The Help

The day arrives for dinner with Stuart’s family, and Skeeter is nervous. Stuart’s father is a state senator, and Skeeter feels inferior in the family’s grand, pre-Civil War house. As she walks inside, Skeeter makes eye contact with the maid and realizes the maid knows about the stories.

Stuart’s mother is stiff and somewhat condescending towards Skeeter and her family. His father, Senator Whitworth, is boisterous and teasing; after a few drinks he repeatedly brings up Patricia but doesn’t realize the awkwardness it creates. Skeeter can see Stuart withdrawing internally after all the mentions of Patricia, and Skeeter recognizes that although they’ve broken up, Patricia’s presence is everywhere: in the pictures removed from the walls and in Stuart’s thoughts. In a private conversation with a somewhat drunk Senator Whitworth, Skeeter learns that Stuart was in a dark place after the breakup; he wouldn’t talk to anyone for months. Skeeter realizes that she doesn’t know Stuart as well as she thought.

The topic of civil rights comes up in the dinner conversation, and Skeeter is surprised to hear her father speak against the violence toward Black people that has been in the news lately. He says he’s “Ashamed of what goes on in Mississippi” (268), and Skeeter looks at her father with pride in her eyes.

At the end of the night, Stuart finally tells Skeeter why he and Patricia broke up: She slept with a civil rights activist. Stuart admits he would have taken her back, but he felt he couldn’t because of the damage it would cause to his father’s career. Stuart says that he wants to take a break in his relationship with Skeeter. Not wanting their parents to know they’ve just broken up, they both act like nothing is wrong as they wave goodbye.

Skeeter’s family finally buys an air conditioning unit since the doctor recommends it to make her mother more comfortable. Skeeter cranks it up to the coolest setting, longing for relief from the pain she feels from breaking up with Stuart; however, all she does is blow out the circuit. Her parents still don’t know about the breakup, and Skeeter can’t bring herself to tell her mother. Mrs. Phelan grows thinner every day, and Skeeter can tell she’s been vomiting, although her mother tries to hide it.

Skeeter buries her broken heart in editing and typing the interviews. The pages stack up to look more like a book every day, and the responsibility of what she’s doing weighs on Skeeter. She knows how badly the maids want the book to be published; otherwise, they wouldn’t be taking such an immense risk.

At the next League meeting, Skeeter looks around and sees several women who are either in the book or related to someone who is. After the meeting, Hilly confronts Skeeter about the bathroom initiative. Five months have passed since Hilly first asked Skeeter to include it in the newsletter, and Skeeter still hasn’t complied. This time, Skeeter refuses point blank to put in the initiative, and Hilly threatens to have her thrown out of the League. At home in front of her typewriter, Skeeter feels something inside of her “crack open” (280). She pulls out Hilly’s initiative, and begins to type, wondering what Constantine would think of her.

Mae Mobley turns three, and Aibileen tries to make the morning of her birthday special. She brings a candle from home to put on Mae Mobley’s breakfast. Miss Leefolt isn’t even at home when Mae Mobley wakes up and tells Aibileen to make a chocolate cake for the family party, even though Aibileen knows strawberry is Mae Mobley’s favorite. When Mae Mobley asks if Aibileen has any babies, she tells Mae Mobley she has 17 babies: “All the babies I tend to, I count as my own” (284). Mae Mobley calls Aibileen her “real mama” (284), and Aibileen reflects on other children she raised who said the same thing.

That night, Skeeter tells Aibileen she’s going out of town for three days, and the next day, it becomes clear why. Miss Leefolt gets a call from a furious Miss Hilly and rushes out the door to Miss Hilly’s house. Aibileen and Mae Mobley walk there to see what’s going on, and they find dozens of toilets on Miss Hilly’s lawn. A crowd has gathered to view the spectacle, and before Aibileen can stop her, Mae Mobley runs and goes to the bathroom in one of the toilets. As Miss Leefolt talks on the phone the rest of the day, Aibileen figures out what happened; Skeeter printed the bathroom initiative in the newsletter alongside an announcement about a coat drive. Apparently, Skeeter made a typo, telling people to drop off their toilets at Hilly’s, rather than their coats. A photo of Hilly’s front yard covered in toilets makes the front page of the Jackson Journal, and even shows up in the Living section of The New York Times.

The backlash for Skeeter’s “typo” is swift. Aibileen overhears Miss Hilly and Miss Leefolt talking about Skeeter. Hilly still has the booklet of Jim Crow laws she found in Skeeter’s bag, and thinks Skeeter is up to something. Hilly informs Elizabeth that she kicked Skeeter out of bridge club. Mister Leefolt tells Aibileen not to talk to Skeeter anymore—not for the Miss Myrna column or for any other reason, and for the rest of the day, Aibileen can’t stop shaking in fear. Skeeter comes by Aibileen’s house the night she returns from out of town, and Aibileen fills her in on how much has happened. Skeeter says she doesn’t care about being kicked out of bridge club or that Hilly warned Stuart about her, but Aibileen can see she does: “Cause everybody care. Black, white, deep down we all do.” (293)