“Is the bear a boy or a girl?” I asked him.
“A boy ‘cause my bear sleeps with me.”
“Okay. Then what’s your favorite boy’s name?”
At that moment, the door opened and another face popped through the opening. “How come you’re in here with Carlo?” Frances wanted to know.
“We’re naming the bear,” Carlo explained.
I noticed that Frances had his bear in hand. “Come on, crawl into bed with your brother so you don’t get cold.”
“As if he’d been waiting for permission, Frances took a running leap, threw back the covers, and crawled into his brother’s bed. A quick hug passed between the two of them, then Frances stared up at me.
“He was crying, wasn’t he?”
I nodded, then brought up the challenge again. “What did you name your bear?” I asked.
Frances hugged his brother again, then, as if pondering whether he should tell me, he said. “You told me to name him, so I called him Pink Nose.”
Carlo started to giggle. “Pink Nose,” he said. “Why did you name him that? Oh,” he said, noticing that Frances’ bear had a pink button for a nose. The button on his bear was white. “Okay, but I’m not calling my bear White Nose. I think I’ll call him Squeezy because he’s nice to squeeze.”
“Good name,” I said before Frances could jeer, if he intended to, although Frances seemed very attuned to his little brother’s feelings. Maybe he wouldn’t have.
“Do you know why everyone loves their bed bear?” I asked.
Both boys shook their head, although Carlo was already sliding further down into his bed and at the same time, producing great big yawns. Frances puffed up the pillow on his side of the bed and wiggled into what for him seemed to be a sleep-ready position.
“A bed bear listens to everything you want to tell him, and he never laughs at you or tells anyone what you said. He always keeps all your secrets. And, as Carlo said, he’s super squeezable.”