Will You Remember Me? Read Online Free

wobbly circle and held hands.
    ‘Okay, Cricket family.’ Martin spoke in a whisper as his breath blew smoke into the chilly December air. ‘How many bounces? I vote four.’ He smiled at his wife.
    ‘Four?’ Peg screamed. ‘No way! Ten! And Maxy wants ten, I can tell.’
    Max clapped and shouted ‘Duck!’, his word of the moment.
    ‘Okay.’ Martin looked at each member of his family. ‘So that’s a four from me, a ten from Peg and a duck from Maxy. Mummy, you have the deciding vote.’
    Poppy gasped and placed her hand on her chest. ‘Oh, gosh, that’s a huge responsibility. Well, let’s have a think…’
    ‘Ten, ten, ten!’ Peg chanted, causing waves as she jiggled that threatened to topple them all.
    ‘I vote… ten!’ Poppy shouted.
    Peg screamed and commenced her bouncing, which caught Poppy off guard and sent her sprawling; she squealed as Martin lay down next to her, holding Max’s mitten-covered hands while he bounced in the small space not filled by his parents. Peg finished her bounces and jumped on top of her mum, landing with a thump. Max copied his sister and pretty soon all four were in a heap on the trampoline, laughing, fighting for breath and staring at the clear winter sky.
    Their breathing slowed and the noise hushed. Martin slid his palm across the thick woven base and gripped his wife’s hand.
    ‘There is nowhere on earth that I would rather be than right here, right now.’
    Poppy raised his hand to her mouth and kissed his fingers. ‘Me too.’
    ‘It’s going to be the best year, Poppy. I just know it.’
    She smiled into the darkness. ‘Yes it is, my love. The best.’

Two
    Martin turned his attention from the pan on the stove to his wife. ‘Well here she is, my beautiful hot bird.’
    Poppy held the folded newspaper up to her face.
    Joan May Williams, aged 84. Wife, mother, grandma and great-grandma. Died peacefully after a brief illness. Donations to any Alzheimer’s charity in lieu of flowers.
    She looked up from the paper and over her shoulder at her husband, who was wearing her ‘I kiss better than I cook’ apron as he flipped fried eggs that popped and sizzled in the pan. She pointed at her chest. ‘Do you mean me? Or have Tesco delivered one of them rotisserie chickens you like?’
    ‘Yes, I mean you.’ Martin held the spatula up and grabbed her around the waist with his free hand, pulling her towards him. After any time away, he was drawn even more strongly to his wife’s pale skin, with its smattering of freckles across her nose, and to her clear green eyes and shiny, shoulder-length hair, now layered and hanging in reddy-brown loops around her face.
    ‘You make me sound like some leggy model. I think we might need to get your goggles upgraded.’
    ‘I don’t need no leggy model, I just want you.’
    ‘Well that’s lucky, cos that’s what you’ve got, mate, and you are well and truly stuck with me.’
    ‘What’s that you’re reading?’ Martin watched as she turned her attention back to the newspaper, studying it intently, devouring the contents.
    ‘Nothing.’ Poppy haphazardly collapsed the paper into an awkward parcel and shoved it next to the bread bin.
    ‘Are you looking at the obituaries again?’ He waited for her reply, wanted to see if a lie would pass her lips.
    She nodded, trying not to laugh.
    ‘I hate you reading them,’ he whispered.
    ‘But I’ve always read them.’
    ‘I know and it creeps me out!’ He shivered.
    ‘Why? I think it’s lovely to see what people have said about their loved ones.’
    ‘I tell you what it is, it’s an excuse for people to wallow in their sadness and for the newspaper to make a few quid! What’s the point? Grief should be a private thing. The person they’re writing about is brown bread, it’s bloody pointless.’
    ‘It’s not pointless, Mart. At least I don’t think it is. It’s like wishing them a fond farewell.’
    ‘A fond farewell? I just don’t think it’s very jolly.’
    Poppy