Chapter 18

On Monday morning, I drive to work rehearsing the whole way. I know I mouthed off… I walk into her kitchen. And I know I was out of place… I set my bag down in the chair, and… and… This is the hard part. And I’m sorry.

I brace myself when I hear Miss Celia’s feet padding through the house. I don’t know what to expect, if she’ll be mad or cold or just flat out re-fire me. All I know is, I’m doing the talking first.

“Morning,” she says. Miss Celia’s still in her nightgown. She hasn’t even brushed her hair, much less put the goo on her face.

“Miss Celia, I got to… tell you something…”

She groans, flattens her hand against her stomach.

“You… feel bad?”

“Yeah.” She puts a biscuit and some ham on a plate, then takes the ham back off.

“Miss Celia, I want you to know —”

But she walks right out while I’m talking and I know I am in some kind of trouble.

I go ahead and do my work. Maybe I’m crazy to act like the job’s still mine. Maybe she won’t even pay me for today. After lunch, I turn on Miss Christine on As the World Turns and do the ironing. Usually, Miss Celia comes in and watches with me, but not today. When the program’s over, I wait on her awhile in the kitchen, but Miss Celia doesn’t even come in for her lesson. The bedroom door stays closed, and by two o’clock I can’t think of anything else to do except clean their bedroom. I feel a dread like a frying pan in my stomach. I wish I’d gotten my words in this morning when I had the chance.

Finally, I go to the back of the house, look at that closed door. I knock and there’s no answer. Finally, I take a chance and open it.

But the bed is empty. Now I’ve got the shut bathroom door to contend with.

“I’m on do my work in here,” I call out. There’s no answer, but I know she’s in there. I can feel her behind that door. I’m sweating. I want to get this damn conversation over with.

I go around the room with my laundry sack, stuffing a weekend’s worth of clothes inside. The bathroom door stays closed with no sound. I know that bathroom in there’s a mess. I listen for some life as I pull the sheets up taut on the bed. The pale yellow bolster pillow is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen, packaged on the ends like a big yellow hotdog. I smack it down on the mattress, smooth the bedspread out.

I wipe down the bedside table, stack the Look magazines on her side, the bridge book she ordered. I straighten the books on Mister Johnny’s. He reads a lot. I pick up To Kill a Mockingbird and turn it over.

“Well look a there.” A book with black folks in it. It makes me wonder if, one day, I’ll see Miss Skeeter’s book on a bedside table. Not with my real name in it, that’s for sure.

Finally, I hear a noise, something scruff against the bathroom door. “Miss Celia,” I call out again, “I’m out here. Just want you to know.”

But there’s nothing.

“That ain’t none a my business whatever’s going on in there,” I say to myself. Then I holler, “Just gone do my work and get out a here before Mister Johnny gets home with the pistol.” I’m hoping that’ll draw her out. It doesn’t.

“Miss Celia, they’s some Lady-a-Pinkam under the sink. Drink that up and come out so I can do my work in there.”

Finally, I just stop, stare at the door. Am I fired or am I ain’t? And if I ain’t, then what if she’s so drunk, she can’t hear me? Mister Johnny asked me to look after her. I don’t think this would qualify as looking after if she’s drunk in the bathtub.

“Miss Celia, just say something so I know you still alive in there.”

“I’m fine.”

But she does not sound fine to me.

“It’s almost three o’clock.” I stand in the middle of the bedroom, waiting. “Mister Johnny be home soon.”

I need to know what’s going on in there. I need to know if she’s laid out drunk. And if I ain’t fired, then I need to clean that bathroom so Mister Johnny doesn’t think the secret maid is slacking and fire me a second time.

“Come on, Miss Celia, you mess up the hair coloring again? I helped you fix it last time, remember? We got it back real pretty.”

The knob turns. Slowly, the door opens. Miss Celia’s sitting on the floor, to the right of the door. Her knees are drawn up inside her nightgown.

