The Push Quotes
"I had never experienced attention like that from anyone before."
"The comfort I found in you was consuming – I had nothing when I met you, and so you effortlessly became my everything."
"For my birthday, you wrote down one hundred things you loved about me."
"I’d never met someone with a heart as eager as yours."
"Etta was born on the very same day World War II began."
"I can still see my mother’s tangerine lipstick on the cigarette filter."
"The women in this family … we’re different."
"You fascinated me. Your confidence. Your patience."
"I can close my eyes now and see twenty-six-year-old you."
"We knew so little then about each other, about the people we would be."
"I remember exactly what life was like in the time that followed."
"I would be different. I would be like other women for whom it all came so easily."
"I knew as soon as you came inside of me. Your warmth filled me and I knew."
"I began doing prenatal exercise classes."
"I half expected people to look at me differently."
"You asked about my writing. I never looked at another man and wondered what he’d be like to fuck instead."
"We compliantly made love that night because we were supposed to."
"I remember what life was like in the time that followed."
"The first night in the hospital I didn’t sleep."
"A part of me knew we would never exist like that again."
"Etta turned on the bath faucet to wash Cecilia’s long, tangled hair."
"‘You’re anxious. She can sense it,’ you said."
"The only mother in the world who wouldn’t survive it."
"The only mother who looked down at her daughter and thought, 'Please. Go away.'"
"The night nurse had the softest hands I had ever felt."
"I hated hearing you breathe deeply and evenly when I came back to bed."
"I knew some of her behavior could be classified as typical."
"I desperately wanted more time to myself."
"I would run my nose over the fine hair on her head and breathe her in."
"I had become hardened. My face looked angry and tired where life had once lifted my cheekbones and glowed through my blue eyes."
"I pictured the life she might have had before the baby had confined her."
"She fell asleep in the stroller on the way home."
"I began walking with Violet in the morning as soon as you left the house."
"I thought about putting her down in the crib and leaving in the middle of the night."
"I listened to her through the echo of the water."
"I was repulsed with myself for the satisfaction this gave me."
"I smothered her in kisses and she pulled away to stare at me."
"The three of us, exactly as we were supposed to be."
"Very soon after her first birthday, Violet stopped sleeping through the night again."
"I had broken your trust. I had confirmed every doubt you quietly held about me."
"I had spent the entirety of her nap crying."
"I tried my best for the rest of that week. But we fell back into our daily combat."
"‘Maternal instinct starts young,’ she said as she unwrapped fresh fish from the market."
"‘I’ve been writing more and catching up on things around here.’"
"The vivid memories of my childhood start when I was eight years old."
"Her hair came in thick and beautiful and people often stopped to tell us what a gorgeous little girl she was."
"In third grade, our class spent a week making flower bouquets for our mothers."
"The spring after Violet turned four, her preschool teacher asked us for a meeting after school on a Friday."
"Sometime in the weeks that followed, I went to a gallery downtown after I dropped Violet off at school."
"The pediatric intensive care unit was on the eleventh floor."
"‘Cecilia’s not here.’ My father’s words were meant to be stern but I heard a ripple in his voice."
"The day before Sam died we went to the zoo."
"Sometimes I have moments when the pain is gone and I think, My God, I’m dead inside. I’ve died with him."
"I had been numb – the cruel lack of pain had been numbness."
"I listened to you sob down the hall, through the heavy glass door that separated us from the rest of the waiting area."
"I couldn’t stop putting it on my tongue. I smeared the blood all over my stomach and my breasts and wanted more."
"‘Sammy’s stroller slipped out of Mom’s hands and got hit by a car.’"
"‘I think she pushed him into the road. I told the police.’"
"‘I’m sorry,’ he said and started to whimper."
"The mother’s heart breaks a million ways in her lifetime."
"You rubbed your chin and stared at the painting from Sam’s nursery that leaned against the wall."
"‘We’re fine,’ I said. ‘I’m her mother.’"
"‘Did you always know something was wrong with her? When she was young?’"
"I watched the blood hit his fresh skin and trickle into jagged rivers that collected in the crevices of his tiny body."
"‘I want something more forward thinking. Maybe something focused on sustainability.’"
"‘We’ll be fine,’ I said. ‘I’m her mother.’"
"‘Shhh.’ Like I was a baby. ‘Don’t say that. Okay? Don’t say that.’"
"‘You’re a strong person,’ she said quietly. Those words meant nothing to me – they weren’t true."
"‘I hate you,’ I whispered. To you both. I hated both of you. I wanted only Sam."
"‘So?’ You kept your eyes on the highway. I put my hand on top of yours, on top of the gear shift."
"‘She’s her daughter, for God’s sake. Etta needs to be with Cecilia.’"
"‘There’s a reason Dad doesn’t want you to meet her.’"
"‘I have one. He’s four. His name is Sam.’"
"There’s a lot about ourselves that we can’t change – it’s just the way we’re born."
"Sometimes I wish I were a different kind of person."
"You can’t call my wife anymore. You have to move on with your life. You know this, right? For the good of everyone."
"I wonder if you watched as her vagina, swollen and burning, opened up to release a new being, half of you, into the hands of a doctor who congratulated you on your son."
"I’m ashamed of myself, Gemma. I’m deeply ashamed."
"When I was young I dreamed of being a poet."
"Her eyes followed each person, like a teacher silently counting her students as they came in from recess."
"I couldn’t sleep for days after meeting her."
"I’d forgotten to ask her the baby’s name."