Free Conscious Decisions of the Heart by John Wiltshire

is almost perfect.”
     
    She giggled like a schoolgirl and then slapped him lightly on the leg. “Not yet. You’re very arrogant, but that’s to be understood.”
     
    “Me? Why?”
     
    “Ah, so modest, too. Come, beautiful, bad boy, my garden doesn’t dig itself. Did you get everything on the list?”
     
    “Yes, Mother…” He grumbled it in jest, but she paused in picking up her handbag.
     
    “Mother. Yes. I like that. In that case, son, let’s get back into that very silly car of yours and go home.”
     
    § § §
     
    Later that evening, while Ben was drinking some wine after his swim, Ingrid came out of the house with an album. She set it down and proclaimed with a flourish, “I’ve found Nikolas and Aleksey, would you like to see?”
     
    Ben just nodded. Yes. He would.
     
    She opened it to a picture familiar to anyone who’s ever been to primary school. Clearly, the yearly photo of children was an international thing. She pointed. “Here they are in their first year. Five years old. Look, that’s me in the front. I didn’t teach the very young ones then.”
     
    There was a row of children sitting in the front on the ground cross-legged. Side by side were the identical Nikolas and Aleksey. Their hair was exceptionally blond, and they were very thin, even then, bony knees and elbows in their shorts and short-sleeved shirts. Ben couldn’t tell them apart. She turned to the next photo, aged six. They were now standing, but, other than that, there was no difference. Aged seven was missing, as was aged eight, but then, there they were, aged nine. They were still smaller than the other boys in their row but wiry and agile looking. One of the twins was smiling at the camera nicely. One was staring up, as if he’d just seen something in the sky that interested him more than standing there and being good. Ben smiled. He was fairly sure now which twin was which. Ingrid then turned to the next photo. They weren’t in it. “I think this was taken the summer after they left. They were very lucky their father came for them. We all thought them so lucky after what had happened. But we missed them. Well, we missed Nikolas.” She chuckled.
     
    Lucky . Ben blew out a small breath and turned away. He couldn’t bear it.
     
    It didn’t get dark until almost eleven at night now, being the peak of the summer, and Ben took every moment of daylight to work on his Danish, reading in the garden or occasionally watching television with Ingrid. He could understand the news quite easily. Shows left him struggling occasionally, but gradually, he could even understand most of what was being said in those.
     
    Texts from Nikolas were very sporadic now. They were travelling in places without good connections. Ben didn’t mind so much. It was worse, somehow, being reminded, having to lose him each time when their short communications were done. Last time, he’d asked his hopeful how is he and Nik had replied very sick .
     
    § § §
     
    Missing Nikolas began to resemble missing his mother in Ben’s mind. There was a similar sense of desolation and loneliness to not having Nikolas around as there had been for the first few months when he’d been unable to accept his mother’s desertion. He refused to give into the feelings, however. He wasn’t eight. If his frantic attempts to keep busy sometimes resembled a small boy running to the moors and living rough, searching desperately for unconditional love, then he ignored the similarities and told himself that at least keeping busy improved his language skills. Once he’d made a first foray into reading, he found this the easiest way to avoid thinking about Nikolas at the same time as becoming really proficient in Danish. He became an almost daily visitor to the library. Gabby was as good as her word and took him under her wing. She seemed to sense his wariness of the other, younger librarians (if not the provenance for such caution), particularly Amy, and always