Mother pulls the basin closer, hugs it to her side. “Three weeks.”

AIBILEEN OPENS HER back DOOR, lets me in. Minny is sitting at the table, stirring her coffee. When she sees me, she tugs the sleeve of her dress down, but I see the edge of a white bandage on her arm. She grumbles a hello, then goes back to her cup.

I put the manuscript down on the table with a thump.

“If I mail it in the morning, that still leaves six days for it to get there. We might just make it.” I smile through my exhaustion.

“Law, that is something. Look at all them pages.” Aibileen grins and sits on her stool. “Two hundred and sixty-six of em.”

“Now we just . . . wait and see,” I say and we all three stare at the stack.

“Finally,” Minny says, and I can see the hint of something, not exactly a smile, but more like satisfaction.

The room grows quiet. It’s dark outside the window. The post office is already closed so I brought it over to show to Aibileen and Minny one last time before I mail it. Usually, I only bring over sections at a time.

“What if they find out?” Aibleen says quietly.

Minny looks up from her coffee.

“What if folks find out Niceville is Jackson or figure out who who.”

“They ain’t gone know,” Minny says. “Jackson ain’t no special place. They’s ten thousand towns just like it.”

We haven’t talked about this in a while, and besides Winnie’s comment about tongues, we’ve haven’t really discussed the actual consequences besides the maids losing their jobs. For the past eight months, all we’ve thought about is just getting it written.

“Minny, you got your kids to think about,” Aibileen says. “And Leroy . . . if he find out . . .”

The sureness in Minny’s eyes changes to something darting, paranoid. “Leroy gone be mad. Sho nuff.” She tugs at her sleeve again. “Mad then sad, if the white people catch hold a me.”

“You think maybe we ought to find a place we could go . . . in case it get bad?” Aibileen asks.

They both think about this, then shake their heads. “I on know where we’d go,” Minny says.

“You might think about that, Miss Skeeter. Somewhere for yourself,” Aibileen says.

“I can’t leave Mother,” I say. I’ve been standing and I sink down into a chair. “Aibileen, do you really think they’d . . . hurt us? I mean, like what’s in the papers?”

Aibileen cocks her head at me, confused. She wrinkles her forehead like we’ve had a misunderstanding. “They’d beat us. They’d come out here with baseball bats. Maybe they won’t kill us but . . .”

“But . . . who exactly would do this? The white women we’ve written about . . . they wouldn’t hurt us. Would they?” I ask.

“Don’t you know, white mens like nothing better than ‘protecting’ the white womens a their town?”

My skin prickles. I’m not so afraid for myself, but for what I’ve done to Aibileen, to Minny. To Louvenia and Faye Belle and eight other women. The book is sitting there on the table. I want to put it in my satchel and hide it.

Instead, I look to Minny because, for some reason, I think she’s the only one among us who really understands what could happen. She doesn’t look back at me, though. She is lost in thought. She’s running her thumbnail back and forth across her lip.

“Minny? What do you think?” I ask.

Minny keeps her eyes on the window, nods at her own thoughts. “I think what we need is some insurance.”

“Ain’t no such thing,” Aibileen says. “Not for us.”

“What if we put the Terrible Awful in the book,” Minny asks.

“We can’t, Minny,” Aibileen says. “It’d give us away.”

“But if we put it in there, then Miss Hilly can’t let anybody find out the book is about Jackson. She don’t want anybody to know that story’s about her. And if they start getting close to figuring it out, she gone steer em the other way.”

“Law, Minny, that is too risky. Nobody can predict what that woman gone do.”

“Nobody know that story but Miss Hilly and her own mama,” Minny says. “And Miss Celia, but she ain’t got no friends to tell anyway.”

“What happened?” I ask. “Is it really that terrible?”

Aibileen looks at me. My eyebrows go up.

“Who she gone admit that to?” Minny asks Aibileen. “She ain’t gone want you and Miss Leefolt to get identified either, Aibileen, cause then people gone be just one step away. I’m telling you, Miss Hilly is the best protection we got.”

Aibileen shakes her head, then nods. Then shakes it again. We watch her and wait.

“If we put the Terrible Awful in the book and people do find out that was you and Miss Hilly, then you in so much trouble”—Aibileen shudders—“there ain’t even a name for it.”

“That’s a risk I’m just gone have to take. I already made up my mind. Either put it in or pull my part out altogether.”

Aibileen and Minny’s eyes hang on each other’s. We can’t pull out Minny’s section; it’s the last chapter of the book. It’s about getting fired nineteen times in the same small town. About what it’s like trying to keep the anger inside, but never succeeding. It starts with her mother’s rules of how to work for white women, all the way up to leaving Missus Walters. I want to speak up, but I keep my mouth shut.

Finally, Aibileen sighs.

“Alright,” Aibileen says, shaking her head. “I reckon you better tell her, then.”

Minny narrows her eyes at me. I pull out a pencil and pad.

“I’m only telling you for the book, you understand. Ain’t nobody sharing no heartfelt secrets here.”

“I’ll make us some more coffee,” Aibileen says.

On THE DRIVE back to Longleaf, I shudder, thinking about Minny’s pie story. I don’t know if we’d be safer leaving it out or putting it in. Not to mention, if I can’t get it written in time to make the mail tomorrow, it will put us yet another day later, shorting our chances to make the deadline. I can picture the red fury on Hilly’s face, the hate she still feels for Minny. I know my old friend well. If we’re found out, Hilly will be our fiercest enemy. Even if we’re not found out, printing the pie story will put Hilly in a rage like we’ve never seen. But Minny’s right—it’s our best insurance.

I look over my shoulder every quarter mile. I keep exactly to the speed limit and stay on the back roads. They will beat us rings in my ears.

I WRITE ALL NIGHT, grimacing over the details of Minny’s story, and all the next day. At four in the afternoon, I jam the manuscript in a cardboard letter box. I quickly wrap the box in brown paper wrapping. Usually it takes seven or eight days, but it will somehow have to get to New York City in six days to make the deadline.

I speed to the post office, knowing it closes at four-thirty, despite my fear of the police, and rush inside to the window. I haven’t gone to sleep since night before last. My hair is literally sticking straight up in the air. The postman’s eyes widen.

“Windy outside?”

“Please. Can you get this out today? It’s going to New York.”

He looks at the address. “Out-a-town truck’s gone, ma’am. It’ll have to wait until morning.”

He stamps the postage and I head back home.

As soon as I walk in, I go straight to the pantry and call Elaine Stein’s office. Her secretary puts me through and I tell her, in a hoarse, tired voice, I mailed the manuscript today.

“The last editors’ meeting is in six days, Eugenia. Not only will it have to get here in time, I’ll have to have time to read it. I’d say it’s highly unlikely.”

There is nothing left to say, so I just murmur, “I know. Thank you for the chance.” And I add, “Merry Christmas, Missus Stein.”