the other. About what you are.”
I look deep into her rich brown eyes and she look into mine. Law, she got old-soul eyes, like she done lived a thousand years. And I swear I see, down inside, the woman she gone grow up to be. A flash from the future. She is tall and straight. She is proud. She got a better haircut. And she is remembering the words I put in her head. Remembering as a full-grown woman.
And then she say it, just like I need her to. “You is kind,” she say, “you is smart. You is important.”
“Oh Law.” I hug her hot little body to me. I feel like she done just given me a gift. “Thank you, Baby Girl.”
“You’re welcome,” she say, like I taught her to. But then she lay her head on my shoulder and we cry like that awhile, until Miss Leefolt come into the kitchen.
“Aibileen,” Miss Leefolt say real quiet.
“Miss Leefolt, are you . . . sure this what you . . .” Miss Hilly walk in behind her and glare at me. Miss Leefolt nods, looking real guilty.
“I’m sorry, Aibileen. Hilly, if you want to . . . press charges, that’s up to you.”
Miss Hilly sniff at me and say, “It’s not worth my time.”
Miss Leefolt sigh like she relieved. For a second, our eyes meet and I can see that Miss Hilly was right. Miss Leefolt ain’t got no idea Chapter Two is her. Even if she had a hint of it, she’d never admit to herself that was her.
I push back on Mae Mobley real gentle and she looks at me, then over at her mama through her sleepy, fever eyes. She look like she’s dreading the next fifteen years a her life, but she sighs, like she is just too tired to think about it. I put her down on her feet, give her a kiss on the forehead, but then she reaches out to me again. I have to back away.
I go in the laundry room, get my coat and my pocketbook.
I walk out the back door, to the terrible sound a Mae Mobley crying again. I start down the driveway, crying too, knowing how much I’m on miss Mae Mobley, praying her mama can show her more love. But at the same time feeling, in a way, that I’m free, like Minny. Freer than Miss Leefolt, who so locked up in her own head she don’t even recognize herself when she read it. And freer than Miss Hilly. That woman gone spend the rest a her life trying to convince people she didn’t eat that pie. I think about Yule May setting in jail. Cause Miss Hilly, she in her own jail, but with a lifelong term.
I head down the hot sidewalk at eight thirty in the morning wondering what I’m on do with the rest a my day. The rest a my life. I am shaking and crying and a white lady walk by frowning at me. The paper gone pay me ten dollars a week, and there’s the book money plus a little more coming. Still, it ain’t enough for me to live the rest a my life on. I ain’t gone be able to get no other job as a maid, not with Miss Leefolt and Miss Hilly calling me a thief. Mae Mobley was my last white baby. And here I just bought this new uniform.
The sun is bright but my eyes is wide open. I stand at the bus stop like I been doing for forty-odd years. In thirty minutes, my whole life’s . . . done. Maybe I ought to keep writing, not just for the paper, but something else, about all the people I know and the things I seen and done. Maybe I ain’t too old to start over, I think and I laugh and cry at the same time at this. Cause just last night I thought I was finished with everthing new.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to Amy Einhorn, my editor, without whom the sticky-note business would not be the success it is today. Amy, you are so wise. I am truly lucky to have worked with you.
Thank you to: my agent, Susan Ramer, for taking a chance and being so patient with me; Alexandra Shelley for her tenacious editing and diligent advice; The Jane Street Workshop for being such fine writers; Ruth Stockett, Tate Taylor, Brunson Green, Laura Foote, Octavia Spencer, Nicole Love, and Justine Story for reading