The Push: Mother. Daughter. Angel. Monster?

One day, Violet calls to ask if she can stay with Blythe. They go to the movies and get ice cream, and while they don’t talk much, Blythe senses that Violet is “less agitated. Less bristly” (268).

That night, Blythe overhears Violet enter her bedroom, open one of her drawers, and quickly close it before leaving quietly.

When Blythe drops Violet off, she sees Gemma through the window and gets the idea to start spying on the family at night.

Blythe recalls going to see her father the month she graduates college. As they share a bottle of whiskey, Blythe asks him, “Why did she leave me?” (272).

The next morning, Blythe leaves without saying goodbye, but her father is dead of a heart attack. The last thing he said to her the night before was, “I would look at you and say to Cecilia, ‘Aren’t we lucky.’ But she couldn’t see—” (272), before getting up and leaving the table.

Gemma calls Blythe upset because she found Jet playing with a blade. That’s what Violet stole from Blythe’s drawer: one of Fox’s architect blades, which Blythe herself stole, perhaps to cut herself with.

The next time Violet visits, Blythe decides not to confront her about the blade. As Blythe cleans the bathroom, Violet points to a warning on a bleach bottle and says, “That means someone could die if they drank even a bit of it, right? Why do you have something so dangerous down here?” (276).

Blythe calls Gemma to warn her about what Violet said, but Gemma merely responds, “She didn’t push Sam, Blythe. I know you believe she did. But you’ve made it up. You saw something happen that never did” (277).

With Gemma’s voice ringing in her ears, Blythe returns to the corner where Sam died. The groove between street and sidewalk, which she believed would have stopped a slowly rolling stroller, is not there. Moreover, the grade is steeper than she remembers it, suggesting that the stroller could easily have rolled into the street without a push.

Blythe enters the coffee shop and asks Joe what he remembers, but he simply says it was a freak accident, adding, “I’ve thought about you a lot over the years, how you could possibly move on after that. I’ve always thanked God you had that little girl to live for” (282).

At home, Blythe reflects on everything she’s lost: “That life, banal and suffering. It was everything. I’d let it all go. Maybe I’d let him go too” (282).

After drinking half a bottle of wine, Blythe calls Fox and tells him she wants to see Violet more, adding, “I want to do better” (283). She also asks for the painting back, but Fox claims he doesn’t know where it is.

The following week, Blythe picks up Violet from school and drives her two hours to Mrs. Ellington’s nursing home. She introduces Violet to Mrs. Ellington, who suffers dementia and doesn’t remember that she has sons, although she remembers Blythe.

Outside, Violet says Mrs. Ellington isn’t Blythe’s real mother because she’s Black. She asks, “Why don’t you find your real mother?”—to which Blythe replies, “Because I’m scared to know who she became” (288).

After Cecilia gives birth to Blythe, she goes outside to smoke rather than feed her new baby. She tells Seb they could leave right now without the baby, but he merely jokes that her painkillers must be very strong.

As a baby, Blythe rarely cries, not even at night.

When Blythe is 11, Cecilia brushes the tangles out of her hair. Blythe says she wants to be a mom someday, and Cecilia replies that she doesn’t have to be. She adds, “I don’t want you learning to be like me. But I don’t know how to teach you to be anyone different” (293).

Cecilia leaves her family the next day.

The next morning after their visit to Mrs. Ellington, Blythe tells Violet she is happy Gemma loves her so much. She adds that it’s important for Violet to have someone she trusts even if that person isn’t Blythe. Violet angrily gets up from her chair and leaves without her coat. When Blythe chases after her and grabs her arm, Violet says, “Of course you’re happy to hand me over to Gemma. You wish you never had me, don’t you? [...] You hate me” (294). Blythe tightens her grip and relishes hurting her as she thinks of Sam. She lets go, however, after concluding that this is exactly what Violet wants. Violet runs to school and isn’t there when Blythe returns to pick her up.

At night, Fox knocks lightly on Blythe’s front door and drops the painting on her doorstep. A note explains that the painting has been hanging in Violet’s room. Blythe catches him before he gets back in his car, and the two share a moment of laughter on the porch, remembering a time when Violet cut up all of Blythe’s clothes. Upon leaving, Fox says, “[Violet] wasn’t always easy. But she deserved more from you [...] And you deserved more from me” (299).

Blythe goes inside and sees that she has a new voicemail. A woman who didn’t share her identity called to say Blythe’s mother died. She left a phone number, but the last two numbers were cut off.

The narrative returns to the Christmas Eve depicted in the Introduction, as Violet stares at Blythe through the window. Blythe is there to deliver the letters that make up the bulk of the novel. As Blythe approaches the window, Violet mouths something that Blythe cannot make out. She continues to mouth words and lunges toward the window, her hands pushed against it. That’s when Blythe recognizes the words she is mouthing: “I pushed him” (300).

Fox appears behind her, and she leaves the window, “away from me. She is yours. The lights in your house go out” (301).

Blythe has worked very hard over the past 18 months to let go of her guilt and come to terms with her loneliness. She repeats affirmations to herself like, “I am capable of moving beyond my mistakes” and “I am able to heal from the hurt and pain I have caused” (302). Every night, she turns her front lights on, in case Violet decides to return.

On one such night, her phone rings, and she desperately hopes Violet is on the other end. Instead, it’s Gemma, hysterical. She says, “Blythe. Something happened to Jet” (303).