Father wasn’t all that good at knowing what people meant, but he seemed to guess that time. He started to cry again, tears streaming down his face. He was looking at me, but he seemed to be looking through me. “How am I going to manage the rest of my life without her, Arete?”

“I don’t know,” I said truthfully. I didn’t even know how I was going to manage the rest of the day. I couldn’t think how I was going to cope with Father being like this. Yes, he’s the god Apollo, but that often makes it harder, not easier, not just for him but for all of us. He’s not used to ordinary human things. I’m sure he must have lost people before, but the ways he’d coped with that as a god wouldn’t be possible for him as a human. He couldn’t create a new species of flower and call it after Mother, for instance. And normally when he was having problems that arose out of being human he’d ask Mother about it, and they’d have a fascinating conversation, and she’d help him understand how it worked, logically, and then he’d be all right. Now, without her—was I supposed to help him with it? The thought was terrifying. I wasn’t all that good at being human myself yet. I was only fifteen. I didn’t know enough about it. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to grieve for my mother, not to have to worry about helping my father cope.

“Death is a terrible thing,” he said.

“What do I have to do to not die?” I blurted. I’d often wondered about this, but never asked directly.

“Not die?”

“To become a god. I’m your daughter. I could.” I hoped I didn’t sound childish or hubristic. Fortunately, he took me seriously.

“You could. Several of my sons have.” It sounded so strange to hear him mention sons and know he didn’t mean my brothers. “You’d have to decide to do it, and you’d have to find your power, and you’d have to find a new and original way of being Arete. Being excellent, that is!” He was still weeping, but his eyes were focused on me now. “You’d still have to die. If you became a god it would happen afterward.”

“But you have a body when you’re a god?”