Excerpt from Remember Me by Trezza Azzopardi, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Come away now, he said.

My mother gave a slow blink. She didn’t talk much, but she didn’t need to; her blinking said it all. It said she wasn’t going to get up and let him in, and I really shouldn’t ask questions at a time like this, or stand near the window like that, for everyone in the yard to see our business.

Why did he call me Lillian? I asked. No one spoke. I asked again.

My mother’s eyes were shut now. My father took a breath, I’ll tell you in a bit. Go and put the kettle on for your mam.

I did as I was told. But I knew if I looked out of the window I would see the man again, standing still and waiting like a dog.


Soon after that, the photograph of my grandfather disappeared entirely, and the frame was put on the sideboard with the glass cracked and nothing behind it but white. And then one morning, the frame was gone too. It was the time of the ghosts. It was the time, my father decided, that I should learn history.

Copyright © 2004 by Trezza Azzopardi. Reprinted with permission from Grove Atlantic, Inc. All rights reserved.