“How old are you?”
“We’re five, maybe six.”
“Let’s go to a time when you’re teenagers. Are you still friends?”
Ashley shook her head. “I missed Marie so much. We both cried when she went away to school.”
“Have you seen Marie since then?”
“No,” she said in the voice of a child, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“What do you remember after that?”
“Boarding school. I must have been six or seven. I missed Mama so much.”
“How often did you see Mama?”
“Not enough, but I wasn’t there more than a year or so. It seemed like more. I learned to paint there and I got good grades in French and English,” she said proudly in a childish voice.
“Where was the school?”
“Outside of Paris.”
“Where were you born?”
“New York City. In Manhattan.”
“Do you have any sisters or brothers?”
“No.”
“Tell me
