For the next 11 days, Blythe shakes, cries, and vomits up everything she eats. She refuses to see Violet, whom Helen takes to a hotel for a few days. When Fox goes to pick Violet up, Blythe cuts herself using one of his architect’s blades.

During that period, Fox too is in immense pain. At one point, he takes the painting of the mother off the nursery wall and places it in their bedroom. Blythe recalls, “I realized when I saw the painting that I would live, and I don’t know why. [...] And I hated you for it. I didn’t ever want to feel normal again” (158).

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).