PART THREE - WELCH

SECTION TWENTY-TWO (Pages 218-221)

Summary

In late August, everyone comes home. Lori is full of stories of summer camp: hot meals, hot showers, a lot of new friends, and a boy who actually kissed her. She says, Everyone assumed I was a normal person. It was weird. She decides that if she can get out of Welch and away from Mom and Dad, she'll have a shot at a happy life.

Mom comes home not long after Lori, and she is changed once again. She decides while studying, attending lectures, and painting that she has been living her life for others, and now she's going to devote herself to her art. On the first day of school, the girls cannot get her out of bed. She tells them she is sick, and when Jeannette challenges that assertion, Mom insists that Jeannette cannot talk to her like that, because she is her mother. Jeannette's response? If you want to be treated like a mother, you should act like one. Mom becomes angrier than Jeannette has ever seen her and declares that Jeannette is in big trouble when Dad gets home.

Jeannette isn't worried, because, as she sees it, Dad owes her. She'd looked after his children, kept him in beer and cigarette money, and helped him fleece the guy at the pool table. However, she doesn't have him in her back pocket like she thinks. He pulls her aside and says that Mom is claiming she back-talked her. Jeannette readily admits she did, because Mom's not sick. She's just refusing to accept her responsibilities. Dad says in response, Who do you think you are? She's your mother. This makes Jeannette furiously ask why Mom doesn't act like a mother and why Dad doesn't act like a Dad. Then, Dad insists that she apologize or he will whip her. She refuses. She figures Dad's in a tight spot with this situation, because if he doesn't back down, he will lose her forever. They stand there just gazing at each other until Jeannette calls his bluff, turns her back on him and slightly raises her haunches. She is convinced he will never whip her, but to her surprise and despair, he hits her six stinging blows on her backside. She straightens up and seeing Mom's triumphant expression, runs out of the house and into the woods. She spends hours there walking, crying, and throwing up. By the time she returns, she has come to two decisions: no one will ever whip her again, and she, like Lori, will save and plan until she has enough money to leave Welch.

Notes

With Rex and Rose Mary raising their children in a neglectful way and thinking only of themselves is something they could get away with as along as the children were younger. However, now the beginning of rebellion has begun. They cannot continue to neglect, manipulate, and betray their children without consequences. The confrontation between Jeannette, her mom, and her dad proves this.

SECTION TWENTY-THREE (Pages 222-225)

Summary

That fall, two men, filmmakers from New York, come to Welch to bring, on the part of the government, a cultural uplift to the town. They ultimately are not very successful, but they open up the idea of life in New York as a possibility to Jeannette and Lori. As a result, Lori and Jeannette come up with a plan to live in this exciting city. They know it's going to take a lot of money, so they begin pool their money and keep it in the piggy bank Jeannette had bought.

Jeannette most likes the idea that New York is full of people who are different. That definitely includes her and her sister. When she shows up at school, Lori doesn't have on the typical blue jeans and tee shirts like the other kids. Instead, she might wear army boots and a red polka-dotted dress with a jean jacket. The other kids throw bars of soap at her and write graffiti about her on the bathroom to which she responds in Latin. When she paints, she incorporates Gothic details like a mist over a silent lake or a solitary crow in the branches of a bare tree on the shoreline.

So they decide that Lori will go to New York first, right after she graduates, where she will settle in until Jeannette can follow. They begin to add to what they call their escape fund: Lori draws posters, and through word of mouth, gets a number of commissions; Jeannette continues to baby-sit and do other kids' homework; and even Brian gets into the act in spite of the fact that he won't be going to New York. He works all kinds of jobs after school and then gives the money to his sisters. Without looking for thanks or praise, he quietly adds his earnings to the pig, which they name Oz.

One day Jeannette comes home from school to see a gold Cadillac in front of their house. Dad has gotten a new car by way of one helluva good poker hand and an even better bluff. They name the car Elvis, and it crosses Jeannette's mind that if they sell Elvis, they will have enough money for an indoor toilet and new clothes. However, Dad loves Elvis too much to sell it. The truth is that Jeannette loves that car as well, and Dad says when she rides in it, she has noblesse oblige, or the attitude of royalty. Mom loves the car as well and begins using it to take her paintings to craft fairs throughout West Virginia. They sleep in Elvis on these trips and the traveling reminds Jeannette of how they would pick up and move on a moment's notice when she was younger. It had always been so easy. Once you resolve to go, there is nothing to it.

Notes

Jeannette and Lori's decision to leave Welch and go to New York is the product, the end result, of a long life of neglect and disappointment. They already know how to take care of themselves, so like the times they'd just take off with their family, this trip will be one just resolving to go and doing it.