“That old tree just playing possum

“That old tree just playing possum.”
I pull a pad out of my pocketbook where I keep a list of what needs to be tended to, not for Miss Celia, but my own groceries, Christmas presents, things for my kids. Benny’s asthma has gotten a little better but Leroy came home last night smelling like Old Crow again. He pushed me hard and I bumped my thigh on the kitchen table. He comes home like that tonight, I’ll fix him a knuckle sandwich for supper.
I sigh. Seventy-two more hours and I’m a free woman. Maybe fired, maybe dead after Leroy finds out, but free.
I try to concentrate on the week. Tomorrow’s heavy cooking and I’ve got the church supper Saturday night and the service on Sunday. When am I going to clean my own house? Wash my own kids’ clothes? My oldest girl, Sugar, is sixteen and pretty good about keeping things neat, but I like to help her out on the weekends the way my mama never helped me. And Aibileen. She called me again last night, asked if I’d help her and Miss Skeeter with the stories. I love Aibileen, I do. But I think she’s making a king-sized mistake trusting a white lady. And I told her, too. She’s risking her job, her safety. Not to mention why anyone would want to help a friend of Miss Hilly’s.
Lord, I better get on with my work.
I pineapple the ham and get it in the oven. Then I dust the shelves in the hunting room, vacuum the bear while he stares at me like I’m a snack. “Just you and me today,” I tell him. As usual he doesn’t say much. I get my rag and my oil soap, work my way up the staircase, polishing each spoke on the banister as I go. When I make it to the top, I head into bedroom number one.
I clean upstairs for about an hour. It’s chilly up here, no bodies to warm it up. I work my arm back and forth, back and forth across everything wood. Between the second and third bedrooms, I go downstairs to Miss Celia’s room before she comes back.
I get that eerie prickle, of being in a house so empty. Where’d she go? After working here all this time and her only leaving three times and always telling me when and where and why she’s leaving, like I care anyway, now she’s gone like the wind. I ought to be happy. I ought to be glad that fool’s out of my hair. But being here by myself, I feel like an intruder. I look down at the little pink rug that covers the bloodstain by the bathroom. Today I was going to take another crack at it. A chill blows through the room, like a ghost passing by. I shiver.
Maybe I won’t work on that bloodstain today.
On the bed the covers, as usual, have been thrown off. The sheets are twisted and turned around the wrong way. It always looks like a wrestling match has gone on in here. I stop myself from wondering. You start to wonder about people in the bedroom, before you know it you’re all wrapped up in their business.
I strip off one of the pillowcases. Miss Celia’s mascara smudged little charcoal butterflies all over it. The clothes on the floor I stuff into the pillowcase to make it easier to carry. I pick up Mister Johnny’s folded pants off the yellow ottoman.
“Now how’m I sposed to know if these is clean or dirty?” I stick them in the sack anyway. My motto on housekeeping: when in doubt, wash it out.