The Glass Castle

Jeannette and Brian find a two-karat diamond ring in a pile of rotting lumber. Rather than sell it for grocery money, Mom insists on keeping it to replace the wedding ring Dad pawned years earlier, adding that self-esteem is more important than food.

In response to Mom’s increasingly wild mood swings, Jeannette tells her she needs to leave Dad so she can qualify for welfare. Mom believes that welfare benefits will cause “irreparable psychological damage” to the kids (188). Besides, she adds, she cannot leave Dad, both because she is a Catholic and because she is “an excitement addict” (188).

Amid a summer heat wave, Jeannette tries to go to the public pool but is turned away by Ernie Goad and his goons. Later, Dinitia tells Jeannette to come with her to the pool in the morning when the black children swim, in accordance with an unwritten custom of de facto segregation in Welch. Struck by the confidence of the other girls, Jeannette changes clothes in the locker room despite the deep shame she feels over her burn scars. At the end of the free swim period, Jeannette recalls, “I’d never felt cleaner” (192).