“Things ain’t never gone change in this town, Aibileen. We living in hell, we trapped. Our kids is trapped.”

Radio man get loud again, say, “. . . policemen everywhere, blocking the road. Mayor Thompson is expected to hold a press conference shortly—”

I choke then. The tears roll down. It’s all them white peoples that breaks me, standing around the colored neighborhood. White peoples with guns, pointed at colored peoples. Cause who gone protect our peoples? Ain’t no colored policemans.

Minny stare at the door the kids went through. Sweat’s drilling down the sides a her face.

“What they gone do to us, Aibileen? If they catch us . . .”

I take a deep breath. She talking about the stories. “We both know. It be bad.”

“But what would they do? Hitch us to a pickup and drag us behind? Shoot me in my yard front a my kids? Or just starve us to death?”

Mayor Thompson come on the radio, say how sorry he is for the Evers family. I look at the open back door and get that watched feeling again, with a white man’s voice in the room.

“This ain’t . . . we ain’t doing civil rights here. We just telling stories like they really happen.”

I turn off the radio, take Minny’s hand in mine. We set like that, Minny staring at the brown moth pressed up on the wall, me staring at that flap a red meat, left dry in the pan.

Minny got the most lonesome look in her eyes. “I wish Leroy was home,” she whisper.

I doubt if them words ever been said in this house before.

FOR DAYS and DAYS, Jackson, Mississippi’s like a pot a boiling water. On Miss Leefolt’s tee-vee, flocks a colored people march up High Street the day after Mister Evers’ funeral. Three hundred arrested. Colored paper say thousands a people came to the service, but you could count the whites on one hand. The police know who did it, but they ain’t telling nobody his name.

I come to find that the Evers family ain’t burying Medgar in Mississippi. His body’s going to Washington, to the Arlington Cemetery, and I reckon Myrlie real proud a that. She should be. But I’d want him here, close by. In the newspaper, I read how even the President a the United States telling Mayor Thompson he need to do better. Put a committee together with blacks and whites and work things out down here. But Mayor Thompson, he say—to President Kennedy—“I am not going to appoint a bi-racial committee. Let’s not kid ourselves. I believe in the separation of the races, and that’s the way it’s going to be.”

Few days later, the mayor come on the radio again. “Jackson, Mississippi, is the closest place to heaven there is,” he say. “And it’s going to be like this for the rest of our lives.”

For the second time in two months, Jackson, Mississippi’s in the Life magazine. This time, though, we make the cover.

chapter 15

NONE A THE MEDGAR EVERS talk come up in Miss Leefolt’s house. I change the station when she come back from her lunch meeting. We go on like it’s a nice summer afternoon. I still ain’t heard hide nor hair from Miss Hilly and I’m sick a the worry that’s always in my head.

A day after the Evers funeral, Miss Leefolt’s mama stop by for a visit. She live up in Greenwood, Mississippi, and she driving down to New Orleans. She don’t knock, Miss Fredericks just waltz on in the living room where I’m ironing. She give me a lemony smile. I go tell Miss Leefolt who here.

“Mama! You’re so early! You must’ve gotten up at the crack of dawn this morning, I hope you didn’t tire yourself out!” Miss Leefolt say, rushing into the living room, picking up toys fast as she can. She shoot me a look that say, now. I put Mister Leefolt’s wrinkled shirts in a basket, get a cloth for Baby Girl’s face to wipe off the jelly.

“And you look so fresh and stylish this morning, Mama.” Miss Leefolt smiling so hard she getting bug-eyed. “Are you excited about your shopping trip?”

From the good Buick she drive and her nice buckle shoes, I spec Miss Fredericks got a lot more money than Mister and Miss Leefolt do.

“I wanted to break up the drive. And I was hoping you’d take me to the Robert E. Lee for lunch,” Miss Fredericks say. I don’t know how this woman can stand her own self. I heard Mister and Miss Leefolt arguing about how evertime she come to town, she make Miss Leefolt take her to the fanciest place in town and then sit back and make Miss Leefolt pay the bill.

Miss Leefolt say, “Oh, why don’t we have Aibileen fix us lunch here? We have a real nice ham and some—”

“I stopped by to go out to lunch. Not to eat here.”

“Alright. Alright, Mama, let me just go get my handbag.”

Miss Fredericks look down at Mae Mobley playing with her baby doll, Claudia, on the floor. She bend down and give her a hug, say, “Mae Mobley, did you like that smocked dress I sent over last week?”

“Yeah,” Baby Girl say to her Granmama. I hated showing Miss Leefolt how tight that dress was around the middle. Baby Girl getting plumper.

Miss Fredericks, she scowl down at Mae Mobley. “You say yes ma’am, young lady. Do you hear me?”

Mae Mobley, she get a dull look on her face, say, “Yes ma’am.” But I know what she thinking. She thinking, Great. Just what I need today. Another lady in this house who don’t like me.

They head out the door with Miss Fredericks pinching the back a Miss Leefolt’s arm. “You don’t know how to hire proper help, Elizabeth. It is her job to make sure Mae Mobley has good manners.”

“Alright, Mama, we’ll work on it.”

“You can’t just hire anybody and hope you get lucky.”

After while, I fix Baby Girl that ham sandwich Miss Fredericks too good to eat. But Mae Mobley only take one bite, push it away.

“I don’t feel good. My froat hurts, Aibee.”

I know what a froat is and I know how to fix it. Baby Girl getting a summer cold. I heat her up a cup a honey water, little lemon in it to make it good. But what this girl really needs is a story so she can go to sleep. I lift her up in my arms. Law, she getting big. Gone be three years old in a few months, and pudgy as a punkin.

Ever afternoon, me and Baby Girl set in the rocking chair before her nap. Ever afternoon, I tell her: You kind, you smart, you important. But she growing up and I know, soon, them few words ain’t gone be enough.

“Aibee? Read me a story?”

I look through the books to see what I’m on read to her. I can’t read that Curious George one more time cause she don’t want a hear it. Or Chicken Little or Madeline neither.

So we just rock in the chair awhile. Mae Mobley lean her head against my uniform. We watch the rain dripping on the water left in the green plastic pool. I say a prayer for Myrlie Evers, wishing I’d had work off to go to the funeral. I think on how her ten-year-old son, somebody told me, had cried so quiet through the whole thing. I rock and pray, feeling so sad, I don’t know, something just come over me. The words just come out.

“Once upon a time they was two little girls,” I say. “One girl had black skin, one girl had white.”

Mae Mobley look up at me. She listening.

“Little colored girl say to the little white girl, ‘How come your skin be so pale?’ White girl say, ‘I don’t know. How come your skin be so black? What you think that mean?’

“But neither one a them little girls knew. So little white girl say, ‘Well, let’s see. You got hair, I got hair.’ ” I gives Mae Mobley a little tousle on her head.

“Little colored girl say ‘I got a nose, you got a nose.’ ” I gives her little snout a tweak. She got to reach up and do the same to me.

“Little white girl say, ‘I got toes, you got toes.’ And I do the little thing with her toes, but she can’t get to mine cause I got my white work shoes on.