. I gasp as a prong of her ring scratches my skin.
“There she is!” Behind Missus Whitworth, a tall, bull-chested man lumbers toward me. He hugs me hard to him, then just as quickly flings me back. “Now I told Little Stu