PART THREE - WELCH

SECTION TWELVE (Pages 175-179)

Summary

Winter comes hard to Welch that year. At first, Jeannette loves it, because the snow makes everything seem clean and cozy. However, that feeling soon changes when the cold begins to seep into their house. They have no heat but the stove in the living room, and Mom refuses to buy $50 worth of coal, which will last them the entire winter. So Jeannette and Brian go around following the coal trucks to grab up pieces that have fallen off. They don't usually get enough to last even an evening, so they turn to wood from the woods. The problem is that the wood seldom is dry enough to burn. Meanwhile, Mom says that they should be thankful, because they have it better than the pioneers. When Brian mentions that they don't have a lick of insulation in the roof, Mom says they may not have insulation, but they have each other. It's easy for her to quote proverbs about life, because she even gets the benefit of the heat from their two dogs. They climb in bed with her since she is fatter than the kids, and therefore, warmer.

Frequently, the pipes freeze, and they have to borrow water from their neighbor, Mr. Freeman who never turns them down, but shows his disgust at how they live whenever he gives them the water. It makes Jeannette comment that she hates winter to which Mom responds that all seasons have something to offer and cold weather kills germs. It occurs to Jeannette that she is right. The kids in her family are never sick. However, even if she comes down with a fever, Jeannette won't stay home from school, which is always toasty warm.

Cold weather also keeps odors to a minimum. However, because they have only washed their clothes once since the cold poured into Welch, Mom decides they have to go to the Laundromat. It becomes a real treat to wash and dry the clothes while sitting on the warm machines and have the heat spread through their bodies. They even fold all their clothes, something they never do, because it means they can stay a little longer in the warm Laundromat.

Once all the wood they can gather is too hopelessly wet to burn well, they begin adding kerosene to build up the fire. Dad had warned them in the past that using it could cause an explosion. Once again, they become victims of fire that seems to follow them along with their bad luck. Lori adds kerosene to the fire one day, and it blows up in her face. She is the only one injured, but her legs blister and seep all that winter, making the laying of blankets on her legs painful. Unfortunately, if she doesn't, she'll freeze from the cold.

One day that winter, Jeannette goes to Carrie Mae Blankenship's house to work on a school project. Carrie's father is an administrator for McDowell County Hospital, and his family lives in a big brick house. While she is there, Mr. Blankenship sees Jeannette staring at a small plastic box topped with numbers hanging on the wall. He has to explain to her that it's a thermostat, and he even shows her how it works. She is so impressed and amazed that for many nights afterwards, she dreams that all they have to do to fill their house with that clean warm heat is to move a little lever.

Notes

There is a great deal of irony in this section, and once again, Mom appears just selfish or totally unaware of reality. She always has a comment designed to make her children feel guilty for complaining about the terrible circumstances in which she has placed them, while she seems to grow fatter and stay warmer than they do. Also, ironically, the kids never seem to become sick while living in the cold house, and they are more than willing to finally fold their own clothes if it means they can stay in the warm Laundromat. To add to the irony, Jeannette is so amazed that there is such a thing as a thermostat that controls a furnace and makes a house warmer or cooler that she dreams that a little lever is all she needs to be warm again.

Once again, the fire motif rolls into the story. Fire almost seems to stalk this poor group of children.

SECTION THIRTEEN (Pages 180-185)

Summary

Erma dies during the last hard snowfall that year. Dad says her liver gave out while Mom says she slowly committed suicide by drinking herself to death. Her funeral is much more elaborate than one would expect from a poor woman and has been carefully laid out by Erma herself who wrote down everything she wanted at the service. Her death brings out Mom's pious side, which means that Mom is very dramatic about how she behaves at the Mass and how she tries to get the kids to kiss their grandmother goodbye. They all refuse, but Mom kisses the corpse's cheek so hard that the smacking sound can be heard all over the church. As for Dad, he seems more distraught than Jeannette has ever seen him. This surprises her, because Erma had seemed to have an evil hold over him, and she thinks he should be glad she's gone. When Mom asks the kids on the way home from the funeral if they have anything to say now that she is gone, there is silence until Lori says, Ding-dong, the witch is dead. Dad's reaction to this is a fierce anger and he says, You kids. You make me ashamed. Do you hear me? Ashamed. As he walks way, Lori shouts back, You're ashamed of us?

Four days later, when Dad still hasn't come home, Mom sends Jeannette to search the bars for him. She travels from the best bar, Junior's, to the worst, the Pub, where she finally finds him. It is the same awkward moment she has faced with him before, and before he leaves, he drinks as much as he can and as a result, collapses at the door. A man drinking in the bar offers to drive them home. Dad is helped into the back of the truck where he begins to sing Swing Low Sweet Chariot, while the man driving them home asks Jeannette all about school and her hopes for the future. When he realizes how intelligent she is, he says, For the daughter of the town drunk, you sure got big plans. This makes Jeannette so angry that she orders the man to let her out so she can walk home with her dad. The man convinces her to stay, but she won't forgive him when he insists he thought he was making a compliment.

A few months after Erma dies, Uncle Stanley falls asleep with a cigarette in his hand and Erma and Ted's house burns down. The two men move into a windowless two-room apartment that provides the Walls family a bathroom that they can bathe in once a week. One weekend, while Lori is bathing, Jeannette is sitting on the couch watching TV with Uncle Stanley. Suddenly, Uncle Stanley's hand sneaks out and begins to stroke her thigh while his hands go inside his pants to pleasure himself. She jumps up and runs to Mom and tells her what he did. Mom, as usual, finds excuses, saying sexual assault is a crime of perception. If a woman thinks she's not hurt, then she's not. Jeannette, once again having no support from her own mother, refuses to go back to her grandfather's home. Instead she hauls water, heats it, and bathes in an aluminum tub that is just the right size if she pulls her knees up to her chin.

With the spring comes a huge amount of rain that, even though it doesn't flood their house like so many others, leaves a fine green mold from the damp over their papers and Mom's paintings. Furthermore, when they try to use the outside bathroom at night, they often slip on the steps and fall at least ten feet. When they finally all fall at least once, Mom comes up with her solution to the nighttime bathroom problems: a yellow bucket that someone always has to empty and bury the next day.

Notes

With this section, the reader must begin to wonder what it will take to make Mom see how she abuses her children, even though she seldom, if ever, lays a hand on them. She is an utterly unbelievable woman. Dad's abuse is the continuing story of his drunkenness.

Also in this section, the fire motif roars into their family again with the loss of Erma's home when Stanley falls asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand.