Big Little Lies(70)

“Seriously? Which one?”
“Well, maybe she wasn’t theoretically a girlfriend. More like a random girl.”
“And this random girl wanted you to . . .” Madeline put her hands around her own throat, stuck her tongue out the side of her mouth and made choking noises.
“Goddamn, that looks sexy when you do that,” said Ed.
“Thanks.” Madeline dropped her hands. “So did you do it?”
“Sort of halfheartedly,” said Ed as he took off his glasses. He grinned to himself, remembering. “I was a bit drunk. I was having trouble following instructions. I remember she was disappointed with me, which I know you probably find impossible to fathom, but I didn’t always thrill and delight—”
“Yes, yes.” Madeline waved him quiet and looked back at her iPad.
“So why the sudden interest in erotic asphyxiation?” said Ed.
She told him Jane’s story and watched the tiny muscles around his jaw flicker and his eyes narrow, the way they did when he heard a story on the news about a child being hurt.
“Bastard,” he said finally.
“I know,” said Madeline. “And he just gets away with it.”
Ed shook his head. “Silly, silly girl.” He sighed. “These sort of men just prey on—”
“Don’t call her a silly girl!” Madeline sat up so fast, the iPad slipped off her legs. “That sounds like you’re blaming her!”
Ed held up his hand as if to ward her off. “Of course I’m not. I just meant—”
“What if it were Abigail or Chloe?” cried Madeline.
“I actually was thinking of Abigail and Chloe,” said Ed.
“So you’d blame them, would you? Would you say, ‘You silly girl, you got what you deserved’?”
“Madeline,” said Ed calmly.
Their arguments always went like this. The angrier Madeline got, the more freakishly calm Ed became, until he reached a point where he sounded like a hostage negotiator dealing with a lunatic and a ticking bomb. It was infuriating.
“You’re blaming the victim!” She was thinking of Jane sitting in her cold, bare little apartment, the expressions that had crossed her face as she shared her sad, sordid little story, the shame she so obviously still felt all these years later. “I have to take responsibility,” she’d said. “It wasn’t that big a deal.” She thought of the photo Jane had showed her. The open, carefree expression on her face. The red dress. Jane once wore bright colors! Jane once had cleavage! Now Jane dressed her bony body apologetically, humbly, like she wanted to disappear, like she was trying to be invisible, to make herself nothing. That man had done that to her.
“It’s all fine and dandy for you to sleep with random women, but when a woman does, it’s silly. That’s a double standard!”
“Madeline,” said Ed. “I was not blaming her.”
He was still speaking in his I’m-the-grown-up-you’re-the-crazy-one voice, but she could see a spark of anger in his eyes.
“You are! I can’t believe you would say that!” The words bubbled out of her. “You’re like those people who say, ‘Oh, what did she expect? She was drinking at one o’clock in the morning, so of course she deserved to be raped by the whole football team!’”
“I am not!”
“You are so!”
Something changed in Ed’s face. His face flushed. His voice rose.
“Let me tell you this, Madeline,” he said. “If my daughter goes off one day with some wanker she’s only just met in a hotel bar, I reserve the right to call her silly!”
It was stupid for them to be fighting about this. A rational part of her mind knew this. She knew that Ed didn’t really blame Jane. She knew her husband was actually a better, nicer person than she was, and yet she couldn’t forgive him for that “silly girl” comment. It somehow represented a terrible wrong. As a woman, Madeline was obliged to be angry with Ed on Jane’s behalf, and for every other “silly girl,” and for herself, because after all, it could have happened to her too, and even a soft little word like “silly” felt like a slap.
“I can’t be in the same room as you right now.” She hopped out of bed, taking the iPad with her.
“Be ridiculous, then,” said Ed. He put his glasses back on. He was upset, but Madeline knew that he would read his book for twenty minutes, turn off the light and fall instantly asleep.
Madeline closed the door firmly (she would have preferred to slam it, but she didn’t want the kids waking up) and marched down the stairs in the dark.