I wanted to
see her for
many different reasons,
the
biggest being closure. Telling her that what she and Phillip
did was not okay in any way. Sitting across from her in that
little white
room for the
first time in
over a year
felt very
familiar. I guess the
feeling came from knowing her longer
than I had
known my own mother. But I was nervous and
excited and overjoyed and thankful to see my mom for the
first time; seeing Nancy
did not feel
in any way like
that.
Seeing Nancy felt almost
like nothing. I think
that I felt
like
that because there was really nothing solid between us. Our
whole time together was a lie—a make-believe world that
her husband created
to satisfy his needs. Our relationship
was built on a house of cards. One good blow and you find
the pieces scatter
in the wind quite easily. Those
are my
feelings toward Nancy: there was
really nothing solid and
there is nothing for
me to hold on to now. At first when we
were separated at
the Concord
police station, I was
consumed with guilt
and my feelings
were unsure of
themselves. At the meeting she kept calling me Allissa and
I would say, “No, my name
is Jaycee,” and she looked at
me and said she was sorry and said it was hard for her to
remember, and
then she did it again and
I corrected her
again. I think in
total she called me Allissa three times and
in each instance I
would correct her. She said she knew in
her heart that something was going to happen at the parole
office that day. I
said that it was time, that we couldn’t have
continued like we were for much longer for the girls’ sake.
She asked if the girls ever think of or mention her, and at
first I didn’t know
what to say, I looked down and then back
up at her, and she said,
“They don’t, do they?” with these
really sad eyes. I
looked back down in my lap and told her
the truth. I didn’t
try to sugarcoat it. I said that it’s
not really
an issue right now, but if when
they get older and wish to
contact her, then that is their choice, but right now it
hasn’t
been an issue.
I said what
she and Phillip
did to me
confuses them and they really need her to come clean with
anything else she knows about Phillip. I
told her Phillip is
not the man he portrayed himself to be. He never was. He
used his con
game for his
first victim and
then again on
Katie Calloway, the
victim he was in prison for before he
kidnapped me. It’s always been about what’s best for him.
All those times he would say the angels protected him that
day that he took me
from the hill never once did he
even
think that I was the
one in need of protection that day. I
also
asked her what
was the thing
that Phillip would
say …
something about how
if I knew about
something he did, I
would never feel the same about him again … She looked
at me at first and said, What thing? I repeated my question
again and she
thought for a minute and then
looked up at
me and asked if I really
wanted to know what that was and I
said, Yes I do,
I want to know. And she said she had
caught
him once torturing an
animal, and I said was
it one of my
cats, and she
nodded her head
a few times
in the
affirmative and then said, “No, no it was a mouse I caught
him torturing,” and I
said, “A mouse?” She said, “Yes, it was
a mouse.” I didn’t
expect that answer. But
all I said was,
Doesn’t that make
you wonder what
else he did?
How
about all the
times we didn’t
know where he
was? I f he
could hurt a helpless animal, doesn’t that make you wonder
what else he
was capable of? And
she said yes,
it did
make her wonder. I ’d like to believe she felt badly for me
all
those years, but in a way it was always a selfish act on her
part. Yes, she didn’t want me to go
through all that, but to
turn a blind
eye to what
she knew he
was doing to an
eleven-year-old girl.
How could she
entertain little girls
in
the van and
videotape them doing
the splits and
other
things, all for
her husband? I
guess she just
convinced
herself that she was doing it for love. T o me that is not
love.
You do not follow someone blindly as they lead you over a
cliff. She said
that she was
scared when I
walked in
because she thought
that I would
hate her. I
told her
although I do not
hate her because I do not want to
pollute
my body with hate, what she and Phillip did to me and my
family was unforgivable. That my mom suffered more than
any person should have
to suffer and my sister and aunt,
too, and the
other members of my family.
She said she
hoped one day that my mom could forgive her, and I said I
wouldn’t hold out for that. She told me that call her crazy,
but
she still loves Phillip. I
told her she needed to stop thinking
of what’s best for Phillip because he is going to be in jail
for
the rest of his life and to start thinking about what was
best
for her, and if she wanted
to see her brothers again and
have a relationship
with her family
that Phillip tried
to
separate her
from. I told her
to take care of herself. And I
told her good-bye for the last time; I told her I
would not be
back. That although we didn’t get to say good-bye to each
other at the parole office, that this is good-bye forever.
And
then I stood up and
walked out.
Reflection
So much has
happened since that
meeting. For the
most part I’ve been able to focus on my daily life, but in
the
back of my mind I
know that I might eventually have
to face
Nancy
again. Walking away that day confirmed my right to
make my own decisions. The fate of Phillip and Nancy was
truly out of my hands. I
realized in that moment how much I
have grown when Nancy’s attorney
felt it necessary
to
challenge me to call
him. The El Dorado County Sheriff’s
Office supported me
to make my own decisions. I know I
owe the Garridos
nothing and can’t
understand why
Nancy’s
attorney felt it necessary to ask me to support the
very people who abducted me.
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