The Push: Mother. Daughter. Angel. Monster?

Blythe thinks about the painting of the mother and child, which she now calls “Sam’s painting”—and which Fox took when he moved out.

Violet continues to provoke Blythe, this time over Fox’s new girlfriend who now lives with him. She cryptically tells her mother, “There’s something you should know about her” (213), without revealing what that is.

When Blythe is 12, about a year after Cecilia left, she goes to a diner with the Ellingtons and sees her mother there. Cecilia has completely reinvented herself: She calls herself by her middle name, “Annie”; wears black heels; and speaks with affected sophistication. Blythe is relieved that Cecilia does not see her.

That night, Blythe prays for her mother to die.

Fox works hard to avoid Blythe, arranging for Violet to be handed off only at pickup and drop-off at school. When Blythe tells Violet she would like to meet Fox’s girlfriend, Violet says ominously, “There’s a reason Dad doesn’t want you to meet her” (217).

Unable to resist Violet’s cryptic messages, Blythe stakes out Fox’s apartment when she knows he and Violet have plans alone. She watches a stylish woman a few years younger than her leave the apartment and assumes this is the girlfriend. Blythe follows her to a weekly moms’ group at a bookstore after hours and realizes that the girlfriend has a child.

Upon this realization, Blythe retreats across the street and puts her head between her legs. She thinks to herself, “She was a mother. You had found a better mother for our daughter. The kind of woman you always wanted” (221).

The following week, Blythe attends the moms’ group, wearing a brown wig just in case the girlfriend has seen pictures of Blythe. The women sit down to hear a speaker discuss natural cleaning products, but the girlfriend is not there. Blythe is about to leave when the girlfriend sneaks in and has a seat next to her.

After the presentation, the girlfriend introduces herself as Gemma and asks if Blythe wants to get a drink with her at the wine table. Blythe says yes and introduces herself as Anne, adding that she has a four-year-old son named Sam. Gemma says she has a five-month-old named Jet—which means that the child is almost certainly Fox’s. Not only that, but Fox moved out only a year ago, so Gemma was pregnant when he and Blythe were still together.

After the meeting, Blythe thinks to herself, “She seemed like a wonderful mother—I could tell just by being near her. She felt like a very, very good mother” (228).

Blythe cannot sleep for days after meeting Gemma. She imagines Fox being by Gemma’s side during labor, dwelling on the painful and bloody aspects of the experience. Blythe’s only respite comes when she goes to the basement to retrieve a storage container of Sam’s things. She breathes in the aroma of these items, an indulgence she affords herself only when she really needs it.

Two years after Cecilia’s departure, Seb drops Blythe off for lunch at her mother’s house in the suburbs. Cecilia greets Blythe pleasantly but unenthusiastically and introduces Blythe to her partner, Richard. On her way back from the bathroom, Blythe overhears a conversation revealing that Richard was the one who invited Blythe, and he only did so to get Cecilia to come back home from the city.

On the way home, Seb is silent. Later, Blythe tells him, “It wasn’t you who made her unhappy” (235).

Blythe continues to go to the moms’ group, building an easy rapport with Gemma. Of Violet, Gemma says, “She’s a sweetheart. My husband is very close with her, so she’s with us a lot” (237). When Blythe asks about Violet’s mother, Gemma is diplomatic, but it’s clear that Fox has not spoken well of Blythe.

Blythe buys a phone with a new number just so she can text with Gemma. One night, Gemma calls around midnight in a panic over Jet’s chest cold. Fox is out of town, which means that if Gemma takes Jet to the emergency room, she must take Violet with her or leave the girl home alone. However, Violet has a big day tomorrow: her first basketball practice.

Knowing that Fox would be furious if Gemma left Violet alone, Blythe encourages her to do just that. Gemma is reluctant, but Blythe insists, adding that she can hear how awful Jet’s cough sounds in the background.

At the next moms’ group, Gemma tells Blythe that Fox was angry with her and that she shouldn’t have taken her advice. However, while she is a bit quieter during that meeting, Gemma is too nice to stay angry. Meanwhile, Blythe feels sick at betraying Gemma, who “had slowly become the only person I needed” (242).

Blythe increasingly relishes her meetings and texts with Gemma because they allow her to be Sam’s mother again. Moreover, it is nice to have someone ask about Sam, especially when it seems as if everyone else in her life forgot about him.

Blythe and Gemma’s meetings have gone on for almost a year. Then one night, Gemma says her husband is here and that she would love to introduce her. Trapped, Blythe sees no other option but to play along and hope that Fox miraculously does not recognize her under the wig. He recognizes her immediately and, though shocked, says nothing. Blythe escapes the couple as quickly as possible.

With Gemma suddenly out of her life, Blythe feels incredibly alone. She hears nothing from Gemma until one day, out of the blue, Gemma texts Blythe, “Can we talk?” (251).

They meet at a coffee shop, and Blythe begins to express her deep shame. She waits for Gemma to scold her, but all Gemma says is, “I’m sorry about your son. I’m sorry you lost him” (252). She asks Blythe how Sam was killed, which Fox never explained. Unable to lie to Gemma any longer, Blythe explains the accident exactly as she remembers it, including her certainty that Violet pushed him into the road. Gemma listens with no expression on her face and then abruptly leaves after Blythe asks if she worries about Jet being safe with Violet.

Desperately lonely, Blythe begins having sex with a literary agent she met through a friend. She finds the agent incredibly easy to be around, explaining to Fox, “You thought of motherhood as the ultimate expression of a woman, but he didn’t; for him, the vagina was nothing other than a vessel for his pleasure” (255).

After Etta’s death, Henry is too broken to care for Cecilia. She stops going to school and spends most days reading poetry at the library and later writing her own poetry. Eager to move away and reinvent herself, Cecilia gets a job as a caregiver for an elderly neighbor. Upon discovering the neighbor dead, Cecilia takes the woman’s $680 in savings—enough to get to New York City and live for a couple months.

Shortly after her arrival in New York, she meets Seb, a doorman at an expensive hotel. Before long, Cecilia is pregnant; Seb is thrilled, and Cecilia is devastated. She tries to convince Seb to pay for an abortion, but he refuses: “As quickly as she found the city, she lost it” (259).

About a year after the end of her friendship with Gemma, Blythe is asked by Violet’s teacher to chaperone a field trip to an apple farm. On the bus, Blythe can sense that Violet is a social outcast. Moreover, Violet is clearly ashamed to have Blythe see her in this position.

At the farm, Blythe watches her from afar but loses track of her. It becomes clear that Violet has disappeared; she told one teacher that her mother took her to the bus because she had a headache, but that never happened, and the bus is locked.

As Blythe’s panic increases, someone suggests she check her phone; she has six missed calls from Gemma, who says a truck driver found Violet on the side of the road. She is at a rest stop, and Gemma is going to pick her up.

Back at home, Blythe reflects, “Everything that had happened that day changed how I saw her. She was powerless among her friends, and she didn’t want me to see that” (265).