04.Die.My.Love.2007 (9 page)

Although she’d spent little time studying, the failure plunged her into yet another deep depression. She didn’t want to go to the Bahamas, and when the trip was cancelled due to a problem with the plane, Piper complained about Fred’s alternate plan, to spend the weekend together at a posh hotel. Later he’d say she went reluctantly and stayed in the hotel bed throughout that weekend, disinterested in him.

In April 2000, Piper saw Welton for a session and told him she’d failed the exam. Absolving herself of any responsibility, she claimed to have studied hard for the test and recited a laundry list of reasons for the failure, everything from the recent death of one of her cats to an imbalance in her hormones. Piper even talked about the tumult of having one housekeeper quit, only to hire another who she claimed had stolen jewelry and her medications. That afternoon, Piper told Welton that she’d been on an emotional roller DIE, MY LOVE / 63

coaster, fi ghting off anxiety and depression. She was so upset one day that she went to an emergency room for help.

After listening to her description of the events, Welton characterized the event as a severe panic attack.

Two weeks later, in mid-April, Piper’s mood had spiraled even further. By then she was on Xanax, Adderall, Prozac, and other drugs. Painting herself as an unappreciated victim, she complained to her therapist that Fred didn’t understand how fragile she was, and said she was furious he was planning a summer trip to Disney World with the children.

While many mothers dream of such a vacation with their families, one filled with fantasy and fun, Piper saw it as be-neath her. “I can’t believe he wants to take the kids to such a common place,” she told one friend. Piper saw Disney World as a haven for the “Stepford” wives she complained about in the neighborhood, the women who went to work and cared for their families, those who didn’t live as she did, seizing the days for her own enjoyment.

It was in early May when Fred met with Welton for the first time. Piper had been talking about her husband in therapy for seventeen months, painting a picture of a man who minimized his wife. But in the psychiatrist’s office, Fred appeared sincerely concerned about Piper’s problems. In fact, he said that he worried she was so troubled she could commit suicide. “Husband seems to understand,” Welton wrote.

There was something that day, however, that did worry the psychiatrist: Piper was on Xanax for her anxiety, and Welton noted that she was using increasingly larger amounts.

“Explore the potential for addiction,” he noted.

Just weeks later, the Jablin family trip to Disney World was postponed, and on May 22, amid concerns that she had an ovarian cyst, Piper went in for a hysterectomy. Afterward, friends noticed that she looked drawn and dark, exhausted. Fred would later describe her condition as a

“general malaise.”

64 / Kathryn Casey

Soon it was summer again, and he was home to take over on the child care and house hold responsibilities. As Piper’s physical condition slowly improved, Fred continued to care for the children, while she disappeared for large portions of the day, painting. During therapy sessions she complained to Dr. Welton that while Fred was supportive, he pushed her to pull her life back together. “Feels like she is grieving the last year, failing bar exam, losing cat, preoccupation that has kept her out of children’s lives,” Welton wrote. “Goal: Urged to allow self-healing time.”

Later Fred would call this Piper’s “earth mother period,”

during which she told him angels communicated with her.

As a scientist, a man who saw the world in concrete terms, Fred must have struggled with a wife who communicated with invisible deities.

As the summer of 2000 drew to a close, Piper seemed uneasy with the marriage, complaining to Welton about a lack of intimacy. Yet by then the physician was questioning his patient’s view of the world and her ability or willingness to make real changes. Twenty-one months into his sessions with Piper Rountree, the psychiatrist appeared frustrated, writing: “Every discussion seems to hit roadblocks . . . Piper remains unrealistic about money and seems to disengage from my active target of this . . . mood has digressed.”

In September 2000,
The New Handbook of Organi zational Communication: Advances in Theory and Research
Methods,
Fred’s follow-up with Linda Putnam to the fi rst, highly successful handbook, came out in hardcover. His career, as usual, was rolling along, yet his marriage was becoming all the more troubled. In October, Piper complained to Welton that she was trying to control her spending and working on staying relaxed and focused. But he noted that the evidence was quite the opposite, that she was losing control: “[Piper] is using more Xanax . . . need to get a handle on this.” Two weeks later things were no better. Piper told DIE, MY LOVE / 65

him she had trouble sleeping, and that Fred had moved into the spare bedroom.

