Something snapped, " said Madeline. She saw Perry's hand shining back in its graceful, practiced arc. She heard Bonnie's guttural voice. It occurred to her that there were so many levels of evil in the world. Small evils like her own malicious words. Like not inviting a child to a party. Bigger evils like walking out on your wife and newborn baby or sleeping with your child's nanny. And then there was the sort of evil which Madeline had no experience: cruelty in hotel rooms and violence in suburban homes and little girls sold like merchandise, shattering innocent hearts. Liane Moriarty
About This Quote

The story of Madeline’s life is one of suffering. Her father, who was abusive and cruel, left her mother for another woman. This left her mother with two children to raise, while her father abandoned his family to be with his other lover. When she was only eight years old, Madeline’s mother died in a car accident.

The grief that followed this loss caused her to become depressed and she lost the ability to speak. As she got older, she became addicted to drugs and alcohol. She ended up in rehab several times but could never stay clean for very long.

After becoming pregnant by her drug dealer, Madeline was forced to give birth in the bathroom of a motel room because there were no doctors in the area to help her deliver her baby naturally. She gave birth to baby Bonnie, whose birth was stillborn; although Madeline had never felt love or affection from her father or anyone else in her life, she knew that Bonnie was hers alone. The hospital staff did not believe that it had been a natural delivery and assumed that Madeline had harmed Bonnie by not giving birth properly; they took the baby away from her without even visiting the family to verify what had happened.

Eventually, Madeline found out that Bonnie's body had been kept at the hospital for days before being cremated.

Source: Big Little Lies

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