The Push: Mother. Daughter. Angel. Monster?

To escape the house, sometimes Blythe rides the subway. One day, she sees a flier for a support group for mothers of children convicted of crimes. Blythe attends but lies and says her daughter is in jail for theft. One woman says that when visiting her daughter in prison, the guards treat her like she did something wrong, adding, “We didn’t do anything wrong,” to which another woman replies, “Didn’t we?” (161).

It’s been 22 weeks since Sam’s death, and Blythe is back to spending most of her days in bed. Fox suggests that she go to a “wellness center” outside the city. He already called, and they have space. He begins to cry, and Blythe suspects that he has a confession she doesn’t want to hear—so she agrees to go.

The wellness center offers energy healing circles, meditative sound baths, and therapy sessions, which Blythe declines to attend. She meets a woman named Iris whom she describes as “the most intense woman I had ever met” (167). When Blythe finally says her son is dead, Iris is not very sympathetic, telling her instead that she needs “a new way of living in the world now” (169).

The day before she is supposed to go home, Blythe is found naked and flailing in an ice-cold stream on the premises. She declines the center’s offer to stay on longer, leaving the next day with Fox.

Three days after returning home, Violet says her first words to her since Sam’s death, asking why Blythe left. She then tells Blythe that she wants her to leave again.

Blythe recalls the days and weeks shortly after Cecilia abandoned the family. One night during a poker game that Seb hosts, a player responds to accusations of cheating by telling Seb, “Your wife was the cheater, you weak piece of shit” (173). The phrase “weak piece of shit” rings in Blythe’s ears all night.

Blythe starts writing again. She says, “My brain had changed, as though it were on a different frequency than before. Before. After. After felt curt, my sentences abrupt and sharp, like every paragraph could hurt someone” (175).

Blythe feels life moving on even if she doesn’t want it to. The family has moments of small joy; however, she cannot forget what happened to Sam.

Two years after Sam’s death, Helen is visiting, and she tells Blythe that Violet is having a hard time at school. She wants Blythe to know that Violet misses Sam too, “despite everything” (182). Blythe thinks the phrase “despite everything” means that Helen knows that Blythe blames Violet, though Helen insists she just means that Violet never seemed terribly affected by Sam’s death.

Blythe imagines an alternate reality in which she and Violet never had anything but a loving relationship. She muses, “I do not spend my days wondering who we could have been. Or what life would be like if she had died instead of him. I am not a monster, and neither is she” (185).

The family goes to the beach on vacation in an effort to act “normal.” Blythe watches Violet play with a smaller boy, burying him up to his head in the sand. Violet approaches with a giant bucket of water, and Blythe is certain she is going to pour it over his head, the water filling his airways. Blythe yells “Sam!” causing the boy to turn around and crack the sand. He cries over ruining the sand, and Violet sets down the bucket to comfort him.

The night before Fox’s 39th birthday, he mentions going to the brasserie for breakfast. However, rather than picking up breakfast as a kind gesture on his birthday, Blythe makes bagels, which he hates: “I wanted you to wake up in our bed and smell that I was toasting a bagel. [...] I wanted you to think, Maybe she doesn’t love me anymore” (189).

One morning, Fox shows Blythe his resignation letter from his job. He claims that he wants something “more forward thinking. Maybe something focused on sustainability” (192). Blythe says they should have talked about it first, but he insists that they’re fine financially and he has new possibilities lined up.

Blythe uses Fox’s password to log into his computer and email account. An email from his boss mentions an “incident” and severance, meaning that he was fired. Blythe leaves the email open so that Fox will know she saw it, but he never mentions it.

The next day, Fox is gone until ten at night. Assuming he was with another woman, Blythe begs him to have very rough sex with her, which he does: “I wanted to feel like a barge in the sea. Rusted, trusted, dented” (197).

By 1972, Etta hardly does anything except sleep. Cecilia overhears Henry’s sister suggest that Cecilia should go to boarding school, saying of Etta, “She doesn’t love that girl” (199).

Days later, at age 32, Etta hangs herself from a tree in the front yard.

Eight days after suspecting Fox of infidelity, Blythe confronts him about it. All he says is, “I’m not seeing her anymore” (201).

Three months after discovering the affair, Blythe knows her marriage is over. She accuses Fox of still seeing the woman, and he doesn’t deny it. She tells Fox that he can come back for his things tomorrow, but he must be out tonight.

Fox says, “What about Violet?” (206), which Blythe interprets as him asking what they are going to tell her. However, she quickly realizes what he means is that, with shared custody, Violet and Blythe will have to be alone together, without Fox around to provide their daughter with affection and comfort. Blythe replies, “We’ll be fine. I’m her mother” (207).