"Don't touch that piano."
The woman spoke loudly enough to turn three heads and lower a newspaper across the Aster Lounge at Northbridge International Airport. Ten-year-old Nia Lawson froze with her fingers still folded around a packet of sheet music. She had not touched a single key. She had merely stopped beside the grand piano, studying the curve of its polished black lid and the little brass lamp above the music stand, because it was the most beautiful instrument she had ever seen outside a photograph.
The attendant approaching her wore a fitted navy jacket with brass buttons and a rectangular gold name badge that read MARGARET VOSS. Her blond hair was arranged in a perfect knot, and she carried herself with the kind of careful efficiency that made people step aside before she asked. She looked from the piano to Nia's cream cardigan, plaid school skirt, and worn black shoes, then down at the wrinkled pages clutched against the child's chest. Her expression suggested she had already decided what kind of trouble was coming.
"I wasn't going to touch it without asking," Nia said.
"It's a professional instrument, sweetheart. Not something to play with while your parents are busy."
Nia's face warmed, but she did not look away. Two cream ribbons were tied at the ends of her neatly braided hair, and her mother had spent twenty minutes that morning making sure each one matched. She had put on the school uniform because it was her nicest outfit, the one without a faded elbow or a loose hem. Now, under the attendant's gaze, she wished she had chosen anything else.
"I know it's a professional instrument," she answered. "That's why I wanted to ask."
Behind her, a man in an expensive charcoal coat turned a page of his newspaper without reading it. A woman near the windows stopped stirring her coffee. Beyond the glass, a passenger jet crept toward a runway blurred by low gray cloud, and the airport's departures board changed another green departure time to amber. Nobody in the lounge knew that Nia's life had been arranged around the next twenty-four hours, or that every minute of the delay seemed to be moving something precious farther away.
Her mother, Camille Lawson, was at the airline service desk, still trying to find out when their delayed Boston flight might leave. The airline had issued lounge vouchers to stranded passengers, which was the only reason they could sit among the leather chairs and silver coffee trays. Camille was thirty-six, with tired eyes, a denim jacket, and a work bag whose zipper had been broken for two winters. When she saw a uniformed woman confronting Nia, she ended the conversation and returned at once.
"Is something wrong?" Camille asked.
"Your daughter was about to use the piano," Margaret replied. "We have rules for a reason."
"She asked first," Camille said, looking at Nia.
"I was going to," Nia whispered. "She told me not to before I could."
Camille rested a hand on her shoulder. "Then we'll leave it alone. We don't need trouble today."