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annoyed him. I loved sitting on his lap and reading aloud to him on Sunday afternoons. I knew that Papa was a scientist and the smartest man in the world. I hung on his every word, knowing it was gospel. Papa eased the confusing world I tried to share with Mama, making it clear and black and white. I never had any doubts about what I should do, think, or say when I was near him. He made me confident by boasting of my accomplishments, my creativity. I had meaning in my life when I pleased my papa. Looking back now, I can see that learning to please in this way became a dangerous liability when I met Jim Jones. On the other hand, it was because of my father’s unwavering belief in his little Bugsy that I would, at a critical moment, find the strength to flee Jim Jones and escape to safety.

    In 1957, Papa accepted a position in Albany, California, where he commenced research on allergies. In our spacious home in the Berkeley hills, my older siblings huddled around me, lavishing me with eager attention, coddling and protecting me from myself. Inreturn, I idolized, adored, and entertained them, reveled and blossomed in their attention, and became accustomed to unconditional love. There was so much noisy commotion around me that my parents often didn’t get a glimpse of me all day.
    Papa encouraged my love of drama and ballet. At age five, I was performing my own interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake at dinner parties in our mansion at 670 San Luis Road. There were always adoring whispers as my swan pirouetted across the hardwood floor, my tutu’s ruffles gently rising and falling with each graceful landing. Afterward, Mama would hug and kiss her ballerina and we’d head upstairs, hand-in-hand, for my good-night story.
    Still, I was aware that I was not a part of the intimacy that Mama shared with my older siblings. One incident, when I was six years old, brought home the realization that I was excluded from my mother’s world. My sixteen-year-old brother, Tommy, and Mama were sitting together on the front porch. They were talking, but I saw a thin trail of smoke rising over my mother’s shoulder. I knew that couldn’t be, as Papa had forbidden anyone from smoking—it was trashy and only uneducated people did it. I also knew that what I had seen was a secret, which I faithfully kept to protect Mama.
    I longed to join Mama and Tom in their secret time together and would later wonder why Annalisa and Mama always talked behind closed doors. What could my fourteen-year-old sister be talking about with her? What on earth could be so private? By the time it was my turn to sneak behind the door with Mama, she seemed exhausted. She never shared with me the secrets of growing up. She never even told me the scary facts of how my body would change.
    In 1960, however, my dreamworld still glistened with sibling adoration. I continued to garner applause for my tomboy feats such as the double flips on my parents’ bed and the twenty-five stitches on my head I got from crashing into the corner of their headboard. My favorite time was evening. Papa would discuss his research, then ask us about our days. Most often the discussion would center around the book Mama was reading and planned to discuss at her regular afternoon tea, hosted at our home. My live-in baby-sitters, Tom, seventeen; Annalisa, fifteen; and Larry, fourteen, still chased me around the house in the evening. When we played “Evil Tooth Decay,” Tom and Larry would hunt for me behind couches, in closets, and under beds until I was found. I screeched with delight as they looked for me, then chased after me as I fled. Finally, I had to brush my teeth while Tommy, “Mr. Evil Tooth Decay,” growled and triedto prevent me from brushing and Larry, Bucky Beaver, protected me.
    When Annalisa had her high school sorority’s monthly evening meetings at our house, I was their mascot. I would proudly sit on the table, ring the bell for the meetings to come to order, and play