Off our right wingtip, the sawtooth mountaintops of the Sierra Nevada beckoned as though dipped in powdered sugar. I was tempted to wake Savannah, to share the postcard view, but she looked so peaceful that I thought the better of it. She was, after all, sleeping for two. There’d be plenty of opportunities for sightseeing when we were a family. From perpetual foster child to the head of my own real clan. It had taken only more than four decades. I smiled inside.

A family. So this is what serenity must feel like.

After more than two hours in the air, I hooked a right northeast of Sacramento, then followed the highway that wended up from the little Gold Rush-era burg of Placerville, to the airport at South Lake Tahoe. That way, even if visibility deteriorated, which it showed no indication of doing, I could reasonably minimize the chances of becoming personally acquainted with any of the area’s 10,000-foot peaks. The Sierra was a veritable graveyard of airplanes whose pilots disrespected Mama Nature and paid the price. The Duck and I didn’t intend to join them.

We were twelve minutes from landing, according to the Garmin GPS mounted on my steering yoke. Oakland Center had just instructed me to squawk VFR and change to the advisory frequency for traffic pattern entry at South Lake Tahoe, when something on the ground a mile or so ahead of us and slightly to the north glinted brightly, almost blindingly. It looked to me like a signaling mirror, like somebody trying to get our attention. Whatever it was seemed to be coming from deep in the pines between two jagged, granite crests.

“Where are we?” Savannah said, stretching her arms and yawning.

“About ten miles out of Tahoe. Nice nap?”

“Wonderful nap. Very restful. What are you looking at?”

“I’m not exactly sure.”

I banked left to get a better look, hugging mountainsides as close as prudence would allow.

Had we taken off from Rancho Bonita one minute earlier that morning, or a minute later, the angle of the sun would’ve been lower or higher, and I might not have seen what I saw. I wouldn’t have seen it had there been more clouds, as the weather gurus initially predicted, or had I been focused on my prelanding checklist, as I probably should’ve been. The Buddha believes that what happens in life happens for a reason. I still don’t know the reason I saw what I saw that morning. But looking down through the pines as I flew over them, I glimpsed a large piece of polished aluminum protruding from the snow.

It looked like the twisted, skeletal remains of an airplane wing.

“South Lake Tahoe area traffic, Cessna Four Charlie Lima is five miles southwest of the field, descending through 8,000 feet. Crosswind entry, runway One-Eight, full-stop, South Lake Tahoe.”

I radioed our intentions and instinctively leaned forward in my seat, scanning the sky. If there were any other aircraft landing or departing the field, I couldn’t see them. The radio was silent. A good sign.

We turned base at pattern altitude. The view of Lake Tahoe off the Duck’s passenger side was spectacular. Whitecaps danced on water the color of gunmetal. Savannah gazed serenely out the window, smiling to herself. That was always one thing I loved about her, her willingness to let beautiful moments speak for themselves, rather than diluting them with the obvious, “Isn’t that beautiful?”

“South Lake Tahoe area traffic, Cessna Four Charlie Lima is turning final,” I radioed, “runway One-Eight, South Lake Tahoe.”

The Duck sniffed out the runway and settled onto the asphalt as gentle as a sigh. One of our better landings, if I do say so myself.

“You should think about being a pilot,” Savannah said, teasing me. “You’re not half bad at it.”

“Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll definitely give it some thought.”

I broadcast that we were “down and clear” of the runway, and taxied toward an arrow and a sign that said, “Transient parking.” A tall, gangly ramp attendant in his mid-twenties, wearing faded Levis and a florescent green safety vest over a hooded San Francisco 49ers sweatshirt, directed us to a tie-down spot in front of Summit Aviation Services, the local fixed-base operator. After I’d shut down the engine, he set the wheel chocks and began chaining down the Duck’s wings to the tarmac, then held Savannah’s door open for her.

“I’m Chad. Welcome to Tahoe,” he said, brushing his long, unkempt dirty blond hair out of his face. He had sallow eyes, ice blue. “Where’re you guys in from?”

I wanted to ask him at what point did people begin referring to both men and women synonymously as “guys?” But I didn’t.

“Rancho Bonita,” I said, “by way of Los Angeles.”

“Sweet. My girlfriend lives down in Rancho Bonita — actually, my former girlfriend. We still talk pretty much every day, though. One of those deals where we tell each other pretty much everything. No holding back. Maybe that’s why we broke up. Who knows, right?”

“Something to strive toward in any relationship, that degree of openness and emotional intimacy,” Savannah said, looking directly at me with one eyebrow raised. “Wouldn’t you agree, Logan?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“Maybe you know her,” Chad said opening the Duck’s baggage door and taking out our luggage. “Her name’s Cherry Rosales. She works at Nordstrom, the store downtown. Sells jewelry.”

“Actually,” I said, “I’m more of a Sears kind of guy.”

The air was cold enough that we could see our breath. Chad asked how long we planned to stay and whether we needed any recommendations on accommodations in the Tahoe area. Savannah gave him the name of the local bed-and-breakfast where she’d made reservations.

“As for how long we’re staying,” she said, “that all depends on how well my pilot and I are getting along.”

“We’re getting married,” I said, clarifying matters.

“Seriously?” Chad’s expression implied that people our age were as likely to croak from some incurable disease as they were to get hitched.

“Yeah. Seriously.”

“Hey, that’s totally cool. Congratulations.”

Savannah said we’d need a rental car, to which Chad replied, “No problem.” I said that the Duck’s gas tanks would need to be topped off to which he offered the same response.

“Got your complimentary hot coffee inside, sodas, cookies, peanut butter pretzels, what have you. Feel free to help yourself. Marlene’ll hook you up with all the paperwork for the car and your fuel order. I’ll bring your bags in. Anything else I can do for you folks today?”

“You can call the local search and rescue team for me. I saw something when we were flying in. West, about 10 miles out, up in the hills. It looked like a downed airplane.”

“You’re shittin’ me. A downed airplane? Really?” Chad promptly apologized to Savannah for swearing and said he was trying to break the profanity habit.

No big deal, Savannah said. She’d heard worse.

“I haven’t heard of any planes missing for a while,” Chad said, “either coming in or going out of here, but, hey, you never know, right?”

“Could be it’s been up there for some time and nobody noticed,” I said.

The kid nodded, then snapped his fingers like he’d just thought of something.

“Hey, what if it’s Amelia Earhart?”

“Hey,” I said, tipping him a five-spot, “what if it’s not?”

The aforementioned Marlene, Summit Aviation Services’ zaftig, forty-something receptionist, made Chad seem downright rude by comparison. She waived the overnight parking fee for the Duck because we were buying gas, and upgraded our rental car from a compact to a GMC Yukon at no additional cost. Then she brewed a fresh pot of coffee and insisted on serving us oatmeal cookies more freshly baked than the ones that had been sitting on her desk.