This Lullaby (v5) by Sarah Dessen
In the depth of winter,
I finally learned that
within me there lay
an invincible summer.
—Camus
She’ll be back soon.
She’s just writing.
—Caroline
a cognizant original release september 29 2010
June
Chapter One
The name of the song is “This Lullaby.” At this point, I’ve probably heard it, oh, about a million times. Approximately.
All my life I’ve been told about how my father wrote it the day I was born. He was on the road somewhere in Texas, already split from my mom. The story goes that he got word of my birth, sat down with his guitar, and just came up with it, right there in a room at a Motel 6. An hour of his time, just a few chords, two verses and a chorus. He’d been writing music all his life, but in the end it would be the only song he was known for. Even in death, my father was a one-hit wonder. Or two, I guess, if you count me. Now, the song was playing overhead as I sat in a plastic chair at the car dealership, in the first week of June. It was warm, everything was blooming, and summer was practically here. Which meant, of course, that it was time for my mother to get married again.
This was her fourth time, fifth if you include my father. I chose not to. But they were, in her eyes, married—if being united in the middle of the desert by someone they’d met at a rest stop only moments before counts as married. It does to my mother. But then, she takes on husbands the way other people change their hair color: out of boredom, listlessness, or just feeling that this next one will fix everything, once and for all. Back when I was younger, when I asked about my dad and how they’d met, when I was actually still curious, she’d just sigh, waving her hand, and say, “Oh, Remy, it was the seventies. You know.”
My mother always thinks I know everything. But she’s wrong. All I knew about the seventies was what I’d learned in school and from the History Channel: Vietnam, President Carter, disco. And all I knew about my father, really, was “This Lullaby.” Through my life I’d heard it in the backgrounds of commercials and movies, at weddings, dedicated long-distance on radio countdowns. My father may be gone, but the song—schmaltzy, stupid, insipid—goes on. Eventually it will even outlive me.
It was in the middle of the second chorus that Don Davis of Don Davis Motors stuck his head out of his office and saw me. “Remy, honey, sorry you had to wait. Come on in.”
I got up and followed him. In eight days, Don would become my stepfather, joining a not-so-exclusive group. He was the first car salesman, the second Gemini, the only one with money of his own. He and my mother met right there in his office, when we came in to buy her a new Camry. I’d come along because I know my mother: she’d pay the list price right off the bat, assuming it was set, like she was buying oranges or toilet paper at the grocery store, and of course they’d let her, because my mother is somewhat well known and everyone thinks she is rich.
Our first salesman looked right out of college and almost collapsed when my mother waltzed up to a fully loaded new-year model, then poked her head inside to get a whiff of that new-car smell. She took a deep gulp, smiled, and announced, “I’ll take it!” with characteristic flourish.
“Mom,” I said, trying not to grit my teeth. But she knew better. The entire ride over I’d been prepping her, with specific instructions on what to say, how to act, everything we needed to do to get a good deal. She kept telling me she was listening, even as she kept fiddling with the air-conditioning vents and playing with my automatic windows. I swear that was what had really led to this new-car fever: the fact that I had just gotten one.