We only agreed, without quite saying so, to keep it going, and to see.

When spring came the following year, we gathered in the estate’s garden for Theodore’s baptism, under the purple jacaranda blossoms, the bougainvillea spilling over the old stone wall, and Theodore, a year and a half old now, had decided that walking was chiefly a tool for escaping any adult trying to dress him in good clothes.

Raymond scooped him up near the citrus trees, walking now without his cane, though he still limped faintly when he grew tired and stubbornly refused to admit it.

“Come back here, you little runaway heir,” he laughed.