a stolen life
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 tortur-
ing 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? If 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. To 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 suf-
fered 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
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