seems to know everything. This room has windows, too, but they have iron bars on them just like the door. He keeps the towels on them. At first when he let me stay in this room he would handcuff me to the pullout bed. It was really uncomfortable, but at least I got to watch the color TV. Now it’s been a few months and he doesn’t handcuff me anymore. I can get up and walk around. I looked out the windows but can’t really see much out of them. I can see the studio, as Phillip calls it, from the outside. It looks like a barn to me. It’s brown wood with many panels. Lots of wires going to and from it. I like this room better. There is more room and it doesn’t feel as small as the other room.
Phillip is at the door. When he comes in, he says he has someone that wants to meet me. Behind him stands a short woman with long dark hair. Phillip introduces her as Nancy, his wife. Phillip wants us to be good friends. He tells me Nancy will bring me dinner for now. They don’t stay long. Phillip comes in a little while later and tells me that Nancy is just a little jealous of me but that she will come around to liking me in time if I am good and make an effort to encourage her to like me. I can’t believe he has a wife and that she helped him take me. I am young and still believed in love and that in a marriage you are faithful to each other. This is another new lesson. I figure she must be jealous because he is using me for sex instead of her. While Phillip was talking to me about Nancy, he says she doesn’t really like sex and that I am helping her out, too. I really hate it and wish I didn’t have to. I don’t understand why I have to help her.
The first time I was introduced to Nancy, I was glad for the company. Except at first she didn’t stay long. She started to bring me my meals. And Phillip would tell me that he was encouraging her to talk to me and be my friend but that she was jealous of me.
They got me a Nintendo, which is fun. I’m not as alone as I used to be. Nancy and Phillip sleep in the pullout couch. I have a pallet on the floor. Nancy came in the other day and said she had been looking for a special bear for me and she said she finally found the perfect one. She hands me a soft, squishy purple bear. I told her I loved him and I would try to think of a name for him. I think I will name him Nurple Bear. I hug him close every night. I think Nancy is starting to like me more. I’m not really sure how I feel about her. She sometimes spends time with me and tells me about her job. She works with old people at a convalescent home. She has a favorite client. He’s an old Italian man named Mr. Giovetti. She likes when she gets to take care of him. She tells me that the family really appreciates the care she gives him. I hope she comes to bring me dinner soon.
Sometimes when Phillip stays up for days and days and goes on a “run,” he talks about bringing Nancy in to “party with us.” I do not like the sound of that at all. How could I look at her the same way if I had to have sex with her, too? That would be disgusting. I hope she feels the same way. Phillip says he’s been trying to convince her. I really pray that she doesn’t agree. Phillip also wants to watch his dog, Cesar, have sex with me. He says a dog’s penis is not as long as his and it wouldn’t hurt me as bad. I hope he is just talking and doesn’t mean he will actually bring his dog in. It’s one of the Dobermans that he said patrolled the backyard. He said the male, Cesar, is not very aggressive; it is the female, Hera, that was mean. He has thoughts and ideas that I have never thought of before. Why would anyone have sex with a dog? How did Phillip get such crazy ideas? I don’t want to be here. I want to go home to my mom.
There is a mini-fridge in here and they have put cartons of chocolate milk and regular milk. Phillip says his mother works as a janitor at a school and she brings them home for him. There is also cereal for me to eat in the morning. Phillip loves cereal. I often hear him get up in the middle of the night having a bowl. It’s very annoying, because I don’t like being woken up in the middle of the night and he constantly hits the bowl with his spoon and makes a loud dinging, scraping sound. Sleep is the only escape I have. When I don’t dare think, I dare to dream.
The days are so boring. I wonder what Phillip does all day. I like to make things; with the empty cartons of milk I have figured out how to make a Barbie couch and chairs. I cut the sides and then tape them into a shape I like, add cotton balls for cushion, and then glue fabric on the outside and voila! Instant Barbie furniture. Nancy brings me things that I ask for when she can. She brings me
I miss my mom. My mom used to make me Barbie clothes. She had just made me some new outfits right before I went away. I wonder what she is doing right now. Does she miss me as much as I miss her? I try really hard not to think of things that make me sad. I do like to replay memories of home in my head. I don’t want to forget. I’m afraid I won’t remember what my mom looks like. I don’t want to picture her in my head and yet at the same time I do. I miss the times when it used to be just me and her and she would scratch my back or make me macaroni and cheese. I miss her singing “You Are My Sunshine” to me and making me little things like Barbie clothes and kissing me good night.
I don’t want to forget times with my aunt Tina, too. Like the time my aunt Tina picked me up from school and took me to see the floats from the Rose parade. That is the last time I saw her before we moved to Tahoe. I posed for a picture for her that day. I probably looked so goofy with my tongue out as she snapped the picture. I miss her so much right now. She was always there when I was little. She taught me how to make my first twist ponytail in my Barbies’ hair. When she moved out from my grandma and grandpa’s house where we lived together, she would still come and take me to her new place for a sleepover. Our favorite movie to watch together is
It wasn’t until I wrote the last paragraph on birthdays that I realized how little I remembered my own birthdays during my years of captivity. I think I told them about my birthday and that’s why Nancy gave me the birthday Barbie, but other than that I don’t remember anything about that day. The birthdays I do remember were the ones marked with the ironic gift of a new tent. During those early years there was no cake, no friends, and no memories to remember.
After the first year, things changed and we all started to spend more time together. Phillip eventually rented movies and bought fast food, he would pick up Nancy from work, and we would all sit on the pullout bed and eat a smorgasbord of fast food and watch movies. The ones I remember watching were scary like