Big Little Lies

by Liane Moriarty

  had been moved until a week later because her brother was going away with a new girlfriend. It was all bloody Dane’s fault.

  No. It was her fault. She only had one child. She had a diary. It shouldn’t be that hard. They’d have to do it now. Right now. She couldn’t send him to school without his project. He’d be calling attention to himself, and he hated it when that happened. If it were Madeline’s Chloe, she couldn’t care less. She’d giggle and shrug and look cute. Chloe liked being the center of attention, but all poor Ziggy wanted was to blend in to the crowd, just like Jane, but for some reason the opposite kept happening.

  “Let the water out of the bath, Ziggy!” she called. “We have to do that project now!”

  “I need the special spoon!” called back Ziggy.

  “There’s no time!” shrieked Jane. “Let the water out now!”

  Cardboard. They needed a large sheet of cardboard. Where would they get that from at this time of night? It was past seven. All the shops would be closed.

  Madeline. She’d have some spare cardboard. They could drive around to her place and Ziggy could stay in the car in his pajamas while Jane rushed in and got it.

  She texted Madeline: Crisis! Forgot family tree project!!!!!!!!!! (Idiot!) Do you have spare sheet of cardboard! If so, can I drive around and pick it up?

  She pulled the instruction sheet off the fridge.

  The family tree project was designed to give the child “a sense of their personal heritage and the heritage of others, while reflecting on the people who are important in their lives now and in the past.” The child had to draw a tree and put a photo of themselves in the middle, then include photos and names of family members, ideally dating back to at least two generations, including siblings, aunties, uncles, grandparents and “if possible great-grandparents or even great-great-grandparents!”

  There was a big underlined note down at the bottom.

  NOTE TO PARENTS: OBVIOUSLY YOUR CHILD WILL NEED YOUR HELP, BUT PLEASE MAKE SURE THEY HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THIS PROJECT! I WANT TO SEE THEIR WORK, NOT YOURS! Miss (Rebecca) Barnes

  It shouldn’t take that long. She already had all the photos ready. She’d been feeling so smug about not leaving that until the last minute. Her mother had gotten prints done of photos from the family albums. There was even one of Ziggy’s great-great-grandfather on Jane’s dad’s side, taken in 1915 just a few short months before he died on the battlefield in France. All Jane had to do was get Ziggy to draw the tree and write out at least some of the names.

  Except it was already past his bedtime. She’d let him stay far too long in the bath. He was ready for story and bed. He’d be moaning and yawning and sliding off his chair, and she’d have to beg and bribe and cajole, and the whole process would be excruciating.

  This was silly. She should just put him to bed. It was ridiculous to make a five-year-old stay up late to do a school project.

  Maybe she could just give him the day off tomorrow? A sickie? But he loved Fridays. FAB Fridays. That’s what Miss Barnes called them. Also, Jane really needed him to go to school tomorrow so she could work. She had three deadlines to meet.

  Do it in the morning before school? Ha. Yeah, right. She could barely get him to put his shoes on in the morning. Both of them were useless in the mornings.

  Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

  Who knew that kindergarten could be so stressful? Oh, this was funny! This was so funny. She just couldn’t seem to make herself laugh.

  Her mobile phone was silent. She picked it up and looked at it. Nothing. Madeline normally answered texts immediately. She’d probably had enough of Jane lurching from crisis to crisis.

  “Mummy! I need my spoon!” cried Ziggy.

  Her phone rang. She snatched it up.

  “Madeline?”

  “No, love, it’s Pete.” It was Pete the Plumber. Jane’s heart sank. “Listen, love—”

  “I know! I’m so sorry! I haven’t done the pay yet. I’ll do it tonight.”

  How could she have forgotten? She always did the pay slips for Pete by lunchtime on a Thursday, so he could pay his “boys” on Friday.

  “No worries,” said Pete. “See ya, love.”

  He hung up. Not one for small talk.

  “Mummy!”

  “Ziggy!” Jane marched into the bathroom. “It’s time to let the water out! We’ve got to do your family tree project!”

  Ziggy lay stretched out on his back, his hands nonchalantly crossed behind his head like a sunbather on a beach of bubbles. “You said we didn’t have to take it in tomorrow.”

  “We do! I was right, you were wrong! I mean, you were right, I was wrong! We have to do it right now! Quick! Let’s get into your pajamas!”

  She reached into the warm bathwater and wrenched out the plug, knowing as she did that she was making a mistake.

  “No!” shouted Ziggy, enraged. He liked pulling the plug out himself. “I’ll do it!’

