Remember Me by Sharon Sala

To his dismay, the flow increased. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, as he lowered his voice.
    â€œLook, kid, don’t cry, okay? I ain’t got no daddy either. That’s why I’m here. That’s why we’re all here.”
    She absorbed his words. “Are you sad, too?” she finally asked.
    Pharaoh straightened abruptly. “Hell no,” he muttered, then flushed again as he realized he shouldn’t have cursed in front of the kid. “But that’s because I’m grown-up. When you grow up, you won’t cry, either.”
    Then, because he didn’t want someone to accuse him of making her cry, he took the end of her blanket and gave it a swipe across her cheeks.
    â€œHere,” he said, pinching the end of her nose with a piece of the blanket. “Blow.”
    Â 
    Pharaoh woke with a start, then glanced toward the clock. It was just after four in the morning, and he needed to pee. He considered ringing for the nurse, but shoved the thought aside. He was home. Surely he could manage that much on his own.
    With a groan, he sat up, gingerly inching his way to the side of the bed. Everything about him hurt, but the deepest pain of all was in his heart. There was an emptiness inside him that time couldn’t heal. Francesca was missing. They hadn’t found her body in the rubble of his home, so he wouldn’t let himself think that she’d died. But the hospitals were full of people who’d been injured, some still unidentified.
    Gritting his teeth against the bone-jarring pain, he stood, slowly making his way into the bathroom. A few minutes later, he came out, glanced at the bed and the jumble of sheets, and walked to the window instead.
    The security lights were bright against the darkness. In the circle of illumination, he could see movement beneath the shrubs. Probably an armadillo. He made a mental note to mention it to the gardener tomorrow. Then he amended the thought. It was already tomorrow.
    He laid the flat of his hand against the cold windowpane.
    â€œBe alive, Francesca…and be ready, because I’m coming for you.”

Six
    I t was just after two in the morning when Clay suddenly awoke. The house was dark, the bedroom silent, but his instincts told him something was wrong.
    Frankie!
    He bolted from bed, pulling on his jeans as he ran across the hall. The door to her room was open, her bed empty. Panic hit his heart first as he relived every horror from two years ago. He pivoted sharply, then started up the hall toward the front of the house. Almost immediately he saw flickering lights on the living-room wall and frowned. Had he left the television on?
    Then he saw her on the sofa, wrapped in her favorite blanket and crying quietly in the dark. The remote hung loosely from her fingers as she sat, mesmerized by the images on the screen.
    He took a deep breath, willing his panic to subside. All he could think was, thank God, thank God. Silently, he moved toward her, stopping behind where she sat, then leaning down to press his cheek against the back of her hair.
    â€œFrancesca, what are you doing awake?”
    She jumped and looked up, relaxing only after she saw it was Clay.
    â€œYou startled me,” she said, and then added, “I couldn’t sleep.”
    He cupped her cheek, wiping away tears with the ball of his thumb, then kissed the side of her face.
    â€œAre you all right?”
    For days, he’d been so cold—so distant. His unexpected sympathy was her undoing. Her words were a jumble of tears and disjointed sentences as she nodded, then pointed the remote at the screen.
    â€œMovie…so sad…loves her so much.”
    Clay glanced at the empty video box on the table, then hid a smile. It was one of his mother’s movies, and, as he remembered, pretty damned sad at that.
    â€œBut it ends good,” he offered.
    Slightly mollified by his remark, she sniffed. “It does?”
    He looked down at