Big Little Lies(59)

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.

Chapter 30
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.