  “I gave you enough chances,” said Jane in her sternest, firmest voice. “It’s time to get out. Don’t make a fuss.”

  The water roared. Ziggy roared. “Mean Mummy! I do it! You let me do it! No, no.”

  He threw himself forward to grab for the plug so he could put it back in and pull it back out again. Jane held the plug up high out of his grasp. “We don’t have time for that!”

  Ziggy stood up in the bathwater, his skinny, slippery little body covered in bubbles and his face contorted in demented rage. He grabbed for the plug, slipped, and Jane had to grab his arm hard to stop him from falling and probably knocking himself out.

  “You HURT me!” screamed Ziggy.

  Ziggy’s near fall had made Jane’s heart lurch, and now she was furious with him.

  “QUIT YELLING!” she yelled.

  She grabbed a towel from the rail and wrapped it around him, lifting him straight out of the bath, kicking and screaming. She carried him into his bedroom and laid him with elaborate care on the bed because she was terrified she might throw him against the wall.

  He screamed and thrashed back on the bed. Spittle frothed over his lips. “I HATE YOU!” he screamed.

  The neighbors must be close to calling the police.

  “Stop it,” she said in a reasonable, grown-up voice. “You are behaving like a baby.”

  “I want a different Mummy!” shouted Ziggy. His foot rammed her stomach, nearly winding her.

  Her self-control slipped from her grasp. “STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT!” She screamed like a madwoman. It felt good, as if she deserved this.

  Ziggy stopped instantly. He scuttled back against the headboard, looking up at her in terror. He curled up in a little naked ball, his face squashed into his pillow, sobbing piteously.

  “Ziggy,” she said. She put her hand on his knobbly spine and he jerked away from her. She felt sick with guilt. ”I’m sorry for yelling like that,” she said. She draped the bath towel back over his naked body. I’m sorry for wanting to throw you against the wall.

  He flipped over and launched himself at her, clinging to her like a koala, his arms around her neck, his legs around her waist, his wet, snotty face buried in her neck.

  “It’s OK,” she said. “Everything is OK.” She retrieved the towel from the bed and wrapped it back around him. “Quick. Let’s get you into your pj’s before you get cold.”

  “There’s someone buzzing,” said Ziggy.

  “What?” said Jane.

  Ziggy lifted his head from her shoulder, his face alert and inquisitive. “Hear it?”

  Someone was buzzing the security door for their apartment.

  Jane carried him out into the living room.

  “Who is it?” said Ziggy. He was thrilled. There were still tears on his cheeks but his eyes were bright and clear. He’d moved on as if that whole terrible incident had never taken place.

  “I don’t know,” said Jane. Was it someone complaining about the noise? The police? The child protection authorities coming to take him away?

  She picked
up the security phone. “Hello?”

  “It’s me! Let me in! It’s chilly.”

  “Madeline?” She buzzed her in, put Ziggy down and went to open the front door of the apartment.

  “Is Chloe here too?” Ziggy bounced about excitedly, the towel slipping off his shoulders.

  “Chloe is probably in bed, like you should be.” Jane looked down the stairwell.

  “Good evening!” Madeline beamed radiantly up at her as she click-clacked up the stairs in a watermelon-colored cardigan, jeans and high-heeled, pointy-toed boots.

  “Hello?” said Jane.

  “Brought you some cardboard.” Madeline held up a neatly rolled cylinder of yellow cardboard like a baton.

  Jane burst into tears.

  30.

  It’s nothing! I was happy for an excuse to get out of the house,” said Madeline over the top of Jane’s teary gratitude. “Now, quick sticks, let’s get you dressed, Ziggy, and we’ll knock this project over.”

  Other people’s problems always seemed so surmountable, and other people’s children so much more biddable, thought Madeline as Ziggy trotted off. While Jane collected the family photos, Madeline looked around Jane’s small, neat apartment, reminded of the one-bedroom apartment she and Abigail used to share.

  She was romanticizing those days, she knew it. She wasn’t remembering the constant money worries or the loneliness of those nights when Abigail was asleep and there was nothing good on TV.

  Abigail had been living with Nathan and Bonnie now for two weeks, and it seemed it was all going perfectly well for everyone except Madeline. Tonight, when Jane’s text had come through, the little children were asleep, Ed was working on a story and Madeline had just sat down to watch America’s Next Top Model. “Abigail!” she’d called out as she switched it on, before she remembered the empty bedroom, the four-poster bed replaced by a sofa bed for Abigail to use when she came for weekends, and Madeline didn’t know how to be with her daughter anymore, because she felt like she’d been fired from her position as mother.

