Sonny Carisi hangs up the phone. Nicky's teacher had called again and she is requesting a parent-teacher conference with both him and the parents of the boy who had beat up his son at pre-school. Again.

"Nicky!" Sonny yells up the staircase.

"My name is Dominick," his son argues and smiles down at him from the landing.

"Not until you earn it." Sonny retorts. It was their little game. His son had found out his full name recently and had begun insisting that everyone call him by it. But Nicky was the nickname he had been stuck with since before he started talking. It was hard to change habits. "Come down here, little buddy. We need have to have a man to man."

"Man – to – Man." Nicky giggles, trying out the new phrase.

"That's right, now come on." Sonny waves him down. When Nicky gets to the bottom of the stairs, Sonny takes his hand and leads him past Jesse in the family room. She's playing a game and barely looks up. They go into the living room, "the serious room," and he picks Nicky up and puts him on the sofa.

Sonny takes a seat himself and says, "Now your teacher tells me that you and your friend got in a fight again today."

"He's not my friend!" Nicky practically screams and tears swim in his eyes.

"There. You see, that's the problem. You're too sensitive, little buddy. You can't let them see you sweat."

Nicky squints his eyes in confusion.

"Tell me what happened . . . Did he pick on you again? Make you cry in front of the others?"

Nicky looks down, ashamed. Very quietly he says, "Yes."

"Come here," Sonny says and puts his arm around his son who is now cuddled into his side. "Now, you need to understand me here. That other boy was wrong. Definitely wrong being mean and picking on you like that."

"Uh huh," Nicky nods into his chest.

"But you gotta learn to hold it back. No tears, okay?"

"Why? Jesse cries sometimes too."

Sonny laughs. Jesse was too much like her mother, very tough. Only he and Nicky ever saw her cry. "And how often have you seen her cry?"

"Uh . . ."

"Does she cry more or less than you?"

"Um . . . less!?" he says excitedly, looking up at Sonny, hoping to have the right answer. Daddy was always so proud of with him when he did.

"That's right. And she's a girl - they're allowed to cry more than us."

"Why is that?" Nicky asks, perplexed.

"Because girls don't get called sissies and get beaten up when they cry. They're allowed to show weakness. Boys aren't."

"Oh," Nicky says, thinking. "That's not fair."

"I know buddy, but the other boys are going to take any sign of weakness you show as an invitation to attack you. You gotta toughen up son. Like your cousins on Staten Island, you hear me?"

He peels his son away from his embrace and looks him sternly in the eyes, "I don't want to hear anymore that you've been crying in front of others, okay? Even if they are being mean. No more tears."

"But Daddy . . . "

"Hmm?"

Nicky hesitates for a second and gulps. "I've seen you cry. In Georgia. Is it still okay to cry in Georgia?"

Sonny feels a tightening around his heart for a moment and tears prick at his eyes. When he finally lets out the sigh he had been holding, he pulls Nicky back into his chest to comfort himself this time. With his head on top of his son's he whispers, "Yes, it's still okay to cry in Georgia."