Real careful, I push the swinging door, peek out. There’s Miss Celia setting at the head of the table with Mister Johnny setting next to her. They both look up at me.

Mister Johnny looks whiter than that old albino man that lives behind Miss Walters.

“Minny, bring me a glass of water, please?” he says and I get a real bad feeling.

I get him the water and take it to him. When I set the glass down on the napkin, Mister Johnny stands up. He gives me a long, heavy look. Lord, here it comes.

“I told him about the baby,” Miss Celia whispers. “All the babies.”

“Minny, I would’ve lost her if it hadn’t of been for you,” he says, grabbing hold of my hands. “Thank God you were here.”

I look over at Miss Celia and she looks dead in the eyes. I already know what that doctor told her. I can see it, that there won’t ever be any babies born alive. Mister Johnny squeezes my hands, then he goes to her. He gets down on his kneecaps and lays his head down in her lap. She smoothes his hair over and over.

“Don’t leave. Don’t ever leave me, Celia,” he cries.

“Tell her, Johnny. Tell Minny what you said to me.”

Mister Johnny lifts his head. His hair’s all mussed and he looks up at me. “You’ll always have a job here with us, Minny. For the rest of your life, if you want.”

“Thank you, sir,” I say and I mean it. Those are the best words I could hear today.

I reach for the door, but Miss Celia says, real soft, “Stay in here awhile. Will you, Minny?”

So I lean my hand on the sideboard because the baby’s getting heavy on me. And I wonder how it is that I have so much when she doesn’t have any. He’s crying. She’s crying. We are three fools in the dining room crying.

“I’m TELLING YOU,” I tell Leroy in the kitchen, two days later. “You punch the button and the channel change and you don’t even have to get up from your chair.”

Leroy’s eyes don’t move from his paper. “That don’t make no sense, Minny.”

“Miss Celia got it, called Space Command. A box bout half the size of a bread loaf.”

Leroy shakes his head. “Lazy white people. Can’t even get up to turn a knob.”

“I reckon people gone be flying to the moon pretty soon,” I say. I’m not even listening to what’s coming out of my mouth. I’m listening for the scream again. When is that lady going to finish?

“What’s for supper?” Leroy says.

“Yeah, Mama, when we gone eat?” Kindra says.

I hear a car pull in the driveway. I listen and the spoon slips down into the pot of beans. “Cream-a-Wheat.”

“I ain’t eating no Cream-a-Wheat for supper!” Leroy says.

“I had that for breakfast!” Kindra cries.

“I mean—ham. And beans.” I go slam the back door and turn the latch. I look out the window again. The car is backing out. It was just turning around.

Leroy gets up and flings the back door open again. “It’s hot as hell in here!” He comes to the stove where I’m standing. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks, about an inch from my face.

“Nothing,” I say and move back a little. Usually, he doesn’t mess with me when I’m pregnant. But he moves closer. He squeezes my arm hard.

“What’d you do this time?”

“I—I didn’t do nothing,” I say. “I’m just tired.”

He tightens his grip on my arm. It’s starting to burn. “You don’t get tired. Not till the tenth month.”

“I didn’t do nothing, Leroy. Just go set and lemme get to supper.”

He lets go, giving me a long look. I can’t meet his eyes.

AIBILEEN

chapter 31

EVER TIME Miss Leefolt go out shopping or in the yard or even to the bathroom, I check her bedside table where she put the book. I act like I’m dusting, but what I really be doing is checking to see if that First Presbyterian Bible bookmark’s moved any deeper in the pages. She’s been reading it for five days now and I flip it open today and she still on Chapter One, page fourteen. She got two hundred and thirty-five pages left. Law, she read slow.

Still, I want to tell her, you reading about Miss Skeeter, don’t you know? About her growing up with Constantine. And I’m scared to death, but I want to tell her, keep reading, lady, cause Chapter Two gone be about you.

I am nervous as a cat seeing that book in her house. All week long I been tiptoeing around. One time Li’l Man come up from behind and touch me on the leg and I near bout jump out a my workshoes. Especially on Thursday, when Miss Hilly come over. They set at the dining room table and work on the Benefit. Ever once in a while they look up and smile, ask me to fetch a mayonnaise sandwich or some ice tea.

Twice Miss Hilly come in the kitchen and call her maid, Ernestine. “Are you done soaking Heather’s smock dress like I told you to? Uh-huh, and have you dusted the half-tester canopy? Oh you haven’t, well go on and do that right away.”

I go in to collect they plates and I hear Miss Hilly say, “I’m up to Chapter Seven,” and I freeze, the plates in my hand clattering. Miss Leefolt look up and wrinkle her nose at me.

But Miss Hilly, she shaking her finger at Miss Leefolt. “And I think they’re right, it just feels like Jackson.”

“You do?” Miss Leefolt ask.