Read Online 04.Die.My.Love.2007 by Kathryn Casey - Free Book Online
Authors: Kathryn Casey
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brought up her family in Texas and how much she missed them. Each summer, she took the children to visit, and when she returned she seemed melancholy, yearning for her family and talking often and long about all the Rountrees, especially her closest sister, Tina. Piper wanted to be with them, Mel understood, but it seemed almost unnaturally so.
Family was important to Fred, too. At work, many were noticing slight changes in him the year after he arrived at UR, when both his parents died within a six- week period.
Stunned with so much loss in such a short period of time, he became introspective. He spoke with Joanne Ciulla about life and death, and the loss of a loved one. “He seemed to be grappling with some very deep feelings,” she says. “He loved his parents very much, and he was hurting.”
It would seem that he got little comfort at home. Piper didn’t go to either of the funerals. It had been years since she’d attended family occasions at their house. After they’d fallen ill, Fred had driven to stay with them over weekends, to help. Piper never went along. Still, when his $130,000
share of their estate arrived, Fred invested it in something he and Piper both wanted, a beach house they dubbed “The Outer Banks,” four hours away in Corolla, North Carolina.
It wasn’t fancy, and over the years he’d spend weekends and vacations rebuilding the small house, but it was a place to escape to.
That December, Piper gave birth for a third time. She and Fred named the baby Callyn Rountree-Jablin and called her Callie. Afterward, Piper again sank into an even deeper depression. When it passed, this time motherhood didn’t come as naturally for Piper.
Callie, a golden child with blond curls and crystal blue eyes, was a different kind of child than Jocelyn and Paxton.
Joce was a happy yet easy young girl, by then six years old, DIE, MY LOVE / 49
and she demanded little. Three-year-old Paxton loved sports and was all boy, yet never seemed to push his mother for what he wanted. On the other hand, neighbors would describe Callie as an impish child, one with a mischievous glint in her eyes. While the two older children, even from young ages, tended to take care of themselves, Callie, by her very nature, demanded attention. “She was the type of kid who needed her mom more,” says Mel. “And Piper didn’t appear to have more to give her.”
By the time Callie had turned three, Piper was escaping to the Fosters’ house, “just to get away for a little while.”
Mel would look outside and see Callie in the yard, by herself. When she voiced concern, Piper assured her, “Oh, I do it all the time. She’s all right.”
For a long time it seemed odd to Melody that a woman like Piper, who appeared to base her entire self-image on being an exceptional mother, could be so careless with her children. At times Piper appeared the ideal mother. She became interested in geology and spent hours with the three children at the creek, picking up rocks and identifying them.
She painted castles and Walt Disney princesses on the walls of the girls’ bedrooms, covered the walls of the downstairs bathroom with a mural of trees, and painted the doghouse to look as if it were built of red brick. When she volunteered as a guest reader in one of the children’s classes, she arrived dressed as Alice in Wonderland, that day’s book. At other times, however, when Piper was in one of her funks, she locked the children out of the house and simply went to bed.
From week to week nannies came and went at the Jablin house hold, some quitting, others fired. When she was between help, Piper became anxious, asking Mel or, on days Mel worked, Mel’s nanny to babysit. Often Piper seemed to be searching for a way to absolve herself of the responsibilities of the children, like at bunco one night. While Piper played the popular dice game with the other neighborhood 50 / Kathryn Casey
women, she proposed starting a babysitting co-op. Some of
Family was important to Fred, too. At work, many were noticing slight changes in him the year after he arrived at UR, when both his parents died within a six- week period.
Stunned with so much loss in such a short period of time, he became introspective. He spoke with Joanne Ciulla about life and death, and the loss of a loved one. “He seemed to be grappling with some very deep feelings,” she says. “He loved his parents very much, and he was hurting.”
It would seem that he got little comfort at home. Piper didn’t go to either of the funerals. It had been years since she’d attended family occasions at their house. After they’d fallen ill, Fred had driven to stay with them over weekends, to help. Piper never went along. Still, when his $130,000
share of their estate arrived, Fred invested it in something he and Piper both wanted, a beach house they dubbed “The Outer Banks,” four hours away in Corolla, North Carolina.
It wasn’t fancy, and over the years he’d spend weekends and vacations rebuilding the small house, but it was a place to escape to.
That December, Piper gave birth for a third time. She and Fred named the baby Callyn Rountree-Jablin and called her Callie. Afterward, Piper again sank into an even deeper depression. When it passed, this time motherhood didn’t come as naturally for Piper.
Callie, a golden child with blond curls and crystal blue eyes, was a different kind of child than Jocelyn and Paxton.
Joce was a happy yet easy young girl, by then six years old, DIE, MY LOVE / 49
and she demanded little. Three-year-old Paxton loved sports and was all boy, yet never seemed to push his mother for what he wanted. On the other hand, neighbors would describe Callie as an impish child, one with a mischievous glint in her eyes. While the two older children, even from young ages, tended to take care of themselves, Callie, by her very nature, demanded attention. “She was the type of kid who needed her mom more,” says Mel. “And Piper didn’t appear to have more to give her.”
By the time Callie had turned three, Piper was escaping to the Fosters’ house, “just to get away for a little while.”
Mel would look outside and see Callie in the yard, by herself. When she voiced concern, Piper assured her, “Oh, I do it all the time. She’s all right.”
For a long time it seemed odd to Melody that a woman like Piper, who appeared to base her entire self-image on being an exceptional mother, could be so careless with her children. At times Piper appeared the ideal mother. She became interested in geology and spent hours with the three children at the creek, picking up rocks and identifying them.
She painted castles and Walt Disney princesses on the walls of the girls’ bedrooms, covered the walls of the downstairs bathroom with a mural of trees, and painted the doghouse to look as if it were built of red brick. When she volunteered as a guest reader in one of the children’s classes, she arrived dressed as Alice in Wonderland, that day’s book. At other times, however, when Piper was in one of her funks, she locked the children out of the house and simply went to bed.
From week to week nannies came and went at the Jablin house hold, some quitting, others fired. When she was between help, Piper became anxious, asking Mel or, on days Mel worked, Mel’s nanny to babysit. Often Piper seemed to be searching for a way to absolve herself of the responsibilities of the children, like at bunco one night. While Piper played the popular dice game with the other neighborhood 50 / Kathryn Casey
women, she proposed starting a babysitting co-op. Some of
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