A Stolen Life by Jaycee Dugard Page A

right he will be bringing me home soon. I get up and he puts the blanket over me. I am really getting scared. What if something happens to him? What would I do? I feel like I can’t catch my breath. I must breathe in and out slowly and tell myself everything will be fine. He leads me out to the van, and I climb in the back and before I can ask where he wants me to sit, he says for me to crawl under the backseat and he was going to put some boxes in front of the seat. Oh my God, that’s ridiculous, I think to myself! Can’t I just sit over in the corner? He says that would be dangerous. Dangerous to whom? But I don’t argue; I just crawl under the seat. It’s kind of hard because my belly is dragging on the floor making it very difficult. I’m afraid I might hurt the baby. I wiggle around and try to find a comfortable position. I finally settle on half on my side and forward a little ’cause the seat is kind of low. Not much wiggle room. I am so uncomfortable! I want to be in my own bed! I hear the van start and back out of the driveway. I wonder where we are heading. Phillip thinks people can hear him when he talks, so he told me earlier that whenever he addressed me it would sound like he was talking to Nancy. He doesn’t want anyone to think there was another person in the van.
    The driving seems endless. How long have we been driving? What time is it? When we left it was just getting dark, but now it’s completely dark especially under the seat. I must have fallen asleep, for when I wake the van has stopped. He helps me to get out. He has to pull me out a bit because I am so stiff from being in the same position for so long. What a relief it is to be out from under the seat. It’s still dark out. We are standing in front of a house trailer. I keep my head down as we go in. The steps arereally steep. There is a couch in the living room he says I can sit there. I sit and he and Nancy check out the rest of the place. He comes back and asks if I need anything. I ask where we are. And he says this trailer used to belong to a friend named Virginia. She died and left it to him. I say I really need to use the bathroom. My bladder can’t hold much since I’ve been pregnant. I follow him to an actual bathroom! What joy! I haven’t used an actually flushing toilet in so long! And a sink with running water to wash my hands! I come out and he says I should go back to the couch. I want to explore! Explore an actual house—it’s been so long! I can see a kitchen and there are bedrooms in the back. But I go sit on the couch. I ask for some water and Nancy gets it for me. Phillip says that we are going to stay the night here because the house isn’t safe. I wonder what’s going on in the house. Are there people in the back going through my stuff? I wonder what’s going on. Phillip locks the front door and says I can sleep on the couch and he and Nancy will be in the back bedroom. It takes a while to fall asleep with all the questions in my head, but I must eventually because when I wake it is morning and Phillip and Nancy are talking in the kitchen. They must have been waiting for me to get up. When I do, they say they are going to leave me here for a few hours so that they can check out the house and get some food for me. He says I can get up to go to the bathroom, but it would be much better for me to just stay on the couch and sleep. He told me that everything would be okay and for me not to be scared because he would come back. I was so scared he wouldn’t return for me and just leave me here forever by myself. What would I do all by myself and pregnant? I start to cry. I tell him I don’t want to stay alone, that I am scared something wouldhappen. He continued to say he had to go make sure the house was okay and he and Nancy would be back with something good to eat. So he and Nancy left and I heard the click of the lock. I tried to fall asleep but sleep would not come. I finally got up to go to the bathroom. I