Miryam smiled at the cat weaving in and out of her ankles and listened to the voice on the phone.  It was over in less than a moment.  Her cat meowed, a question in the rising note at the end and she looked down and cupped her arms.  Instantly the cat, black with the long and silky hair of a Norwegian Forest cat and the body of a panther compressed into ten pounds of rippling muscle, was in her arms and moving to her shoulder where he draped himself around her neck, rubbing his cheek against hers, purring.  She laughed.  "Yes, it is done, Wicket.  Shall we tell him?" she asked.  The cat meowed and went even more boneless than it had been, draping his head between her breasts.

She knocked on a door and entered what was obviously a sick room.   The patient was laying propped up in bed, a cat of his own curled up at his ankles.  Wicket exchanged meows with the other cat as she sat in the chair next to the bed, taking the man's hand in hers with a gentle, affectionate smile.  She tucked the wild mass of hair as black as the cat's behind her ears revealing a heart shaped face with almond shaped eyes of chocolate brown, winged eyebrows  and flawless ivory skin tinged a delicate natural rose on the high cheekbones, and sat back as Wicket descended to the bed and the company of the other cat.  "It was delivered yesterday morning.  He apologized for not letting us know yesterday, but the violence on the West Bank kept him out of the city until this morning."

The man on the bed nodded tiredly. He was so frail now, so thin, every movement was difficult, exhausting. "I am relieved," he added, each word a trial for him. Even so he squeezed, ever so slightly, the hand in his. "I can be free now?" he asked, his rheumy and faded blue eyes meeting Miryam's.

She smiled again and bent to rest her cheek against his hand for a moment.  "Yes. I envy you, you know.  But then it is never forever, it is always as Adoni wills.  How many lives..." she let the words trail off and plucked a tissue from the box by the bed, wiping the moisture from the corners of his eyes.  "We have done well, my love."  

"We will meet again. Destiny. I will love you again."

"I have no doubt of it.  But I shall miss you.  You are so much more clear-sighted than I, so closer to the core.  I have learned so much from you and am still so ignorant."

"Hush. You think in my youth I was wise?  Watch over Dia. Tell her I am sorry to hand her this burden. Find a guardian for her. And trust in Adoni."

"Be easy, Elihu, be at peace.  It is done, the pieces are in place.  The burden...this is her task, she and it were created for each other.  When it is finished she will have her reward," Miryam said.  She smoothed the thin hair away from his brow.  "So be at peace, my darling."

"And you. Your task is not hers. It was not revealed to me. For that I am sorry.  I love you, Miryam," he said, and sighed as the last breath left his body.  The cat at his feet was gone as the breath vanished into the air.

"And I you, Elihu," she whispered and wept.  Wicket howled.