"I did," he said softly. "Thank you."
"Oh." The woman's mouth opened, then closed. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."
"It's okay."
He shifted his backpack, ready to keep walking, and the little silver pin attached to its left strap caught the overhead light. It was a swallow with its wings outstretched, no bigger than a quarter. One wing had a shallow bend. Its left eye was an empty setting where a red piece of glass had once been. A few loops of navy thread held it firmly to the fabric because the clasp had broken years ago.
The woman stopped so abruptly that Noah thought she might be ill.
"Where," she whispered, "did you get that?"
He glanced around. "Get what?"
"The bird. On your bag."
"Oh. It was my mom's." He touched the pin with one finger. "She said it was lucky, but I don't really believe in lucky things. I just like having it with me."
The woman reached toward it, then drew her hand back without touching him. Her face had gone white, and the muscles around her mouth were trembling.
"May I see the back?" she asked.
Noah hesitated. His mother had worn the swallow pinned inside her coat on cold days. When she was sick, she kept it on the bedside table where she could see it. After the funeral, Noah had found it in the blue box where his father stored her wedding ring and the photographs that hurt too much to hang. He had asked permission to carry it, and his father had sewn it onto the backpack himself. No stranger had ever asked to examine it.
"You can look," he said. "But I don't take it off."
"Of course. Of course not."
He tilted the strap forward. The woman leaned close and read the tiny scratched letters on the reverse, half hidden beneath the thread. Her knees seemed to weaken. She caught the edge of a nearby bench and sat down, still staring at the swallow.
"I made that," she said.
Noah frowned. "What?"
"I made that pin. Thirty-eight years ago. I used an old silver spoon my father left me and a little jeweler's saw. The wing bent when I dropped it on our kitchen floor. The red eye fell out the following winter. I was never able to find it." She looked up at him with wet eyes. "I made it for my daughter, on her tenth birthday."
The noise of the terminal seemed to retreat. Noah stood very still, the suitcase beside him.
"What was your daughter's name?" he asked.
The woman swallowed. "Claire. Claire Whitmore."