After my mother died, I couldn’t cry.

She warned me it would happen. In the two weeks leading up to her death, I spent a good part of every day lying next to her crying. When they moved her to hospice care, I panicked. She kept saying, “If you cry all your tears now, you won’t have any left after I’m gone.” She actually laughed as she stroked my head.

Mama hadn’t wanted to plan her funeral. Far too macabre for her blood, and besides, she’d said, “I won’t be here, what do I care?” Her only request was that after whatever we decided to do she be cremated and her ashes scattered back in Texas, near where she thought Ellie was buried.

So, I’m in Fredericksburg. Apollo is with me. She’s the reason I’ve made it through the week. Mama had been right. It hurt like hell, but there were no tears. So, I was busy planning the funeral, and every night I would collapse into bed, weary to my bones, sick with grief and I couldn’t cry. And it made me irritable. Apollo never once made me feel like the jerk I was surely acting like. She left me in peace when I needed it and stuck to me like second skin when I needed that. There hasn’t been a second during this terrible week where I have felt alone.

Caine’s Weeping doesn’t exist anymore. After the raid, the entire thing was razed to the ground and trees were planted in its place. So, I had to approximate where to go. It was only then, standing in a place where my sister may or may not have been buried, that the dam broke. And yet, the grief that threated to drown me didn’t because my lifeline was standing next to me making sure that I wasn’t washed away. I walked away from the scattering site with a new understanding about my life.

Whether she intended to or not, she started preparing me for this moment a long time ago. If she had given me that book, I wouldn’t have wanted anything more from life than what I had. The Hobbit was proof that there was life beyond Caine’s Weeping. That book moved through my life like a river and it carved me an entirely new course.

Because of that book, when the sun fell out of sky, I was there to catch it. And because I’d been introduced to wizards and hobbits, I hadn’t been afraid of the girl with hair like a raven’s wing and a smile that rivaled the sun for brightness.

For so long, I’d lived in fear of my mother’s passing. Did everything I could to delay it. Not just because I would miss her, but because I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t her son. Thanks to that book, that question has been answered in profound and pivotal ways. Repeatedly. I am always going to be her son. But, because of that book, I got the chance to be so much more.

It’s our last night before we head back to New York. We’ve tied a hammock on the porch of the house we’re renting. Apollo is asleep, as she often is at this late stage of her pregnancy. The baby cocooned in the safety of her strong, beautiful body has shown me that I am more than just the sum of my parts. This baby will be proof that I existed.

I gaze up at the stars and remember the first time I saw them up close I’d been afraid that I would never know more than what I was seeing that night. But, I should have known, that just like everything else Apollo has given me, what came next would exceed my wildest dreams.

“Hey Star.” Apollo’s sleepy whisper makes my pulse jump and my heart race. I love her so fucking much.

“Hey, Sunshine.” I kiss the top of her head and she throws a leg over my hip and wraps an arm around my waist. “You have a good nap?”

“Yeah, I always do when you’re my pillow,” she says and I can hear the smile in her voice.

I sigh, a contented exhale that comes from deep inside of me. “You ready to go inside?”

“Nah, the moon is so bright tonight, Artemis and Elena are having a chat,” she says. I bring one arm down from behind my head and put my hand on her belly. I marvel at how she rubs against my hand.

"She loves her daddy, already,” Apollo says and covers my hand with hers.

“Apollo, you need to stop calling the baby a girl. It’s kind of ruining our whole wait until delivery to find out plan. And, what if it’s a boy?”

“It’s a girl. I know. Artemis told me.” She says simply. If this were anyone else, I would laugh, but Apollo, just like the god she’s named after, has an uncanny sense about what’s to come. Not that she can predict the future, but her gut feeling and intuition never fails to surprise me.

I rub her belly and say, “Well, then, I’ll call her Elena, too.”

“Thank you. Now, hush, you’re interrupting,” she says sternly.

I chuckle softly but don’t say another word. I lift my eyes to the moon and she looks back down at us. The sun and her star. And I swear, I can see her smiling.