“Lullaby” takes place in Cebolleta, New Mexico in the 1970s, alternating between flashbacks and the present. Ayah, an elderly Navajo woman, waits for her husband, Chato, by the creek. It is winter, and heavy snow falls on Ayah, who shields herself with her son Jimmie’s old army blanket. Not wanting to dwell on memories of Jimmie, she recalls the way her mother and grandmother taught her to weave wool into thick blankets in her youth. The day Jimmie was born, Ayah’s mother helped her give birth; since then, she has given birth so many times that the memories have merged together. Jimmie is dead now, killed in a helicopter crash while serving in the army, but to Ayah it feels more like he simply failed to come home. Since Ayah does not speak English, Chato had to translate when the military officer delivered the bad news. Ayah was never able to bury Jimmie’s body, and she mourned him throughout the years, especially in moments when the family needed him most.
Slipping from one memory to the next, Ayah remembers the day white doctors came to take her younger children away. She is alone at the shack with Danny and Ella when they come, and she cannot understand what they are saying. Hoping to appease the doctors, Ayah signs their papers, only to become afraid when they refuse to leave. She takes Danny and Ella and flees into the hills, staying there until Chato returns. The next day, the doctors return and take the children with them, claiming they have inherited a rare disease. Chato does nothing to stop them, telling Ayah that they have her signature and that is enough. Ayah despises Chato for teaching her to sign her name, and she mourns Jimmie all the more because, had he been there, he would have warned her not to sign. Years later, Chato’s employer—the rancher—evicts him and Ayah from their home because Chato is too old to work. It satisfies Ayah to see that Chato’s attempts at assimilation and loyalty have not earned him better treatment.
In the present, Ayah emerges from her reverie and goes looking for Chato. He is supposed to be cashing their welfare check at a bar in Cebolleta. On past trips, she has found him drunk afterwards, having spent all their money on wine. Chato is not at the bar, but the bar owner—who Ayah knows to be racist toward Navajos—and his patrons look at her with fear, which satisfies her. These looks remind her of how Danny and Ella looked at her on the rare occasions they were brought home to visit. She has not seen them now for many years, and this loss is more painful to her than if they had died. Ayah has many other children who died young, but knowing where they are buried brings her some small comfort.
Ayah leaves the bar and finds Chato walking along the sidewalk. He has been forgetting things lately, and he looks at her with some confusion when she catches up to him. Ayah suggests they find a place to rest, and together they huddle beneath Jimmie’s blanket in the shelter of some boulders. Ayah watches the cold night wear on, marveling at the beauty of the sky. She knows with sudden clarity that Chato will freeze to death, but she takes comfort that the wine will help him sleep through it. Tucking the blanket around him triggers a memory of Ella as a baby, and Ayah sings aloud a lullaby passed down from her mother and grandmother. The lullaby, which she cannot recall singing to her own lost children, likens elements of nature—the earth and the sky—to family members who are always together, as they should be.
