A Place To Belong
By: Rebekah Parham

-1-

"You wanted to see me Daddy?" Samantha asked from the doorway of her father's study.

His daughter's voice drew his attention from the stack of papers that were before him. "Yes, come in Samantha. We need to talk."

Samantha could tell by the tone of her father's voice that whatever he was about to say wasn't going to be very good. In fact her father rarely wanted to see her unless she had done something wrong. "I have decided that I need some time away for a while. I have recently invested a large sum of money in a European corporation, so I will be leaving for Europe Monday morning."

Samantha had gotten use to being left with servants. Ever since her mother died three years ago, her father had rarely been home, and when he was, he wanted nothing to do with her. "I hope that you will have a productive trip father," Samantha said.

"Your Uncle Artie has been kind enough to say that you could come a stay with him while I will be away," her father said in an even tone.

"School will be starting soon and...."

"Yes, we have already thought about that. There is a small private school in Buffalo, Immaculate Conception School for Girls. Usually families have to register their children at birth, but I made a large donation to the school and they have agreed to let you start this fall."

"You mean you are going to send me away to New York?" Samantha asked.

Her father was beginning to become impatient as he did often when people didn't immediately do things his way. "There is no reason why you shouldn't go. I think time away from Seattle will do you some good also. We don't have time to discuss it anymore, your flight leaves tomorrow morning so you best hurry and pack."

At 7:00 the next morning, Samantha sat on a plane to New York. She had only been to New York one time and that was with her mother four years ago. She had had so much fun shopping and visiting the tourist sites. Samantha missed her mother so much. She was the only one that ever made Samantha feel like she was loved. Of course Mary, her nanny, had tried to fill the void in her life when her mother died but she couldn't.

It had been nearly a year since Samantha had seen Uncle Artie She had always liked him. He was her mothers brother and her favorite uncle. He was everything she wished her father would have been like. He always talked to her and listened to what she had to say in return, but most of all he just spent time with her. Even if they weren't talking he would just sit a watch television with her. Her father never had time to do anything with her. He was always too busy with work. So she was moving to a completely different city, where she didn't know anyone. At least he hadn't sent her off to another boarding school. She had always been taught to make the best of her situation. Her father had never allowed her to cryor show any emotions. Even at her mother's funeral she was told to cry only in the privacy of her own room. Her father said crying showed weakness.

Samantha was the last person off the plane when it landed. She spotted Artie immediately and walked over to him. He wrapped her in a hug and said, "For a minute I didn't think you were going to get off the plane."

"I'm sorry. First class may have the better seats but they are the last to leave the plane." Samantha said as they went to the baggage claim. Mary had told her that Buffalo was cold in the winter so she had packed all of her winter clothes along with most of her summer clothes. She didn't know how long she would be here. After they had retrieved all of her two dozen bags and loaded them in Artie's Blazer they got in and started for Artie's place.

"I am so glad that you are going to be staying with me" Artie said as he pulled out of the parking garage. "I get rather lonely living by myself all the time."

"I can understand being lonely," Samantha whispered as she looked out the window. It was only August but already you could feel a nip in the air.

Artie lived in an old, renovated building that had been turned into apartments. His apartment was very nice. It had a small kitchen, a living room and bathroom downstairs. Upstairs it had two bedrooms and another bathroom. The room which Artie had said was going to be hers was done in hunter green. Beside the bed was a picture of her mother. "If it bothers you we can put it away," Artie said as he saw Samantha staring at the picture.

"No, it's just that I have that same picture beside my bed at home," Samantha answered. She turned around and saw that Artie was still holding all of her bags. "Oh my goodness Uncle Artie put those down, your going to kill yourself."

Artie dropped all the bags. "I hope there wasn't anything breakable in those," he said.

"Nope, it was just all clothes."

"Are you hungry? We could go get something to eat or I could fix us something if you don't want to go back out."

"Staying in sounds good to me. Do you need any help cooking?" Samantha asked.

"No, I can manage. Why don't you start unpacking and I will call you when it's ready." Samantha nodded and Artie went down to see what he could find in his kitchen.

Samantha turned her attention to all the bags laying in her floor. She grabbed the closet one and started pulling things out and placing them in the dresser. She knew that in a week she would have to start school. In all the boarding schools and private schools she had attended one thing had never changes, the uniforms. She always had to wear a black skirt with a white oxford shirt.

She was half way through unpacking when Artie called her to dinner. "I hope you like pasta," Artie said as she came into the kitchen.

"I love it," Samantha said as she sat down at the table. "Are you still working in the music business?"

"Yeah, I have rearranged my schedule so that I won't have to work until you start school."

"You didn't have to do that. I would have been fine here by myself."

"Samantha, I didn't mind, beside I am looking forward to spending this next week with you," Artie told her. "What about you, did you leave any broken hearted boys in Seattle?"

"No, when you go to an all girls school you really don't get a chance to meet very many boys," Samantha said.

"You didn't go out with your friends?" Artie questioned.

"Not really. Only to events that were chaperoned. Daddy was very big on me being a proper little girl."

"Well, your not so little anymore, don't you have your seventeenth birthday coming up?"

Samantha smiled that he had remembered, "Yes, I do."

"I'm sure it won't be long before you are breaking hearts. You look so much like your mother. She had that same long brown hair and emerald eyes. They would always dance when she laughed."

"I remember," Samantha said picturing her mother.

After dinner they did the dishes. It was the first time in over four years that Samantha had been allowed to help clean up the kitchen. She loved it, it made her feel useful somehow. The rest of the night Samantha and Artie spent getting settled in.

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