“So with one breath you tell me to believe in the old myths, and in the next breath I’m supposed to think of them like Santa Claus putting coal in stockings.”

“Exactly,” said Veevee.

“You look so triumphant that I think you think you actually explained something.”

“Oh, my poor darling, of course I haven’t explained anything. I’ve read all the same stuff that Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell and a whole bunch of other philologists and psychologists read, and like them I’ve tried to fit it all together. The difference is that I don’t think I succeeded, and so I didn’t write a book.”

“But what am I supposed to do?” said Pat helplessly.

“The very best you can,” said Veevee.

“But if I go off to do my best, what’s to prevent me from doing the very worst thing?”

“If my reading has taught me anything,” said Veevee, “all the best stories arise from unintended consequences. You think you’re doing one thing, but you don’t have enough information, so you end up doing something entirely different. But then in the happy-ending stories, everything works out anyway.”

“And in the tragedies…”

“Well, there’s that,” said Veevee. “Sometimes you’re rescuing Andromeda from the monster Cetus, and sometimes you’re bringing home Medea, who will murder your bride and her own children to punish you.”

“And how do you know?”

“You don’t. You can’t know. Nobody ever knows all the consequences of the things they do. Which is why I told you that you’re supposed to do the very best you can.”

“But I can’t know it’s the best if—”

“You don’t know it’s the best! There’s no ‘knowing.’ There’s only doing. The best you can.”

“I’m trying to think how your coming here has helped me at all,” said Pat.

“Well, before I came, you were hopelessly confused and had no idea what you should do, but you knew you couldn’t be happy unless you did something.”

“Which is exactly where I am now,” said Pat.

“Oh, no, not at all, darling,” said Veevee. “Now you know that the wisest person you know—me—doesn’t know anything more than you, except that almost anything you try to do has the potential to be a disaster. Including doing nothing! So as the person who quite possibly loves Danny most, and as the person whom he most certainly loves most, you’re in the best position to think of what is the best thing to try.”

“But it will all turn disastrous!”

“Since every path is disastrous, I don’t know how anything you can do will make it worse.”

“I’ll find a way.”

“Quite possibly, but it will make a good story,” said Veevee.

“Yes, I’ll go down in history as an idiot, like Psyche with her stupid lamp.”