I step a little closer. From the side, I can see her complexion is the color of fabric softener, a flat milky-blue.

I can also see blood in the toilet bowl. A lot of it.

“You got the cramps, Miss Celia?” I whisper. I feel my nostrils flare.

Miss Celia doesn’t turn around. There’s a line of blood along the hem of her white nightgown, like it dipped down into the toilet.

“You want me to call Mister Johnny?” I say. I try, but I can’t stop myself from looking at that red full bowl. Because there’s something else deep down in that red liquid. Something… solid-looking.

“No.” Miss Celia says, staring at the wall. “Fetch me… my phone book.”

I hurry to the kitchen, snatch the book from the table, rush back. But when I try to hand it to Miss Celia, she waves it away.

“Please, you call,” she says. “Under T, for Doctor Tate. I can’t do it again.”

I skip through the thin pages of the book. I know who Doctor Tate is. He doctors most of the white women I’ve waited on. He also gives his “special treatment” to Elaine Fairley every Tuesday when his wife is at her hair appointment. Taft… Taggert… Tann. Thank the Lord.

My hands tremble around the rotary dial. A white woman answers.

“Celia Foote, on Highway Twenty-Two out Madison County,” I tell her as best I can without yacking on the floor. “Yes ma’am, lots and lots a blood coming out… Do he know how to get here?” She says yes, of course, and hangs up.

“He’s coming?” asks Celia.

“He coming,” I say. Another wave of nausea sneaks up on me. It’ll be a long time until I can scrub that toilet again without gagging.

“You want a Co-Cola? I’m on get you a Co-Cola.”

In the kitchen, I get a bottle of Coca-Cola from the refrigerator. I come back and set it on the tile and back away. As far from that red-filled pot as I can without leaving Miss Celia alone.

“Maybe we should get you up in the bed, Miss Celia. You think you can stand up?”

Miss Celia leans forward, tries to push herself up. I step in to help her and see that the blood has soaked through the seat of her nightgown, stained the blue tile with what looks like red glue, embedded in the grout. Stains that won’t be easy to get up.

Just as I raise her to her feet, Miss Celia slips in a spot of blood, catches the edge of toilet bowl to steady herself. “Let me stay – I want to stay here.”

“Alright then.” I back away, into the bedroom. “Doctor Tate be here real soon. They calling him up at home.”

“Come and set with me, Minny. Please?”

But there’s a waft of warm, wretched air coming off that toilet. After some figuring, I sit with half my bottom in the bathroom, half out. And at eye-level, I can really smell it. It smells like meat, like hamburger defrosting on the counter. I kind of panic when I put that one together.

“Come on out of here, Miss Celia. You need some air.”

“I can’t get the blood on the… rug or Johnny will see it.” The veins on Miss Celia’s arm look black under her skin. Her face is getting whiter.

“You getting funny-looking. Drink you a little a this Co-Cola.”

She takes a sip, says, “Oh Minny.”

“How long you been bleeding?”

“Since this morning,” she says and starts crying into the crook of her arm.

“It’s alright, you gone be fine,” I say and I sound real soothing, real confident, but inside my heart is pounding. Sure, Doctor Tate’s coming to help Miss Celia, but what about the thing in the toilet? What am I supposed to do, flush it? What if it gets stuck in the pipes? It’ll have to be fished up. Oh Lord, how am I going to make myself do that?

“There’s so much blood,” she moans, leaning against me. “Why’s there so much blood this time?” I raise my chin and look, just a little, in the bowl. But I have to look down again quick.

“Don’t let Johnny see it. Oh God, when… what time is it?”

“Five to three. We got some time.”

“What should we do about it?” asks Miss Celia.

We. God forgive me, but I wish there wasn’t a “we” mixed up in this.

I shut my eyes, say, “I guess one a us is gone have to pull it out.”

Miss Celia turns to me with her red-rimmed eyes. “And put it where?”