That fall, Loni would later say, the strain in the Jablin house hold was so pervasive she could “feel” it. Piper dyed her blond-highlighted hair dark brown, her natural color, and more than one neighbor thought the change refl ected her darkening mood. She looked ever thinner and more troubled.

In November, Jocelyn went into the hospital for minor surgery, performed by a Dr. Jim Gable. Later it seemed to Fred that the surgery marked a change in his marriage; from that point on Piper rebuffed his sexual advances.

Much of that fall, Piper continued to be missing from the house hold, ostensibly to paint. Fred was the one at the children’s soccer games and at the school bus stop in the morning. As the holidays approached, he must have been worried.

Piper already seemed fragile, and her most diffi cult time of year lay ahead. He made plans to drive the family to northern Virginia for Thanksgiving, to spend the holiday with his brother Michael and his family. At Christmas, Fred had reservations for the family to take the trip that had been postponed over the summer—a week at Disney World—but again Piper didn’t want to go.

At UR, Fred began talking about the trials in his marriage with Joanne Ciulla, the ethics professor who offi ced next to him. Thin, with long, graying brown hair and a business-like manner, Ciulla listened as Fred explained that Piper was making odd demands, including an apartment of her own, a place to go to where she could paint. That reason didn’t ring true for Ciulla, who noted that Piper had the entire house hold to herself while Fred was at UR and the three children were in school. “Sounds to me like she’s having an affair,” Ciulla said, off the cuff. Fred nodded but didn’t comment. Perhaps he wasn’t yet ready to consider the possibility.

As Thanksgiving approached, Piper refused to go to 66 / Kathryn Casey

northern Virginia, insisting she wanted them all to go to Texas, to spend the holiday with her family. With the credit card debt still to be paid off, Fred said they couldn’t afford both a trip to Texas and one to Orlando. Piper was furious, complaining to anyone who’d listen about how ordinary a Disney World vacation was, geared for the masses, not someone with her exceptional tastes. “A bunch of us would have loved a vacation like that, but Piper acted like she’d rather have all her teeth pulled than go with Fred and the kids to Disney World,” says a neighbor. That Thanksgiving, Piper went to Texas alone, and Fred took the children to visit his brother’s family.

After the holiday, Piper returned from Texas sad and home-sick. She missed her family and wanted to be with them. Days after returning, still suffering her malaise, Piper told Mel she’d made a decision. She was moving back to Texas.

“Your family is here, Fred and your children,” Mel told her.

“I’m going to take the children with me,” Piper replied. “I was so much happier in Texas with my family than I am here with Fred.”

“You can’t just take the children and leave,” Mel advised.

Not keeping her plans a secret, Piper, Fred would later say, also announced to the children that they were moving, without discussing it with him. Yet, he’d admit they rarely talked at this point in the marriage. Frightened, perhaps sensing that events were spinning out of control, he pushed Piper to go for another round of marriage counseling, but she refused.

Even the children, who Piper claimed to love more than anything or anyone in the world, didn’t appear to register with her that winter. The week after Thanksgiving, she didn’t show up at Chuck E. Cheese for Callie’s pizza and games birthday party. Instead Fred was there with all the little girls’ mothers. When they asked where Piper was, Fred appeared embarrassed and said his wife didn’t feel well.

DIE, MY LOVE / 67

One mother commented, “I’d have to be in the ICU to miss my kid’s birthday party.”

When Piper saw Dr. Welton that winter, she talked more of missing her family in Texas, saying their love had been

“gratifying,” and questioning again, as she had to Chris Daly years earlier, why she was with Fred. Although she’d been the one who was unfaithful, she mused that perhaps Fred was having an affair. Throughout the session, Piper was tearful and upset. “Invites some level of helplessness that is difficult to support,” Welton wrote on her chart, questioning Piper’s sincerity.

She must have been even more on edge than usual, because Fred would later say he called Tina that week and talked to her about the possibility that Piper was so unstable she could hurt herself. He addressed the uncomfortable possibility of having his wife committed to a psychiatric facility.

