A Stolen Life (10 page)

At one time I had a small tent in the room next door to the studio. They got it for me for my birthday. (I know, ironic gift, right?) I had my own sleeping bag, a shelf which I used for a desk and bookshelf. I had my own TV in there, too. When Phillip would come in for sex, I would have to leave my little sanctuary. Phillip was a lot longer than the tent, so it didn’t work for him to come in and make me have sex. He would lay a blanket on the floor “next door” and make me lay there and said he would be quick if I didn’t struggle. I remember laying there with unshed tears in my eyes and looking at my little tent and longing to crawl back in. They got me another cat, which I named Eclipse. I think I had her for about a month until Phillip took her away, too. I don’t remember why. I do remember I wrote a journal about her. I would chronicle all the things she did during the day. It’s one of the few things I eventually received back after the police removed evidence from the property. The front looks like this:

As you can see, although I’ve always loved writing I’m not the best speller, as this cover shows. When I got this journal back from the police and read it, I noticed I had torn the corners of the title page. It brought back the memory and how guilty I felt for writing my name in the first place. In the torn-off corner I had written: “this is written by Jaycee Dugard” on the first page of that journal. I wrote Eclipse’s Journal in 1993, but already Phillip’s control over my life was almost absolute. I remember, I was so proud that I had written this for my kitty and wanted to share it with someone, I showed it to Phillip and he saw that I had put my name in it. He preached to me for I think an hour about how I really didn’t want to write my name, and how dangerous that could be if anyone else ever read it. I thought to myself, I never see anyone, though, but I didn’t interrupt because it always ended with why he was right and I was wrong. So I tore out the corners with my name and never wrote my real name on anything again until 2009.