I can’t look at her. “I guess… in the garbage pail.”

“Please, do it now.” Miss Celia buries her head in her knees like she’s ashamed. There’s not even a we now. Now it’s will you do it. Will you fish my dead baby out of that toilet bowl.

And what choice do I have?

I hear a whine come out of me. The tile floor is smashing against my fat. I shift, grunt, try to think it through. I mean, I’ve done worse than this, haven’t I? Nothing comes to mind, but there has to be something.

“Please,” Miss Celia says, “I can’t… look at it no more.”

“Alright.” I nod, like I know what I’m doing. “I’m on take care a this thing.”

I stand up, try to get practical. I know where I’ll put it – in the white garbage pail next to the toilet. Then throw the whole thing out. But what will I use to get it out with? My hand?

I bite my lip, try to stay calm. Maybe I should just wait. Maybe… maybe the doctor will want to take it with him when he comes! Examine it. If I can get Miss Celia off it a few minutes, maybe I won’t have to deal with it at all.

“We look after it in a minute,” I say in that reassuring voice. “How far along you think you was?” I ease closer to the bowl, don’t dare stop talking.

“Five months? I don’t know.” Miss Celia covers her face with a washrag. “I was taking a shower and I felt it pulling down, hurting. So I set on the toilet and it slipped out. Like it wanted out of me.” She starts sobbing again, her shoulders jerking forward over her body.

Carefully, I lower the toilet lid down and settle back on the floor.

“Like it’d rather be dead than stand being inside me another second.”

“Now you look a here, that’s just God’s way. Something ain’t going right in your innards, nature got to do something about it. Second time, you gone catch.” But then I think about those bottles and feel a ripple of anger.

“That was… the second time.”

“Oh L ordy.”

“We got married cause I was pregnant,” Miss Celia says, “but it… it slipped out too.”

I can’t hold it in another second. “Then why in the heck are you drinking? You know you can’t hold no baby with a pint of whiskey in you.”

“Whiskey?”

Oh please. I can’t even look at her with that “what-whiskey?” look. At least the smell’s not as bad with the lid closed. When is that fool doctor coming?

“You thought I was…” She shakes her head. “It’s catch tonic.” She closes her eyes. “From a Choctaw over in Feliciana Parish…”

“Choctaw?” I blink. She is stupider than I ever imagined. “You can’t trust them Indians. Don’t you know we poisoned their corn? What if she trying to poison you?”

“Doctor Tate said it’s just molasses and water,” she cries down into her towel. “But I had to try it. I had to.”

Well. I’m surprised by how loose my body goes, how relieved I am by this. “There’s nothing wrong with taking your time, Miss Celia. Believe me, I got five kids.”

“But Johnny wants kids now. Oh Minny.” She shakes her head. “What’s he going to do with me?”

“He gone get over it, that’s what. He gone forget these babies cause mens is real good at that. Get to hoping for the next one.”

“He doesn’t know about this one. Or the one before.”

“You said that’s why he married you.”

“That first time, he knew.” Miss Celia lets out a big sigh. “This time’s really the… fourth.”

She stops crying and I don’t have any good things left to say. For a minute, we’re just two people wondering why things are the way they are.

“I kept thinking,” she whispers, “if I was real still, if I brought somebody in to do the house and the cooking, maybe I could hold on to this one.” She cries down into her towel. “I wanted this baby to look just like Johnny.”

“Mister Johnny a good-looking man. Got good hair…”

Miss Celia lowers the towel from her face.

I wave my hand in the air, realize what I’ve just done. “I got to get some air. Hot in here.”

“How do you know…?”

I look around, try to think of a lie, but finally I just sigh.

“He knows. Mister Johnny came home and found me.”

“What?”

“Yes’m. He tell me not to tell you so you go right on thinking he’s proud a you. He love you so much, Miss Celia. I seen it in his face how much.”

