I set my thumb on the page and close the book.

Nearby, the metal cross glints in the sun. A skiff of sand whirls in spirals around it. What a mystery! I mean, how the devil do they do it, these tiny, individual grains? How do they swirl about in communion with each other? Create this thoughtless symmetry? Nothing is random in nature; it is all pattern, pattern, pattern.

I open the book again. The wind riffles the pages. I find my place and read the entry again. The mule brays, irritated. I place my finger under the line and trace the words while I read once more, now aloud. Still their pattern escapes me.

GM to rescue? She will live?

Rescue. Somebody came to his rescue? Then why is he dead?

And who is She? There was no she, just this single man in his airplane. No second body lies here, no female body. Besides, Velázquez said nothing about a She.

On the other hand, Velázquez never did reveal a single detail he was bound to keep quiet, did he? Velázquez would never have mentioned this woman if her presence here were a secret.

The wind dies briefly. The sand settles back to earth, as if it had never dared to leave, and I believe I can hear the sound of my blood as it wooshes down my veins.

Well, then. Suppose there was a woman on board, a She. A woman whose presence was a secret. A She who was rescued, as the line suggests, while the man who wrote the line was left behind to die. A woman who flew airplanes. A woman who meant so much to this man, this skeleton, that he would thank God for her survival, even in the face of his own annihilation. A woman, let’s say, who had also disappeared during the spring of 1937—famously so—less than a month before this airplane went down. Two grains of sand, moving in communion with each other.

My God, I think.

Why did I never see it before?

I slide the leather book into the pocket of my coat. My fingers are numb, even inside the gloves. Already the sun falls, the air turns, the wind grows colder against my cheek. The mule brays once more, like he means it, lady. It’s time to go.