Four

And so, last night, all four of them were reunited. They all slept together in the Big Bed. The two cats, properly lazy and content with both humans home, curled into the Big Male who Scooped The Poo Box and the Big Female who feeds them. They purred and curled into the warm humans, twitching with cottony, floaty dreams of chasing a bug or seeing the yummiest bird in the entire universe perch outside the window.

The woman, meanwhile, curled into her husband. Silently, as if well-rehearsed for centuries, they turned their bodies to keep the cats on the bed while holding each other in an intimate convex only lovers can achieve. She had returned from a distant land of heat and family, and the return to the Big Bed, back to the arms of her lover and husband. And he, the husband, found himself in a sea of deep sighs, the contented species of exhalation, having her back after a week. The Big Bed had grown too big, and he found himself adrift without her. Now, order would be restored and the house would be alive again with song, laughter, love and the warmth that makes living worth while.

Outside, the rain lightly fell on the ferns and the trees, all beginning the long, seasonal revival of green. The smell of damp earth wafted through the open window, and the humans and cats inside dozed in a loving pile, surrounded by the white noise of rain and the gentle caresses of cotton, flannel, body heat and nature.