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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 alwaysthere 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
The Little Mermaid.
I wonder if she thinks of me. Will I ever see her again? Will anything ever be the way it’s supposed to be?
Reflection
     
    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.

     
    Speaking of birthdays, this was me on my first birthday.
     
    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 wewould all sit on the pullout bed and eat a smorgasbord of fast food and watch movies. The ones I remember watching were scary like
Nightmare on Elm Street.
I also remember watching
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
I loved the old
Star Trek
series that was usually on late at night, too. Eventually I started watching
Star Trek: The Next Generation.
What I liked about
Star Trek
was that even though there was still crime in the universe, it didn’t exist on earth. I liked that the earth had been cleaned up. I especially liked that future because I felt I didn’t have one.
    Nancy gave me a book on trees and I copied it word for word into a book I made. Nancy would always bring me something new when she came to check on me, like a new book or new crayons. This made me think she was really starting to like me. I thought she was so nice to take the time to come and see me even though she said it was hard for her. I had my own standing toilet with a built-in bucket. Phillip would empty it outside somewhere in the yard, he said. This took me a little bit to get used to. I had never used anything but a regular toilet that flushed. I thought it was gross that he was putting that kind of waste in the yard but grew used to it over time. With time, I grew used to all kinds of things. Sometimes my bucket would get so full that I would have to hold it in when I had to go. I remember one time I had to go so badly that I did it in the garbage can. Toilet paper was scarce, too. I would reuse some of the ones that just had dried pee; I know that sounds gross, but what do you use when you have to go and don’t have anything? No running water, no way to go get what you need? I used what I had. I survived. There was this daddy longlegs spider up in the corner of the ceiling next to the toilet. I named her Bianca and I would talk to her(maybe I watched
Charlotte’s Web
a few too many times). I was eleven or twelve at the time and had a very active imagination.
    Sometimes I feel bad for not missing Nancy. But for the most part it is a relief for me to not have to endure her moods and the jealousy she harbored. She did have several opportunities to let me go, and I might never know why she chose not to.

Easter: Phillip on an Island

     
    N ancy comes to bring me dinner. She says it’s a special Easter dinner. Its 1993. I am thirteen years old. I do not feel thirteen. I still feel eleven. I