“But… how long has he known?”

“A few… months.”

“Months? Was he – was he upset that I’d lied?”

“Heck no. He even call me up at home a few weeks later to make sure I didn’t have no plans to quit. Say he afraid he gone starve if I left.”

“Oh Minny,” she cries. “I’m sorry. I’m real sorry about everything.”

“I been in worse situations.” I’m thinking about the blue hair dye. Eating lunch in the freezing cold. And right now.

There’s still the baby in the toilet that someone’s going to have to deal with.

“I don’t know what to do, Minny.”

“Doctor Tate tell you to keep trying, then I guess you keep trying.”

“He hollers at me. Says I’m wasting my time in bed.” She shakes her head. “He’s a mean, awful man.”

She presses the towel hard against her eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.” And the harder she cries, the whiter she turns.

I try to feed her a few more sips of Co-Cola but she won’t take it. She can’t hardly lift her hand to wave it away.

“I’m going to… be sick. I’m —”

I grab the garbage can, watch as Miss Celia vomits over it. And then I feel something wet on me and I look down and the blood’s coming so fast now, it’s leaked over to where I’m sitting. Everytime she heaves, the blood pushes out of her. I know she losing more than a person can handle.

“Sit up, Miss Celia! Get a good breath, now,” I say, but she’s slumping against me.

“Nuh-uh, you don’t want a lay down. Come on.” I push her back up but she’s gone limp and I feel tears spring up in my eyes because that damn doctor should be here by now. He should’ve sent an ambulance and in the twenty-five years I’ve been cleaning houses nobody ever tells you what to do when your white lady keels over dead on top of you.

“Come on, Miss Celia!” I scream, but she’s a soft white lump next to me, and there is nothing I can do but sit and tremble and wait.

Many minutes pass before the back bell rings. I prop Miss Celia’s head on a towel, take off my shoes so I don’t track the blood over the house, and run for the door.

“She done passed out!” I tell the doctor, and the nurse pushes past me and heads to the back like she knows her way around. She pulls the smelling salts out and puts them under Miss Celia’s nose and Miss Celia jerks her head, lets out a little cry, and opens her eyes.

The nurse helps me get Miss Celia out of her bloody nightgown. She’s got her eyes open but can hardly stand up. I put old towels down in the bed and we lay her down. I go in the kitchen where Doctor Tate’s washing his hands.

“She in the bedroom,” I say. Not the kitchen, you snake. He’s in his fifties, Doctor Tate, and tops me by a good foot and a half. He has real white skin and this long, narrow face that shows no feelings at all. Finally he goes back to the bedroom.

Just before he opens the door, I touch him on the arm. “She don’t want her husband to know. He ain’t gone find out, is he?”

He looks at me like I’m a nigger and says, “You don’t think it’s his business?” He walks into the bedroom and shuts the door in my face.

I go to the kitchen and pace the floor. Half an hour passes, then an hour, and I’m worrying so hard that Mister Johnny’s going to come home and find out, worrying Doctor Tate will call him, worrying they’re going to leave that baby in the bowl for me to deal with, my head’s throbbing. Finally, I hear Doctor Tate open the door.

“She alright?”

“She’s hysterical. I gave her a pill to calm her down.”

The nurse walks around us and out the back door carrying a white tin box. I breathe out for what feels like the first time in hours.

“You watch her tomorrow,” he says and hands me a white paper bag. “Give her another pill if she gets too agitated. There’ll be more bleeding. But don’t call me up unless it’s heavy.”

“You ain’t really gone tell Mister Johnny bout this, are you, Doctor Tate?”

He lets out a sick hiss. “You make sure she doesn’t miss her appointment on Friday. I’m not driving all the way out here just because she’s too lazy to come in.”

He waltzes out and slams the door behind him.

The kitchen clock reads five o’clock. Mister Johnny’s going to be home in half an hour. I grab the Clorox and the rags and a bucket.