The Boy and I are finishing up the classic Where the Red Fern Grows. I remember my fifth-grade teacher reading that to us, and I knew how it ends: both Old Dan and Little Ann, the protagonist’s beloved hounds, die. We reached that part today, and it brought the Boy to tears.

“I’m just remembering Bida and Nana,” he said. “I miss them. I want them back.” He sobbed for a while as I comforted him, continually talking about memories he had with them.

After a while, when he was calming down, I asked the Girl to bring in a box of tissues.

“What?” she asked.

“A tissue box.”

“What?!” she asked again, incredulously.

“A tissue box!”

“Oh, I thought you said ‘a fishy box.'”

And like that, the tears turned to laugher.