  She and Abigail normally watched America’s Next Top Model together, eating marshmallows and making catty remarks about the contestants, but now Abigail was happily living in a TV-free house. Bonnie didn’t “believe” in television. Instead, they all sat around and listened to classical music and talked after dinner.

  “Rubbish,” scoffed Ed when he heard this.

  “Apparently it’s true,” Madeline said. Of course, now when Abigail came to “visit,” all she wanted to do was lie on the couch and gorge on television, and because Madeline was now the treat-giving parent, she let her. (If she’d spent a week just listening to classical music and talking, she’d want to watch TV too.)

  Bonnie’s whole life was a slap across Madeline’s face. (A gentle slap, more of a condescending, kindly pat, because Bonnie would never do anything violent.) That’s why it was so nice to be able to help Jane out, to be the calm one, with answers and solutions.

  “I can’t find glue to paste on the photos,” said Jane worriedly as they laid everything out on the table.

  “Got it.” Madeline pulled a pencil case out of her handbag and selected a black marker for Ziggy. “Let’s see you draw a great big tree, Ziggy.”

  It was all going well until Ziggy said, “We have to put my father’s name on it. Miss Barnes said it doesn’t matter if we don’t have a photo, we just put the person’s name.”

  “Well, you know that you don’t have a dad, Ziggy,” said Jane calmly. She’d told Madeline that she’d always tried to be as honest as possible with Ziggy about his father. “But you’re lucky, because you’ve got Uncle Dane, and Grandpa, and Great-uncle Jimmy.” She held up photos of smiling men like a winning hand of cards. “And we’ve even got this amazing photo of your great-great-grandfather, who was a soldier!”

  “Yes, but I still have to write my dad’s name down in that box,” said Ziggy. “You draw a line from me to my mummy and my daddy. That’s the way you do it.”

  He pointed at the example of a family tree that Miss Barnes had included, demonstrating a perfect unbroken nuclear family, with mum, dad and two siblings.

  Miss Barnes really needs to rethink this project, thought Madeline. She’d had enough trouble herself when she was helping Chloe with hers. There had been the tricky matter of whether a line should be drawn from Abigail’s picture to Ed. “You’ll have to put in a photo of Abigail’s real dad,” Fred had said helpfully, looking over their shoulders. “And his car?”

  “No we don’t,” Madeline had said.

  “It doesn’t have to be exactly like the one Miss Barnes gave you,” Madeline said to Ziggy. “Everyone’s project will be different. That’s just an example.”

  “Yes, but you have to write down your mother’s and your father’s name,” said Ziggy. “What’s my dad’s name? Just say it, Mummy. Just spell it. I don’t know how to spell it. I’ll get in trouble if I don’t write down his name.”

  Children did this. They sensed when there was something controversial or sensitive and they pushed and pushed like tiny prosecutors.

  Poor Jane had gone very still.

  “Sweetheart,” she said carefully, her eyes on Ziggy, “I’ve told you this story so many times. Your dad would have loved you if he’d known you, but I’m so sorry, I don’t know his name, and I know that’s not fair—”

  “But you have to write a name there! Miss Barnes said!” There was a familiar note of hysteria in his voice. Overtired five-year-olds needed to be handled like explosive devices.

  “I don’t know his name!” said Jane, and Madeline recognized the gritted-teeth note in her voice too, because there was something in your children that could bring out the child in yourself. Nothing and nobody could aggravate you the way your child could aggravate you.

  “Oh, Ziggy, darling, see, this happens all the time,” said Madeline. For God’s sake. It probably did. There were plenty of single mothers in the area. Madeline was going to have a word with Miss Barnes tomorrow to ensure that she stopped assigning this ridiculous project. Why try to slot fractured families into neat little boxes in this day and age?

  “This is what you do. You write ‘Ziggy’s dad.’ You know how to write ‘Ziggy,’ don’t you? Of course you do, that’s it.”

  To her relief, Ziggy obeyed, writing his name with his tongue out the side of his mouth to help him concentrate. “What neat writing!” encouraged Madeline feverishly. She didn’t want to give him time to think. “You are a much neater writer than my Chloe. And that’s it! You’re done! Your mum and I will stick down the rest of the photos while you’re asleep. Now. Story time! Right? And I’m wondering, could I read you a story? Would that be OK? I’d love to see your favorite book.”

  Ziggy nodded dumbly, seemingly overwhelmed by her torrent of chatter. He stood up, his little shoulders drooping.

  “Good night, Ziggy,” said Jane.

