She sang softly as she cradled the small boy. Her voice could not be called beautiful by any stretch of the imagination. It broke on the high notes and all but disappeared on the low ones. Yet it had that quality of love, which cannot be artificially produced. She sang to the child, feeling his warm body against hers, and felt she was beautiful.
     The words of the lullaby rolled through her mind in endless repetition. She rarely followed the set order of verses and chorus. Instead, she sang as she felt, sometimes changing the notes to match her mood. Often, she would just sing, a wordless melody which floated in the room. Now it would take on the flavor of a movie she had watched last week; then, a contemporary rhythm; and again, keening, wild, almost tuneless, before morphing into a well-known hymn. In the dark, she could see nothing but darker shadows. But somehow, her song seemed to bring color, a blurred kaleidoscope. And she sang, and watched the color, and dreamed.
     She was a grand dreamer. She often lacked the means and determination to fulfill these dreams, but she never stopped thinking of them. She dreamed of love, and of someday having a child of her own. She dreamed of living in far places, and of becoming foreign, like a teacher she had many years ago. She dreamed of living a hundred years past, and dressing in silk for dinner. She dreamed of standing tall, a Joan of Ark to the world searching for truth. She dreamed of novels, and imagined herself in them. She dreamed of dancing, twirling and swaying and resting in someone's arms. And her song grew from the dreams, and changed because of them.
     Near her heart lay her dreams and her secrets. She believed everyone ought to have secrets. Not dark secrets, no; but those private thoughts which only God knew of, those thoughts which were not yet ready, and perhaps never would be, to be shared. And those thoughts which could only be shared with a single person. Her dreams were often held captive within her. Her crush on that boy; that she shared with her closest friend alone. She held secret her fluctuating weight; that she spoke of only with her mother. Her mother also comforted her during those terrible deep periods of loneliness and self-hate. Her poetry was shared only with a younger sister. And her deepest fears and yearnings? Those she kept to herself. The stories of her life which her family misunderstood she saved for the baby, that far-distant brother whom she held now in her arms. She was not the favorite; in actuality she was the least. But she loved him as she loved no other, and he held a place in her heart all his own.
     And so she sang to him, as she sang not to the others. She sang free of inhibition and self-consciousness. She sang to share herself, and to give what she might be able. And although her song ought to be pitied, yet, it could not be, for the strength that was in it. She sang long after his breath became even and his eyes closed; she let her song wander through his dreams, and colored the shadows with secrets.