This morning, I left the boys to play together while I cleaned the bathroom. When I came back into the kitchen, James was about to spade into the end of a pint of ice cream, and Henry had disappeared, although the chair in front of the open freezer door revealed more, perhaps, than he realized. When I took the ice cream away from James, he burst into noisy tears, which brought Henry out of hiding in the bedroom.
"Why is James sad?" he asked, with a conscious look.
I offered to hold James, to console him. He shook his head and said, "No!" Then he climbed down from his chair, sobbing, and staggered, sobbing, over to Henry, butting his head gently into Henry's chest, wrapping his arms around his waist. Henry bent down and, with exaggerated tenderness, put his arms around James too, patting his back. After a few moments, he looked up at me and said, in a tone of delighted wonderment, "He wanted ME!"
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