Now Helena is gone.

A tiny sparrow skittered along the warm concrete path infront of Frederich. It chittered sweetly, and tilted it's head from one side to another, looking up at the boy resting in stillness. It wasn't unlike Frederich to help others. But today he didn't quite feel like helping in the way he knew he would be asked. He sat quietly on the bench in the courtyard behind his father's office and looked at the small leather book in his lap. It was black, with thin cracks along the soft spine after many years of use. It was his diary and within the pages were details of his life he would never speak aloud, the naïve confessions and wishes of an eleven year old. He breathed in the warm August air deeply and let the smell of grass and apple blossom comfort him. He wanted to run to his bedroom to grab his favourite pen, to write down the many thoughts that were quickly overcrowding his head. Had he heard his uncle correctly? If his uncle kept pushing, then he would have to admit everything. Before this summer, he had been a companion to his aunt, Helena. She was blind, and Frederich had been her aid around the house since he was eight, and his father had seen him grow wistful as his older brother Karl paid him less attention than when they were younger. After school, he had spent countless hours reading to her, walking with her, describing her gardens and the weather, making her coffee. They had been like mother and son (his own mother having died after his birth), and her unexpected death that May had caused him the sharpest of heartaches imaginable. He had cried every night for months, but by late July he could hold his tears back if he wanted to. He thought back to what he heard his Uncle Peter say to his father this morning: “It can't just be 'lost' for crying out loud, Sam, you know it! You'll have to ask Freddie again, he's the one who spent the most time with her.” Frederich looked over his shoulder through the open doors into his father's office where his father was now, at his desk, quietly reading a letter with knotted brows and a hand holding his square chin. However much he loved, and feared, his father, he didn't think he could tell him the truth. His sister had been the only kindness in his father's hard life, and now she was gone; Frederich knew his father was changed. Squinting through the light thrown down on the cobblestones and grass of the courtyard at the small sundial ahead of him, Frederich observed it was nearly time for lunch. His stomach was in knots and he needed desperately to talk to Karl about the mounting guilt in his mind - he and his brother had been the only ones who knew she had the money. Karl, who was seventeen, clever and affable, had come to visit Helena one afternoon, whilst Frederich was reading (slowly, painfully) Dostoyevsky to her. He knew Karl liked to flit around the house and look in boxes, drawers and books. But he didn't think his brother would ever find anything exciting, until he did. One afternoon, a month before Helena's death, he'd found a small, plain, dark wooden box in a bureau dresser drawer, which made no noise when shaken, but was locked. Naturally he wanted to find the key, and a curious mind pushed him to search further, till he found the miniature brass key in a drawer below an envelope cubbyhole. Karl had thought he'd find some photographs, or a letter perhaps, not $20.000. He had thought it fake, never having seen dollar notes before, and almost laughed out loud to think why all of this cash would be locked in a box. But the notes were crinkled, dry and faded – not how you'd assume fake money to look. After talking discreetly to an older boy at the local post office, Karl had discerned that the American money was real, and confided so in Frederich. Frederich had confided in his diary. Together they joked over dreams of what they could do and buy if they changed the money or ran to America, but wondered how it had came to be, when their aunt didn't work and their uncle was just an accountant. Helena had never mentioned anything to him about America, no holidays there or far away friends across the sea. She'd only mentioned that Uncle Peter had once had a long business trip to Chicago. But she had also mentioned that the reason she and Uncle Peter didn't get along so well anymore was a 'difference in morals' – but Frederich has only understood that to mean that she disliked him smoking, and he thought she cussed too much, which she did. Neither of the boys liked their uncle Peter, with his scornful laughs and patronizing advice. They knew their father wasn't so keen on him either, and was bothered greatly by a more frequent presence of him since his sister's death. As soon as Helena had passed, the boys had discussed what would happen to the money – Frederich had been scared and thrilled to admit he wanted to hide it, much as Karl did. And it had been easy enough to do, no one suspected the usually honest brothers – Aunt Helena couldn't see, and Uncle Peter stayed out her living room even when he wasn't at work. It wasn't until they had heard their father and uncle talking about 'lost money' and a 'debt' that Frederich realized that they had what someone looking for. The thing was, Frederich knew that it was now with Karl. Karl who had ran away two months ago, telling noone, not even his brother, where he was going. The small bird that Frederich had been watching hopped away, and he imagined that maybe it knew how he felt, and was taking away some of his worries to wherever it flew next.