North of Somewhere [1]

My mother is somewhere, somewhere that isn't here. Somewhere has never been here, and I have always been here. Papa says that when he was younger, he prayed for a daughter. He told me that one day the angels decided to fulfill his prayers. Papa says an angle brought me here, that she gave me to him out of the goodness of her heart. He told me how she didn't really want to let me go, how she asked for five more minutes in return for a lifetime. That was the day I was born. I was in her arms for all of five minutes before she was gone. I used to ask where she was and why she never came back for me. Papa always had a hard time answering that. The truth is, he never really knew. After a while I stopped asking about her, because after a while I just stopped caring.

Here, to get specific, is a little house surrounded by big trees up in North Conway. This is where my mother left me the day I was born, and this is where I stayed. I have never wanted to be anywhere else nor have I ever really been anywhere else. I am content where I am, doing what I do. I go to school, to dance class, and home. I would go out, if I had friends to go out with. Sometimes papa takes me shopping, but not too often. He works while I'm at school and dance. He picks me up on his way home and we talk. I don't really know how much normal girls share with their fathers, but I do know that we share more. When all you've got is each other, you don't really leave much out.

Every day after I do my homework, papa sits down and plays the most beautiful piano pieces anyone has ever heard. He doesn't need sheet music or any direction, my papa plays from his heart. Sometimes he watches me dance for him, other times he gets so absorbed in the music that everything else just doesn't seem to exist to him anymore. When that happens, it's my turn to watch him. I want to be able to do that, have something capture my soul so completely that I don't even notice that the world is spinning. Once when I was four I got upset because papa wasn't watching me dance. When I asked him why, he told me I inspired him.

My name is Musetta Hope. It means little muse in french, which is papa's first language. He tells me that I inspire hope, so therefore there was no better name for me.

Papa has always loved me, always given me everything I need and most of what I want. Things weren't always good like they are now though. When I was six, all I wanted was a barbie doll. Not just any barbie, a Disney princess barbie. That was also the year that papa had trouble finding work. When my birthday came around, there was no barbie. Papa tried though, he made me something else. He had taken one of my old dresses and turned it into a stuffed bunny rabbit. It wasn't really well made, and it only barely resembled a bunny, but I think that bunny was better than every single barbie in the world.

The truth is, he tries his best, but sometimes it isn't enough. There was a time when we wouldn't always have dinner. That was the year he planted a garden. We grow pumpkins, potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots. That helped a lot, but when winter came it took all the vegetables with it. Papa knew we had to eat, so he turned the heat off. We had to wear all our sweaters and blankets, but it was worh it. He ended up cutting down one of the big trees in the woods. We would sit next to the fire every night and he would read to me. Most nights, I fell asleep in his lap.

I was never unhappy, never mad at him for having us live like that. I never knew that things were supposed to be different. Sometimes I do wish it was more than just the two of us. Every girl needs a woman in her life, to teach her how to be a lady. I say that I don't care what happened to my mother, and I really don't, but sometimes, I wish I knew where somewhere was.