  “Good night, Mummy,” said Ziggy. They kissed each other good night like warring spouses, their eyes not meeting, and then Ziggy took Madeline’s hand and allowed her to lead him off to his bedroom.

  In less than ten minutes she was back out in the living room. Jane looked up. She was carefully pasting the last photo onto the family tree.

  “Out like a light,” said Madeline. “He actually fell asleep while I was reading, like a child in a movie. I didn’t know children really did that.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Jane. “You shouldn’t have to come over here and put another child to bed, but I am so grateful to you, because I didn’t want to get into a conversation with him just before bed about that, and—”

  “Shhhh.” Madeline sat down next to her and put her hand on her arm. “It was nothing. I know what it’s like. Kindergarten is stressful. They get so tired.”

  “He’s never been like that before,” said Jane. “About his father. I mean, I always knew it might be an issue one day, but I thought it wouldn’t be until he was thirteen or something. I thought I’d have time to work ou
t exactly what to say. Mum and Dad always said stick to the truth, but you know, the truth isn’t always . . . it’s not always . . . well, it’s not always that—”

  “Palatable,” offered Madeline.

  “Yes,” said Jane. She adjusted the corner of the photo she’d just glued down and surveyed the piece of cardboard. “He’ll be the only one in the class without a picture in the box for his father.”

  “That’s not the end of the world,” said Madeline. She touched the photo of Jane’s dad with Ziggy on his lap. “Plenty of lovely men in his life.” She looked at Jane. “It’s annoying that we don’t have anyone with two mummies in the class. Or two daddies. When Abigail was at primary school in the Inner West, we had all sorts of families. We’re a bit too white-bread here on the peninsula. We like to think we’re terribly diverse, but it’s only our bank accounts that vary.”

  “I do know his name,” said Jane quietly.

  “You mean Ziggy’s father?” Madeline lowered her voice too.

  “Yes,” said Jane. “His name was Saxon Banks.” Her mouth went a bit wonky when she said the words, as if she were trying to make unfamiliar sounds from a foreign language. “Sounds like a respectable name, doesn’t it? A fine, upstanding citizen. Quite sexy too! Sexy Saxon.” She shuddered.

  “Did you ever try to get in touch with him?” asked Madeline. “To tell him about Ziggy?”

  “I did not,” said Jane. It was an oddly formal turn of phrase.

  “And why did you not?” Madeline imitated her tone.

  “Because Saxon Banks was not a very nice fellow,” said Jane. She put on a silly, posh voice and held her chin high, but her eyes were bright. “He was not a nice chap at all.”

  Madeline returned to her normal voice. “Oh, Jane, what did that bastard do to you?”

  31.

  Jane couldn’t believe she’d said his name out loud to Madeline. Saxon Banks. As if Saxon Banks were just another person.

  “Do you want to tell me?” said Madeline. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  She was obviously curious, but not in that avid way that Jane’s friends had been the next day (“Spill, Jane, spill! Give us the dirt!”), and she was sympathetic, but her sympathy wasn’t weighed down by maternal love, like it would be if it were Jane’s mother hearing the story.

  “It’s not that big a deal, really,” said Jane.

  Madeline sat back in her chair. She took off the two hand-painted wooden bangles she was wearing on her wrist and placed them carefully on top of each other on the table in front of her. She pushed the family tree project to one side.

  “OK,” she said. She knew it was a big deal.

  Jane cleared her throat. She took a piece of gum out of the packet on the table.

  “We went to a bar,” she said.

  • • •

  Zach had broken up with her three weeks earlier.

  It had been a great shock. Like a bucket of icy water thrown in the face. She thought they were on the path toward engagement rings and a mortgage.

  Her heart was broken. It was definitely broken. But she knew it would heal. She was even relishing it a little, the way you could sometimes relish a head cold. She wallowed deliciously in her misery, crying for hours over photos of her and Zach, but then drying her tears and buying herself a new dress because she deserved it because her heart was broken. Everybody was so gratifyingly shocked and sympathetic. You were such a great couple! He’s crazy! He’ll regret it!

  There was the feeling that it was a rite of passage. Part of her was already looking back on this time from afar. The first time my heart was broken. And part of her was kind of curious about what was going to happen next. Her life had been going one way, and now, just like that—wham!—it was heading off in another direction. Interesting! Maybe after she finished her degree she’d travel for a year, like Zach. Maybe she’d date an entirely different sort of guy. A grungy musician. A computer geek. A smorgasbord of boys awaited her.

  “You need vodka!” her friend Gail had said. “You need dancing.”