Thinking about how little of her life Katniss managed to keep throughout the war, and how much it matters to me that, amongst the things she salvages and guards as precious, there's Haymitch's spile. How, even when she's mad with rage at him for leaving Peeta behind, she keeps the pearl that Peeta gave her, the one thing that makes her feel close to him, hidden in the spile's parachute. Almost as if Haymitch was guarding him, still. Almost as if she knows he's the one adult that will keep fighting for them, no matter what.
How, after the war, when she recounts the few family treasures that still remain to her, Peeta's and Haymitch's gifts are always, always amongst them.
Underneath the clothes, I keep the few items I had on me when I was lifted from the arena. My mockingjay pin. Peeta’s token, the gold locket with photos of my mother and Prim and Gale inside. A silver parachute that holds a spile for tapping trees, and the pearl Peeta gave me a few hours before I blew out the force field.
The plant book, the hunting jacket, my parents’ wedding photo, and the personal contents of my drawer. My mockingjay pin now lives with Cinna’s outfit, but there’s the gold locket and the silver parachute with the spile and Peeta’s pearl. I knot the pearl into the corner of the parachute, bury it deep in the recesses of the bag, as if it’s Peeta’s life and no one can take it away as long as I guard it.
I think how there’s nothing in Johanna’s drawer but her government-issued clothes. That she doesn’t have one thing in the world to call her own. “It’s okay. You can look at my stuff if you want.”
Johanna unlatches my locket, studying the pictures of Gale, Prim, and my mother. She opens the silver parachute and pulls out the spile and slips it onto her pinkie. [...] Then she finds the pearl Peeta gave me.
I find a box with my father’s hunting jacket, our plant book, my parents’ wedding photo, the spile Haymitch sent in, and the locket Peeta gave me in the clock arena.
