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“How are you?” I push her hair back from her head and she closes her eyes like she relishes the feel. She is the child now and I am the mother.
“I’m alright.”
Pascagoula comes in. She sets a tray of broth on the table. Mother barely shakes her head when she leaves, staring off at the empty doorway.
“Oh no,” she says, grimacing, “I can’t eat.”
“You don’t have to eat, Mama. We’ll do it later.”
“It’s just not the same with Pascagoula here, is it?” she says.
“No,” I say. “It’s not.” This is the first time she’s mentioned Constantine since our terrible discussion.
“They say its like true love, good help. You only get one in a lifetime.”
I nod, thinking how I ought to go write that down, include it in the book. But, of course, it’s too late, it’s already been mailed. There’s nothing I can do, there’s nothing any of us can do now, except wait for what’s coming.
CHRISTMAS EVE IS DEPRESSING and rainy and warm. Every half hour, Daddy comes out of Mother’s room and looks out the front window and asks, “Is he here?” even if no one’s listening. My brother, Carlton, is driving home tonight from LSU law school and we’ll both be relieved to see him. All day, Mother has been vomiting and dry heaving. She can barely keep her eyes open, but she cannot sleep.
“Charlotte, you need to be in the hospital,” Doctor Neal said that afternoon. I don’t know how many times he’s said that in the past week. “At least let me get the nurse out here to stay with you.”
“Charles Neal,” Mother said, not even raising her head from the mattress, “I am not spending my final days in a hospital, nor will I turn my own house into one.”
Doctor Neal just sighed, gave Daddy more medicine, a new kind, and explained to him how to give it to her.
“But will it help her?” I heard Daddy whisper out in the hall. “Can it make her better?”
Doctor Neal put his hand on Daddy’s shoulder. “No, Carlton.”
At six o’clock that night, Carlton finally pulls up, comes in the house.
“Hey there, Skeeter.” He hugs me to him. He is rumpled from the car drive, handsome in his college cable- knit sweater. The fresh air on him smells good. It’s nice to have someone else here. “Jesus, why’s it so hot in this house?”
“She’s cold,” I say quietly, “all the time.”
I go with him to the back. Mother sits up when she sees him, holds her thin arms out. “Oh Carlton, you’re home,” she says.
Carlton stops still. Then he bends down and hugs her, very gently. He glances back at me and I can see the shock on his face. I turn away. I cover my mouth so I don’t cry, because I won’t be able to quit. Carlton’s look tells me more than I want to know.
When Stuart drops by on Christmas Day, I don’t stop him when he tries to kiss me. But I tell him, “I’m only letting you because my mother is dying.”
“EUGENIA,” I hear Mother calling. It is New Year’s Eve and I’m in the kitchen getting some tea. Christmas has passed and Jameso took the tree out this morning. Needles still litter the house, but I’ve managed to put away the decorations and store them back in the closet. It was tiring and frustrating, trying to wrap each ornament the way Mother likes, to get them ready for next year. I don’t let myself question the futility of it.
I’ve heard nothing from Missus Stein and don’t even know if the package made it on time. Last night, I broke down and called Aibileen to tell her I’ve heard nothing, just for the relief of talking about it to someone. “I keep thinking a things to put in,” Aibileen says. “I have to remind myself we already done sent it off.”
“Me too,” I say. “I’ll call you as soon as I hear something.”
I go in the back. Mother is propped up on her pillows. The gravity of sitting upright, we’ve learned, helps keep the vomit down. The white enamel bowl is beside her.
“Hey, Mama,” I say. “What can I get you?”
“Eugenia, you cannot wear those slacks to the Holbrook New Year’s party.” When Mother blinks, she keeps her eyes closed a second too long. She’s exhausted, a skeleton in a white dressing gown with absurdly fancy ribbons and starched lace. Her neck swims in the neckline like an eighty-pound swan’s. She cannot eat unless it’s through a straw. She’s lost her power of smell completely. Yet she can sense, from an entirely different room, if my wardrobe is disappointing.
“They canceled the party, Mama.” Perhaps she is remembering Hilly’s party last year. From what Stuart’s told me, all the parties were canceled because of the President’s death. Not that I’d be invited anyway. Tonight, Stuart’s coming over to watch Dick Clark on the television.
Mother places her tiny, angular hand on mine, so frail the joints show through the skin. I was Mother’s dress size when I was eleven.
She looks at me evenly. “I think you need to go on and put those slacks on the list, now.”
“But they’re comfortable and they’re warm and—”
She shakes her head, shuts her eyes. “I’m sorry, Skeeter.”
There is no arguing, anymore. “Alright,” I sigh.
Mother pulls the pad of paper from under the covers, tucked in the invisible pocket she’s had sewn in every garment, where she keeps antivomiting pills, tissues. Tiny dictatorial lists. Even though she is so weak, I’m surprised by the steadiness of her hand as she writes on the “Do Not Wear” list: “Gray, shapeless, mannishly tailored pants.” She smiles, satisfied.
It sounds macabre, but when Mother realized that after she’s dead, she won’t be able to tell me what to wear anymore, she came up with this ingenious postmortem system. She’s assuming I’ll never go buy new, unsatisfactory clothes on my own. She’s probably right.
“Still no vomiting yet?” I ask, because it’s four o’clock and Mother’s had two bowls of broth and hasn’t been sick once today. Usually she’s thrown up at least three times by now.
“Not even once,” she says but then she closes her eyes and within seconds, she’s asleep.
ON NEW YEAR’S DAY, I come downstairs to start on the black-eyed peas for good luck. Pascagoula set them out to soak last night, instructed me on how to put them in the pot and turn on the flame, put the ham hock in with them. It’s pretty much a two-step process, yet everyone seems nervous about me turning on the stove. I remember that Constantine always used to come by on January first and fix our good-luck peas for us, even though it was her day off. She’d make a whole pot but then deliver one single pea on a plate to everyone in the family and watch us to make sure we ate it. She could be superstitious like that. Then she’d wash the dishes and go back home. But Pascagoula doesn’t offer to come in on her holiday and, assuming she’s with her own family, I don’t ask her to.
We’re all sad that Carlton had to leave this morning. It’s been nice having my brother around to talk to. His last words to me, before he hugged me and headed back to school, were, “Don’t burn the house down.” Then he added, “I’ll call tomorrow, to see how she is.”
After I turn off the flame, I walk out on the porch. Daddy’s leaning on the rail, rolling cotton seeds around in his fingers. He’s staring at the empty fields that won’t be planted for another month.
“Daddy, you coming in for lunch?” I ask. “The peas are ready.”
He turns and his smile is thin, starved for reason.
“This medicine they got her on . . .” He studies his seeds. “I think it’s working. She keeps saying she feels better.”
I shake my head in disbelief. He can’t really believe this.
“She’s gone two days and only gotten sick once . . .”
“Oh, Daddy. No . . . it’s just a . . . Daddy, she still has it.”
But there’s an empty look in Daddy’s eyes and I wonder if he even heard me.
“I know you’ve got better places to be, Skeeter.” There are tears in his eyes. “But not a day passes that I don’t thank God you’re here with her.”
I nod, feel guilty that he thinks it’s a choice I actually made. I hug him, tell him, “I’m glad I’m here too,
