Dre nodded. “I’m going to sit and eat some food now. Y’all carry on.”

“Why did you introduce her to my father?” Rene ignored what was going on in the kitchen. “She was certainly not too young then. She’d been to college and was teaching at that point.”

“No, she was an incredible woman, but I had been kicked out of my family. I challenged my father one too many times,” Louis explained. “I took a job with your father and years went by. Cricket and I lost touch for the better part of a decade. I worked on my career at Darois. I admit I wanted to prove my father wrong. That was what I focused on in those days. I had a lot of anger back then. I wouldn’t have been good for her.”

“Then one day, out of the blue, we ran into each other at the Petroleum Club, where my brother was having a reception. Louis was with Ross, having dinner.” A ghost of a smile came over Cricket’s face. “I ended up sitting down with them, and we went out for a drink after. We spent most of that weekend together, the three of us. I was surprised when it was Ross who called and asked if he could see me the next time he was in Dallas.”

Louis had flushed slightly. “Ross needed a wife. He’d been so absorbed with business that he didn’t date much. His brother was starting to talk about how a family man should be in charge.”

“Like father, like son,” Rene said under his breath.

“A bit.” Louis sighed, a weary sound. “Don’t we learn from our fathers? I know you’ve been questioning yours lately, but he loved you. He loved Cricket, too. He just couldn’t find a way out of the trap he found himself in. He was raised believing it was his job to rule over the company and the family like some kind of king. It sounds good, but there’s so much responsibility. It weighs a man down. Your dad raised you the only way he knew how, but you had your mother to balance him.”

“I had you, too.” Rene’s hand was back in Sylvie’s. “You would take me to ball games when my dad had to work. You always had candy in your pocket, and you never made it hard to talk to you. I know I said a lot of things yesterday, but I haven’t forgotten how much you did for me growing up.”

A sheen of tears hit Louis’s eyes. “I loved you, Rene. Still do. I love you because you are the product of my best friend and the woman I’ve loved for decades. I supported their relationship because I thought I had nothing to offer her. I didn’t have a grand house. I couldn’t give her the life she grew up with.”