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funeral was dignified and important. The president of the French Republic attended, as well as the minister of culture. Every person of importance in the art world came to pay their respects, his friends, clients, Arthur and the children. It was a cold November day, and pouring rain, when they buried him at P猫re Lachaise cemetery, in the twentieth arrondissement, on the eastern edge of Paris. He was surrounded by the likes of Proust, Balzac, and Chopin, a fitting resting place for him.

After the funeral, Sasha spent the next four weeks in Paris, working with the lawyers, organizing things, putting away her father's papers and personal effects. She stayed longer than she had to, but she couldn't bear leaving this time. For the first time since she had left Paris, she wanted to stay home, and be near where her father had lived and worked. She felt like an orphan a month later, when she finally flew home to New York. The stores and streets decorated for Christmas seemed like an affront after the loss she had just sustained. It was a long hard year for her. But in spite of that, both branches of the gallery flourished. The ensuing years were peaceful, happy, and productive. She missed her father, but slowly put down roots in New York, as her children grew up. And she still returned to Paris twice a month, to continue to oversee the gallery there.

Eight years after her father's death, both galleries were strong and equally successful. Arthur was talking about retiring at fifty-seven. His career had been respectable and productive, but he privately admitted to Sasha he was bored. Xavier was twenty-four, living and painting in London, and showing at a small gallery in Soho. And although Sasha loved his paintings, he was not ready for her to show. Her love for him did not blind her to the progress he still needed to make. He was talented, but as an artist not yet fully mature. But he was passionate about his work. He loved everything about the art world he was part of in London, and Sasha was proud of him. She thought he would be a great artist one day. And in time, she hoped to show his work.

Tatianna had graduated from Brown four months before, with a degree in fine arts and photography, and had just started a job as the third assistant to a well-known photographer in New York, which meant she got to change film for him occasionally, bring him coffee, and sweep the floors. Her mother assured her that that was the way it worked at first. Neither of her children had any interest in working at the gallery with her. They thought what she did was wonderful, but they wanted to pursue their own lives and work. Sasha realized how rare it had been to learn all she had from her father, the opportunity he had given her, and the priceless education she'd had of growing into the business with him. She was sorry she couldn't do the same with her children.

Sasha wondered if one day Xavier would want to work at the gallery with her, but it seemed less than likely for the time being. Now that Arthur was talking about retiring, she felt as though she was drifting toward her roots in Paris again. As much as she loved the excitement of New York, life always seemed gentler to her when she went home. Paris was still home to her, despite dual nationality, thanks to her mother, and sixteen of her forty-seven years, a third of her life, spent in New York. At her core she was still French. Arthur wasn't opposed to the idea of living in Paris again once he retired, and they had been talking about it more seriously that fall.

It was October and the very last of the hot weather, on a sunny Friday afternoon, as Sasha made a brief inspection tour of some paintings they were planning to sell to a museum in Boston. They kept their Old Masters and more traditional work on the brownstone's two upper floors. The contemporary work they were also now famous for was on the first and second floors. Sasha's office was tucked away in a back corner on the main floor.

After her tour of the upper floors, she put some papers in her briefcase, and looked out at the sculpture garden behind her office. Like most of their contemporary work, it was a reflection