I turn so she can’t see my eyes. “I’m alright.”

“Sometimes, I don’t know if this was worth it. If something happens to you . . . how am I going to live with that, knowing it was because of me?” She presses her hand over her eyes, like she don’t want to see what’s gone happen.

I go to my bedroom and bring out the package from Reverend Johnson. She take off the paper and stare at the book, all the names signed in it.“I was gone send it to you in New York, but I think you need to have it now.”

“I don’t . . . understand,” she say. “This is for me?”

“Yes ma’am.” Then I pass on the Reverend’s message, that she is part of our family. “You need to remember, ever one a these signatures means it was worth it.” She read the thank-yous, the little things they wrote, run her fingers over the ink. Tears fill up her eyes.

“I reckon Constantine would a been real proud a you.”

Miss Skeeter smile and I see howyoung she is. After all we written and the hours we spent tired and worried, I ain’t seen the girl she still is in a long, long time.

“Are you sure it’s alright? If I leave you, with everything so . . .”

“Go to New York, Miss Skeeter. Go find your life.”

She smile, blinking back the tears, and say,“Thank you.”

THAT NIGHT I lay in bed thinking. I am so happy for Miss Skeeter. She starting her whole life over. Tears run down my temples into my ears, thinking about her walking down them big city avenues I seen on tee-vee with her long hair behind her. Part a me wishes I could have a new start too. The cleaning article, that’s new. But I’m not young. My life’s about done.

The harder I try to sleep, the more I know I’m on be up most a the night. It’s like I can feel the buzz all over town, of people talking about the book. How can anybody sleep with all them bees? I think about Flora Lou, how if Hilly wasn’t telling people the book ain’t Jackson, Miss Hester would a fired her. Oh Minny, I think. You done something so good. You taking care a everbody except yourself. I wish I could protect you.

It sounds like Miss Hilly’s barely hanging on by a thread. Ever day another person say they know it was her that ate that pie and Miss Hilly just fight harder. For the first time in my life, I’m actually wondering who gone win this fight. Before now, I’d always say Miss Hilly but now I don’t know. This time, Miss Hilly just might lose.

I get a few hours sleep before dawn. It’s funny, but I hardly feel tired when I get up at six. I put on my clean uniform I washed in the tub last night. In the kitchen, I drink a long, cool glass a water from the faucet. I turn off the kitchen light and head for the door and my phone ring. Law, it’s early for that.

I pick up and I hearwailing.

“Minny? That you? What—”

“They fired Leroy last night! And when Leroy ask why, his boss say Mister WilliamHolbrook told him to do it. Holbrook told him it’s Leroy’s niggerwife the reason and Leroy come home and try to kill me with his bare hands!” Minny panting and heaving. “He throw the kids in the yard and lock me in the bathroom and say he gone light the house on fire with me locked inside!”

Law, it’shappening. I cover my mouth, feel myself falling down that black hole we dug for ourselves. All these weeks a hearing Minny sound so confident and now . . .

“Thatwitch,” Minny scream. “He gone kill me cause a her!”

“Where you now, Minny, where the kids?”

“The gas station, I run here in my bare feet! The kids run next door . . .” She panting and hiccupping and growling. “Octavia coming to get us. Say she gone drive fast as she can.”

Octavia’s in Canton, twenty minutes north up by Miss Celia. “Minny, I’m on run up there now—”

“No, don’t hang up, please. Just stay on the phone with me till she get here.”

“Is you okay? You hurt?”

“I can’t take this no more, Aibileen. I can’t do this—” She break down crying into the phone.

It’s the first time I ever heard Minny say that. I take a deep breath, knowing what I need to do. The words is so clear in my head andright now is my only chance for her to really hear me, standing barefoot and rock bottom on the gas station phone.“Minny, listen to me. You never gone lose your job with Miss Celia. Mister Johnny told you hisself. And they’s more money coming from the book, Miss Skeeter found out last night. Minny, hear me when I say,You don’t have to get hit by Leroy no more.”

Minny choke out a sob.

“It’s time, Minny. Do you hear me? You arefree.”

Real slow, Minny’s crying wind down. Until she dead quiet. If I couldn’t hear her breathing, I’d think she hung up the phone.Please, Minny, I think.Please, take this chance to get out.

She take a deep, shaky breath. She say,“I hear what you saying, Aibileen.”

“Let me come to the gas station and wait with you. I tell Miss Leefolt I be late.”

“No,” she say. “My sister . . . be here soon. We gone stay with her tonight.”

“Minny, is it just for tonight or . . .”

She let out a long breath into the phone.“No,” she say. “I can’t. I done took this longenough.” And I start to hear Minny Jackson come back into her own self again. Her voice is shaking, I know she scared, but she say, “God help him, but Leroy don’t knowwhat Minny Jackson about to become.”

My heart jumps.“Minny, you can’t kill him. Then you gone be in jail right where Miss Hilly want you.”

Lord, that silence is a long, terrible one.

“I ain’t gone kill him, Aibileen. I promise. We gone go stay with Octavia till we find a place a our own.”