As soon as our plane hit the ground, the phone rang.
We had just landed - still donned in t-shirts, shorts, tanned skin - at the Philadelphia airport. We were home from our Dominican honeymoon.
The call informed us that the family cat had died. We waited for our luggage, hopped a tram to the hotel where our car was parked, held in tears until we merged onto I-95 to get back to West Chester.
When we arrived, little, black Midnight mewed, alarmed, at us. She could not understand why Smokey wasn't moving. His little body was still curled into his cat-bed. He lay face-down.
Sitting on the sofa, we held Midnight for as long as she'd let us, feeling the need to console her.
The whole timber-framed house creaked and groaned constantly, all night long. One might blame it on the arriving cold front and falling snow.... but, perhaps, the house was exhaling a breath, a soul that night.
The following morning, three brothers dug a hole beneath the snow.
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