Clementine:
"Clementine, wake up."
I heard a soft whisper and opened my eyes, rubbing them hard to clear the sleep away.
My focus settled on something dangling in front of me, a red, glittering cherry pendant hanging from the neck of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
My mother.
"Mother?" I sat up in bed, staring at her face.
"I brought you this," my mother said softly, smiling weakly as she held out half a cupcake.
It didn't matter that it was only half. What mattered was that she remembered my birthday.
"You remembered it?" I asked in a small voice.
"Of course. You're my little angel. Of course I did," she replied, making me take a bite of the cupcake.
Earlier that day, I had asked my father about my birthday, and he got upset.
He punished me by sending me to sleep in the basement.
My mother argued, cried, and tried to stop him, but he dragged me there anyway.
Now she was here. She had found a way to be with me again.
