I had no idea there were so many fantasy theme parks in Orlando. Then yesterday while watching In Session’s coverage of the Casey Anthony trial, I discovered the World of George and Cindy Anthony.

Yesterday In Session reporter Beth Karas expressed an opinion that even if little Caylee Anthony drowned in the backyard pool at the Anthony home, Casey Anthony was still guilty of a crime, criminal negligence, for failing to prevent the accident. Karas suggested that Casey may have understood this and that is why she consequently attempted to cover up.

That Casey Anthony did attempt to cover up her daughter’s death seems clear even at this early point in the prosecution’s case. But I’m not convinced that fear of being charged with negligence was the reason she did so—and, after hearing some of Cindy Anthony’s testimony yesterday, I think that if Caylee drowned the criminal negligence had to be on Cindy and George’s part, because it was their pool—the whole fantasy world was theirs.

Casey and Caylee were merely playing roles as wards of the Anthony’s. (“Wards” is the closest I can come to describing the status of Casey and Caylee. I thought about “prisoners,” but that’s too harsh. Maybe “pets” is a better term.)

Sidebar: Beth Karas is a lawyer, so her opinion regarding Casey’s criminal negligence is probably the correct interpretation of the law in Florida. But I am not a lawyer, just a former juror who is wondering what the ordinary people on the Anthony jury think about the George and Cindy household.

Yesterday I heard some of Cindy Anthony’s weekend testimony as well as a snippet or two of Tuesday’s. Here is what I heard (or I may have misheard):

• Cindy, Casey, and Caylee were in the habit of sleeping in the same bed whenever Casey was at home. (This implies, of course, that 1) Cindy was not in the habit of sleeping with George when Casey was at home (???); 2) Casey wasn’t always at home at night even before mid-2008 (as we have heard at length from other witnesses).
• Previously, we heard that Casey was living at home, as was her brother Lee, when she got pregnant. For over six months, her nurse mother did not realize her daughter was pregnant. That means Casey had no prenatal care until her seventh month at the earliest. Surely her obstetrician asked them why. I wonder what they said.
• Casey was then working at Universal Studios theme park for a company that took photos of visitors; at some point she must have had to take maternity leave or, if that option wasn’t available from her employers, she must have quit her job. By then her mother must have realized that Casey was at home all day instead of at work and no longer earning money.
• When Casey gave birth to Caylee both her mother and father were present in the delivery room. An unmarried mother would naturally want her nurse mother there with her—but her “embarrassed” father? Didn’t Cindy find it odd that George wanted to be there, or was it her idea, and if so why? Was George present in the delivery room for the births of his two children? A long-standing family tradition?
• And at some point following Caylee’s birth Casey must have tried to get her old job back and failed. She was apparently able, though, to deceive everyone—which suggests to me that she was getting some money from somewhere. Where? Her mother’s bank account, as she told the 911 operator (namely, that she wanted her daughter arrested for stealing money from her account)? If so, it seems to have taken Cindy over two years to figure this out.
• At some point (after Caylee no longer slept in a crib?) either Cindy asked to sleep with Caylee and Casey or Casey asked her to sleep with them. The only time I have heard of toddlers sleeping with parents or grandparents (since log-cabin days) was when they were scared by nightmares or thunderstorms—but I am not a lawyer, so my experience may be limited to more normal family situations. (I wonder why Cindy no longer sleeps with her husband?)
• At some point, George and Cindy “bought” Casey a white Pontiac. They referred to this as “Casey’s car” but kept it titled in their names—nice gift. Later Cindy would call the police to tell them Casey had stolen the car from her.
• I didn’t hear what it was that finally convinced Cindy that Caylee had “disappeared.” But she finally was so lonely at night in bed by herself that she retrieved the child’s teddy bear from her bed and slept clutching it.

If all this isn’t evidence that George and Cindy lived in a fantasy world, I don’t know what would be.

I’m not a lawyer, I’m a storyteller. When I hear testimony like George and Cindy Anthony’s I can’t help but try to weave a coherent narrative out of it all. But I’m finding it very difficult to see anything but a mare’s nest in their testimony.

For instance, the living arrangements even before 2008 seem peculiar. At some point, Cindy and Lee “bought” a playhouse for Caylee, with a little mailbox and everything. I didn’t hear whether this meant Lee actually coughed up some of the cash or whether he simply went shopping with Cindy. But it does suggest to me that Lee was living at home under similar circumstances to Casey. These days it’s quite common for adult children to live at home, but when they are employed I would expect them to be free to come and go as they please (unlike Casey) and also to contribute something to their own upkeep. If Lee was a contributor, wouldn’t the parents have expected Casey also to be—at least as far as Caylee’s care was concerned? George said as much, but Casey wasn’t employed. If she embezzled (right word?) funds from Cindy, why didn’t Cindy notice that her bank account was shrinking rather than increasing form Casey’s contributions? What gives?

In May of 2008 before Caylee’s “disappearance” from George and Cindy’s world, Casey left home with Caylee, apparently taking only the clothes on her back or possibly a backpack for her and another backpack for Caylee. (I wonder why she didn’t take “Teddy.”)

Mother and daughter began to sleep with boyfriends, former boyfriends, and friends of Casey (more threesomes). I wonder why Casey left home with Caylee at the beginning of May.

I surmise that from time to time after that Casey returned home for fresh clothes in the afternoons when she expected both parents to be at work, which implies she was trying to avoid Cindy as well as George. (On June 24, George by his own account was unexpectedly home after 2:00 when Casey returned and was cagey about the trunk of her car and about some “stolen” gas cans.)

Friends testified that during May and early June “before Caylee disappeared” Casey frequently complained to them about Cindy’s harassing phone calls. Apparently Cindy was demanding that her 22 year old daughter bring her granddaughter back to her house. I'm not a lawyer, but I thought 18 was the age of majority and that a mother, not grandmother, had a right to custody of her own child.

Since George testified he last saw Caylee on the morning of June 16, that means that Caylee and Casey spent the night at Anthony World, which had in its back yard a playhouse and an above-ground pool, in which Casey gave Caylee swimming lessons. If Casey and Caylee spent the night there, surely they must have played in the back yard on the 15th. Wouldn’t the parents—at least Cindy—have been present that evening after work and participated in the backyard play with the grandchild she doted on?

And, finally, since everything in the Anthony world belonged to George and Cindy—including, it seems to me, Caylee—why wouldn’t it legally be their negligence that caused the ladder to the pool to be left up all night and that consequently caused Caylee’s death? (I wish I could ask Beth Karas whether all parents whose children drown in backyard pools are charged with criminal negligence. Frankly, if the Anthony’s were legally responsible and I were a prosecutor, I wouldn’t charge anyone with a crime. It is a terrible tragedy.)

OK, not finally. Something else strikes me, too. Of the dozen or more witnesses in the trial so far, only two prosecution witnesses openly blame Casey for Caylee’s death—Casey’s mother and father.