I know it is wrong to envy your children. But when I see my son, Tonio and his younger brother Sam going down a slide together, one's arms around the other, I know I have missed something wonderful.

　Not only did I never have a brother, but a1so I had no friendships like theirs. My sister was old enough to help take care of me, so she was more a mother than a playmate, and I was more a pest than a friend. A brother would have been terrific, but it was not in the family planning.

　Now I finally live with brothers, my sons, Tonio and Sam. I am watching them forge the kind of relationship that I once daydreamed about. They go to bed, one in the top bunk, the other in the bottom. By morning they are in one bed, curled up around each other like puppies in a box. When one comes into our bed after a nightmare, my wife and I know that before morning his brother will follow.

　Sam, oddly, manages the world with more ease than his elder brother, whose frustrations often bring him to tears. With an earnest "Smile, Tonio," Sam is the one who comforts him. Tonio, on the other hand, has stopped playing with boys his age who don't want Sam tagging along. They are always backing each other up.

　I don't know what kind of relationship they will have when they grow up. Parents always want their children to have what they never could. I want them always to have each other. So I imagine them going to the same college, marrying sisters and living on the same block.

　Sitting just out of the way, I often watch them, imagining what my own brother would have been like. I feel foolish, getting deeper into middle age, conjuring up an imaginary playmate, but my sons show me what could have been. That must be why I had dreaded the day Tonio started kindergarten. I felt that I would lose something too.

　As we headed for school that morning, both boys seemed relaxed, as if neither had any idea that the day was going to be different, that starting then, Tonio would be leaving behind his brother, his best friend, his right arm.

　Tonio's first day was chaotic, with hundreds of children outside looking for their teachers. Before any of us could say goodbye, Tonio disappeared with his new classmates. He turned to wave and then was gone. It was so sudden. Sam didn't even see him go. Although parents had been asked to ease the craziness of the first day by staying out of the school, I lifted Sam up and took him to Tonio's classroom. We stood just outside the door, looking for a glimpse of Tonio. Sam spotted him first.

　My wife and I didn't head back home immediately, stopping instead at a coffee shop to treat Sam to hot chocolate. We even let him eat the whipped cream with his fingers. Sam was still quiet, so I asked him if he missed his brother already.

　He didn't answer. Instead he asked, "Daddy, is Tonio going to be gone forever?"

　　"No, Sammy," I said, brightening at the sweetness of his question. "Not forever, just until three o'clock."

　On that day, at least, forever lasted only till 1 pm, when Tonio was sent home with a fever. Sam wanted to play, but Tonio was too sick. The next morning, after a listless breakfast, he said he was tired and went upstairs to his room. He didn't go to school.

　I sometimes think that the greatest thing I have ever done is to help create these brothers. And I didn't stop with them. We had another child, and for the third time in a row, it was a boy. It wasn't long before the bottom of his crib cracked from the weight of his older brothers, who climbed in to play with him. I am surrounded by brothers.

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