“The guy who came onto the stage and played his song. They said he was so great but no one knew his name or his music and no one knows Dad or me, and no one will remember us, and it’s just so sad and I can’t even think about it anymore.”
I heard on the news that when there’s an avalanche the snow gets as hard as concrete and that’s how it feels right now, like there’s concrete all around me, because there’s nowhere else to go. I’m out of ideas.
“Let me show you something.”
Gavin reaches into his big plastic bag with both hands and slides out one of those foldable wooden TV trays. He shakes the plastic off the tray and turns it over and it’s not a TV tray after all.
“This is for you,” Gavin says.
“My friend is a painter,” Gavin says. “Actually, she was Sydney’s friend. I visited her yesterday and told her exactly what I wanted.”
“What’s on the bird’s wing?” I ask.
“A bandage.”
“He’s hurt?”
“Yes. But he’s getting better. And see here in the corner?”
He holds the painting up to the street lamp. I push my face close and see a word in all capital letters: IMAGINE.
I feel a chill. The night isn’t cold, but I feel a chill.
“You and Sydney have that in common,” Gavin says. “You believe.”
He’s glowing under the street lamp and I wish I had a camera so I could take a picture of him. I’d have Dad turn the picture into a poster and I’d put the poster on my wall and I’d stare at it every night before falling asleep. But it’s okay that I don’t because I have my own built-in camera.
“Thank you,” I say.
“No. Thank you.”
He scratches his forehead and makes small shapes with his mouth. When I’m nervous, I bite the insides of my cheeks. “You know, I’ve always wondered,” he says. “Do you really like John Lennon’s music that much? Or is it just because your dad loves him?”
I think about it. It’s hard to figure out. “I like that we have our own special thing.”
Gavin smiles. “I like it too.”
It looks like he’s ready to go back inside the restaurant but I’m not in a party mood and I don’t want to share Gavin with all those people because he’s my partner and it took me so long to get him back.
“We should write more songs together,” I say.
“We should.”
“We can call ourselves the Reminders.”
“I like that,” Gavin says. “It’s a good name.”
“We just need one song. That’s all it takes. One song that the whole world never forgets.”
He looks at me for what feels like a very long time and then he says, “I heard ‘God’ the other day. We were talking about that song the first day I heard your music. We were talking about magic.”
I love when people remember.
“Do you know what John is saying in that song?” Gavin says.
I don’t.
“He’s saying he was the walrus, but not anymore. Now he’s John. Now he’s himself. Everybody builds these people up to be bigger than they are. Elvis, the Beatles, Zimmerman. Do you know who Zimmerman is? That’s Bob Dylan. It’s a myth. I named myself Winters, but I’m a Deifendorf. That’s my family. And that’s what John is saying. He’s talking about family. He’s saying that all that really matters is him and Yoko.” He points at the restaurant. “Those people waiting in there, they’re the ones that matter. No one else.”
He won’t stop staring and I try to smile but it won’t stop the tears. “I don’t want to say good-bye to you.”
He pulls me in and into my ear he makes a promise and everything is upside down but it feels right this way because it’s kind of like a dance song and a crying song wrapped into one.
In the middle of dinner, Gavin taps his knife against a water glass. This happens after Grandpa lifts me into the air with his strong hands and tells me he’s going to throw me across the room unless I give him my autograph. The problem is that getting thrown across the room actually sounds like fun, so it’s a hard choice to make.
It’s after Gavin brings me over to the serious-looking man who Gavin calls his agent and says, “Carl, I’d like to introduce you to your newest client.” Carl tells me that he’s heard all about me and he says I’m very photogenic, which sounds like a disease but it’s the opposite.
And it’s after Gavin takes me to meet the lady with the boy hair who’s actually his mom. She hands me a bouquet of flowers from her garden and she explains in a very excited way that these flowers are “completely chemical-free” and she also tells me that when she looks at me she feels the same way she did about Gavin when he was little. I ask her what that means and she says, “You have that star quality,” and Gavin rolls his eyes but I think it’s a very nice thing to say.
And it’s after Gavin walks me over to the last stranger in the room, the one with the same light blue eyes he has, and I go to shake her hand but she gives me a high five instead and tells me she adores my outfit. Her name is Veronica and she’s a daughter and a sister and she’s also going to be a mother soon, but in a way that doesn’t make your belly get fat. Gavin already knows that the baby will be named after the father because it’s a name that works for a boy and a girl and I hope even though we’ll be ten years apart that baby Sydney and I can still be friends.
And it’s after Mom and Dad stare at each other with anniversary looks on their faces, and Dad, who will always be my favorite musician, lays his head on Mom’s shoulder in a way that looks familiar, something about how moms make us feel, because Mom makes me feel the same way at the table when she puts her arms around me and tells me how proud she is of me.
It’s after all this that Gavin starts tapping his water glass and everyone stops talking. Dad reaches under the table and opens a case. He takes out his Gibson guitar and hands it to me. I’m not sure what to do with it.
“Play it,” Gavin says.
I’m not in the mood but I want to make a good impression in front of Gavin’s agent so I hang the strap over my shoulder and I play the first thing that comes to my mind, which is “Look at Me” by John Lennon.
“Not that,” Dad says. “Your song.”
I stop for a drink of water and take a deep breath and make a G chord. I don’t have Sydney’s guitar picks with me so I use my fingers, just like Dad taught me. I look down at the strings and I feel them shake beneath my hand.
Someone in the audience is squeaking his chair and it’s Grandpa. He taps Gavin’s mom on the shoulder and takes her by the hand. They move into the corner of the little room and he twirls her and dips her and she laughs.
I try to hold on until Gavin starts singing, and he does, his voice making my heart beat even faster. We’re really going now and everyone is here, so many eyes, the ones that matter, singing and smiling and dancing and crying. I’m not sure about tomorrow, tomorrow never knows, says John, but they’re looking at me now, all of them, like they really see who I am. I want to stay with them forever and I guess there is a way. I’ll save them in my box. I’ll keep them safe always. It’s what I do. I remember.
Acknowledgments