Will, Do You Love Me?

At dinner tonight, James had a very important question.

“Will, do you love me?”

Will, who is eight, did not respond.

Still nothing.

Now, Will could absolutely hear him. We were all sitting at the same table. But apparently there is nothing quite as entertaining to an eight-year-old boy as pretending not to hear his little brother desperately asking for reassurance.

James, who turns four this week, was not about to let the matter drop.

“WILL! DO YOU LOVE ME?!”

Will just sat there smiling.

Finally, I intervened.

“James, that smile on Will’s face means he can hear you, and he loves you.”

Which I think was a perfectly reasonable interpretation of the situation.

James got his reassurance. Will got to maintain his mysterious big-brother dignity. And I got to finish dinner without negotiating a formal declaration of sibling affection.

One of the funniest things about having six kids is watching the relationships between them develop. They’re not just our children. They’re each other’s people, with their own jokes, alliances, rivalries, and very complicated rules about when it’s acceptable to admit you love someone.

James adores Will. And Will loves James, even if he’d rather make him scream across the dinner table than say so.

Someday, I imagine James will be the big brother pretending not to hear someone calling his name.

But for now, he’s four, he’s got a question, and he’s going to keep asking it until somebody answers.

Preferably Will.