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gallery she loved, as she had for nine years.

It was a turning point for them. Arthur thought it was brilliant, and gave the idea his full support. In the end, he convinced her father for her, although even when they left, Simon insisted it was a mad idea. Sasha offered to put her own money into the project, and Arthur volunteered as well. But in the end, her father came through for her, as he always did. As soon as she got to New York, she found an apartment on Park Avenue for them, and a brownstone on Sixty-fourth Street, between Madison and Fifth avenues, for Suvery New York. And as always, when Sasha put her mind to something, and backed it with an incredible amount of energy and work, it turned out to be a brilliant idea. Her father came to visit several times, and grudgingly admitted that the space was perfect for them, on a small scale of course. And by the time he came to the opening of the New York gallery nine months later, he was wreathed in smiles. Sasha was the toast of the art world in New York. At thirty-five, she was becoming one of the most important dealers in the world, as her father had been and still was, and she had just joined the boards of both the Metropolitan and Modern Art museums, an unheard of honor for her, to be on both.

Xavier and Tatianna were twelve and ten by then. Xavier loved to draw, and Tatianna would grab any camera she could lay her hands on and take incredibly funny pictures of startled adults. Tatianna looked like a small blond elf, and Xavier looked like his father, only with his mother and grandfather's nearly jet-black hair. They were beautiful and loving children, and both were bilingual. Sasha and Arthur agreed to put them in the Lycée in New York, and Tatianna talked constantly about wanting to go back to Paris. She missed her friends. Xavier decided almost instantly that he preferred New York.

For the next two years, Sasha enjoyed running her gallery in New York. She traveled frequently to Paris, usually twice a month. Sometimes she took the Concorde for important meetings with her father, and returned the same night to Arthur and her children in New York. And in summer, she always took the children back to France. She spent time with her father in the house he had rented for years in St. Jean Cap Ferrat, but she stayed at the Eden Roc with the children. Although Simon loved them, the children made him nervous if he spent too much time with them. And although Sasha didn't like admitting it, her father was getting old. He was eighty-seven, and little by little, he was slowing down.

With great regret, they had talked about what she would do when she would be alone running the business. She couldn't imagine it, but he could. He had led a long life, and had no fears about moving on. And he had trained his people well. In time, she would be able to live in New York or Paris, and have competent people to work for her in either place. She would have to spend time in both galleries, of course, and commute regularly, but the choice of where to live was hers, thanks to her father's competence and foresight. They had excellent managers in both places. But Paris still felt like home to her, although she enjoyed living and working in New York. There was no question that Arthur was too entrenched at the bank by then to live anywhere but New York. She knew she was stuck there until he retired. And since he was only forty-seven years old, he was nowhere near retirement. She was just lucky that her father was still running his end of the business at eighty-seven years of age. He was remarkable, although he had slowed down almost imperceptibly. But despite that, or perhaps because of it, Sasha was stunned when he died suddenly at eighty-nine. She had expected him to live forever. Simon died exactly as he would have wanted to. He had a massive stroke at his desk. The doctors said he didn't suffer. He was gone in an instant, having just concluded an enormous deal with a collector from Holland.

Sasha flew to Paris in a state of shock that night, and moved around the gallery aimlessly, unable to believe that he was gone. The