The following Friday, two days before they were to leave for Florida, Piper called Linda Purcell, a neighbor, and asked to borrow her car. Linda had been worried about Piper, who’d grown gaunt and haggard looking. In fact, Piper looked so thin and ill that some neighbors wondered if she had an eating disorder. But Linda had good memories of Piper, including how, years earlier, Piper had comforted her when their family dog had died. So when Piper asked to borrow her car, Linda agreed, assuming it was just to run a quick errand. When hours went by and Piper didn’t return, Linda finally called the car phone, and Piper answered.

“Where are you?” Linda asked.

“I don’t know,” Piper answered, sounding strangely calm.

Later that afternoon the phone rang in Mel’s house. Piper was at a doctor’s office and couldn’t drive. She needed a ride home. When Mel got there, Piper was nearly unconscious, barely able to walk. When Mel asked the nurse what was wrong with her, all the nurse would say was that they’d given Piper something to calm her.

68 / Kathryn Casey

At the Jablin house, Jocelyn and Paxton had just gotten home from school and were watching television when Mel and her husband, Pete, arrived with Piper. Mel was worried about the children’s reactions, seeing their mother in such a strange state, so she approached them calmly and tried not to alarm them. “Your mom is okay. The doctor just gave her some medicine that made her sleepy,” Mel explained. “Mr.

Foster’s going to help her upstairs.”

As Pete carried Piper into the house, Mel watched the Jablin children to gauge their reactions, thinking they’d be full of questions, and perhaps frightened at seeing their mother so heavily medicated. But instead Mel saw no reaction at all from the children, who quickly turned their eyes back to the television. “I had the impression they’d seen Piper like this before,” says Mel. “They weren’t surprised.”

That eve ning, Linda Purcell’s phone rang again. She’d heard about Piper’s doctor appointment and had enlisted a friend to drive her to the doctor’s office to recover her car.

Now Piper wanted another favor. “I need you to come to the house and tell me what you know about what happened to me today,” she said. “Please, I need your help.”

When Linda arrived at the Jablins’, Fred, who’d rushed home after Mel notified him of the afternoon’s events, looked uncomfortable. Piper, on the other hand, was manic, frenetically pacing the living room.

“Tell me what you know,” she ordered Linda. “Everything.”

As calmly as possible, Linda recounted what had happened, including Piper’s borrowing the car and the phone call when Piper said she didn’t know where she was.

With that, Piper became highly agitated. “Fred’s drugging me,” she shouted, not lowering her voice, although she was within his earshot. “He gave me something that knocked me out.”

Purcell looked up and saw Fred staring at Piper, fl ushed DIE, MY LOVE / 69

with embarrassment. Linda had always known Fred Jablin to be a calm, kind man, and she felt sorry for him, but she felt other eyes on them, and turned to realize they weren’t alone. In the doorway, eight-year-old Paxton stood staring at his mother. Feeling sure he’d seen Piper’s strange behavior and heard her bizarre accusations saddened Linda, who made an excuse and left.

From that point on Linda had an uneasiness about her neighbor and felt certain that whatever was behind the drama unfolding at 1515 Hearthglow wouldn’t end well. That night, Linda recounted the events at the Jablin house for her husband. When she finished, she confided: “I’m truly frightened of Piper. She’s slipping over the edge.”

Early the following morning, the phone rang at Melody Foster’s house.

“Where are Piper and Callie?” Fred asked. “Are they over there?”

“Fred, I haven’t seen Piper since we brought her home yesterday afternoon,” Mel said. “Aren’t they at home in bed?”

“No. They’re both gone,” he said, his voice edged with panic.

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Piper called me in the middle of the night,” says Tina.

“She said Fred was drugging her. She was afraid of him, and she wanted to come to Houston and bring Callie. I told her to come.”

While her family slept, Piper packed suitcases and called a limo service for a trip to the airport. By the time Fred called Melody that morning, Piper and Callie were board-ing a flight to Houston. Somehow, Fred found out where they’d gone. Perhaps it was easy for him to guess. Piper had certainly made no secret of her wish to move closer to her family. If he called and asked her to return home, Piper refused. Instead, that December, Fred took Jocelyn and Paxton to Disney World, while Piper and Callie spent two weeks in Houston with the oldest of the Rountree sisters, Tina.