The Help

Miss Leefolt’s mother comes to visit and is critical of everyone, especially Mae Mobley. Aibileen makes a point to tell Mae Mobley every day, “You kind, you smart, you important” (199). When Mae Mobley asks for a story, Aibileen tells her about two little girls: one is Black, and one is white. At first they wonder why they look different, but then they see the many similarities they have—hair, a nose, and toes—and they become friends.

Hilly invites Elizabeth and Mae Mobley to Jackson Country Club to swim. When they arrive, Miss Leefolt clearly feels out of place, but does all she can to hide it. Aibileen soon realizes that Hilly only invited Elizabeth because Hilly’s maid, Yule May, has the day off. Hilly asked Elizabeth to come knowing she would bring Aibileen, who would tend to the kids. Skeeter comes by the pool after playing tennis at the club and asks Hilly if something is wrong between them. Hilly tells her she shouldn’t be carrying around the booklet of Jim Crow laws. With her husband William running for the local senate, Hilly says they can’t have “integrational friends in [their] closet” (205). Skeeter rolls her eyes and seems like she’s about to stand up to Hilly, but seeing the look of pleading in Aibileen’s eyes, pretends like the laws were nothing. “If I was up to something, you’d have me figured out in half a second” (206), she reassures Hilly, and the two women restore their friendship.

Aibileen goes to the Community Concerns Meetings at church, and this week, the meeting is full. Everyone is shaken and upset about Medgar Evers’s death. Deacon Thoroughgood announces a night of prayer for the family, but everyone feels that their prayers aren’t really going to change anything. After the meeting, Yule May approaches Aibileen. She’s heard about the stories Aibileen is working on with Miss Skeeter. She asks a few questions, and says she wants to talk more about it. Aibileen never asked Yule May to be a part of the interviews because she was scared to involve Miss Hilly’s maid. However, Aibileen can see in Yule May’s eyes that, “It’s like she’s been waiting on me to ask her all this time” (211).

Miss Celia goes back to sitting in bed all day, and Minny tries to convince her to leave the house occasionally because it upsets Minny that she’s always home. Despite Jonny’s efforts to encourage Hilly to get together with Celia, the women in the community still won’t socialize with her. None of the ladies return her daily phone calls. Minny is thankful for this, since she can’t have Miss Hilly telling Miss Celia about the Terrible Awful. Miss Celia doesn’t know where the social lines are drawn, not in her calls to the society ladies, and not with the help. She sits with Minny for lunch every day, even when Minny tells her they aren’t supposed to eat together.

Although she doesn’t admit it out loud, Minny is proud to be telling her stories with Aibileen and Miss Skeeter. She feels like she’s doing something about the injustice towards Black people and hopes it could help make things better for her kids. As much as she complains that it takes talking to Miss Skeeter, a white woman, to get the truth out there, the interviews are giving her a sense of purpose. Even so, Minny worries what would happen if Leroy found out about the stories.

One day, Miss Celia gets a box delivered in the mail and secretively takes it upstairs to the empty bedrooms. Minny’s curiosity gets the better of her, and she spies on Miss Celia. Minny sees Celia drinking from bottles filled with brown liquid, and Minny knows it’s alcohol; it’s the same type of bottle her father, who died from alcoholism, drank. At lunch the next day, Celia says she’s lucky to have Minny as a friend, but Minny gets angry. She confronts Celia about drinking and Celia starts to cry. She threatens to fire Minny if Minny tells Mister Johnny, then sends her home early. Minny is sure she has lost her job and worries all weekend about how she’s going to tell Leroy. However, Aibileen convinces Minny she has a great thing going with Miss Celia, so Minny resolves she’ll return on Monday and try to get her job back.

On Monday morning, Miss Celia hardly acknowledges Minny as Minny tries to make her apologies. Minny can see Miss Celia doesn’t look well, and decides to simply do her work, hoping she’ll get paid for the day. Celia stays in the bedroom all day with the door closed. When the time comes for Minny to clean the bedroom, she knocks on the door, but Celia doesn’t answer. When Minny goes in, the bathroom door is closed, and Celia won’t let her in at first. When Celia finally opens the bathroom door, her skin is blue, and the toilet bowl and bathroom floor is full of blood. Celia had a miscarriage.

Minny calls Doctor Tate and sits with Celia until he arrives. They have an honest conversation in which all the truth comes out. Minny learns that Celia has had four miscarriages, but Johnny only knows about the first one. The brown liquid Minny saw her drinking was a tonic to help the baby catch, not alcohol. Finally, Minny admits that Johnny knows Minny is working there. Celia keeps losing blood, and eventually goes unconscious. Minny panics and tries to revive her, but thankfully, the doctor finally arrives. Doctor Tate neither shows sympathy for Celia nor indicates that he will respect her wish to keep the baby a secret from Johnny. When the doctor leaves, Minny hurriedly cleans the blood from the bathroom so Mister Johnny won’t see it when he gets home.