their extended family, and the people in their community, they discovered the darker details that neither Ordinem’s standard check nor the private investigator Will had hired had found.
They already knew Carol Ann’s mother, the woman who had called herself Ginnie but who was in reality Phyllis Driskel, raised Carol Ann on her own after her first husband, Abel Wilkins, died when Carol Ann was two in a single vehicle accident after he got behind the wheel while intoxicated.
They also knew Phyllis married her second husband, Donald Parkerson, when Carol Ann was five, and that after the marriage ended in divorce due to several infidelities by Donald, she married Stan Driskel when Carol Ann was nine.
What wasn’t public knowledge was that Stan started molesting Carol Ann the following year. She brought the abuse to her mother’s attention, but Phyllis hadn’t believed her. Instead, she started “disciplining” Carol Ann to get her to recant the abuse claims. It wasn’t until Phyllis walked into the room while the abuse was happening during Carol Ann’s fourteenth birthday party that she finally divorced Driskel. Even then, she refused to report the abuse, blaming Carol Ann and saying she was the reason Stan had been tempted to stray.
To try and earn her mother’s forgiveness, Carol Ann started having sex with the most convenient source of willing men: the fresh, young players at the local ballpark. Her mother, it seemed, had said the best way Carol Ann could be helpful after costing her the husband who supported her was by bringing in some income. At the tender age of fourteen, that meant selling drugs or her body. A friend told Carol Ann how much she could get for selling a baby in a private adoption. The rest was history.
As Ryan guessed, Carol Ann struggled more with giving a daughter up for adoption than she had the two boys she birthed. A part of her longed to raise a little girl and provide her with the love and support she hadn’t gotten from her own mother, she said.
Of course, that meant earning a steady income, something she couldn’t do unless she had childcare. Her only free source of childcare was her mother.
When Katie turned three, Carol Ann started to notice the signs.
The bruises.
The welts.
The sprains from rough grabs and falls after being knocked to the ground.
Carol Ann told Ordinem that was when her deepest depression began. She said she realized she hadn’t succeeded in raising a little girl with the love and support she envisioned. She had brought another child into her own personal hell.
Without telling her mother her plans, she saved what money she could to make the drive to Denver and left Katie on Will’s porch with what she hoped was the promise of a better life.
Or so she claimed.
Jasmine’s more skeptical side believed Carol Ann’s goal wasn’t nearly that maternal or altruistic. She thought she did it to get revenge against her mother.
Carol Ann’s actions had driven Phyllis to the brink of madness. Phyllis believed she had a second chance to raise the “perfect” child after failing to do so with Carol Ann. When Carol Ann took Katie from her, Phyllis stopped at nothing to find her.
She learned Katie was with Will nearly around the time Jasmine met Katie at Everly’s. It had required a lot of time and what little money she had, but she stalked Katie and Will long enough to figure out the best approach to get Katie back, leading to her downfall at Pirouette. She was now imprisoned after being convicted of attempting kidnapping, aggravated battery, trespassing, and vandalism.
It was a tragic story all around. While it gave Jasmine some empathy toward Carol Ann, it wasn’t enough to forgive her for approaching Will and asking for money to buy her off, making it clear money was more important to her than anything else. Whether or not she initially loved Katie and wanted to keep her, that sentiment had changed long ago.
They all knew Carol Ann was manipulative. Some of what she reported to Ordinem—maybe even most of it—was true, but it would be impossible to find out how much she fabricated just to garner more attention and sympathy since there wasn’t a shred of proof either way.
In any case, she was now prohibited by law from ever getting near Katie again.
Thank God Katie was proving so resilient after that horrible day. Jasmine felt dance had a lot to do with that. Katie was an exceptional student who excelled at expressing herself