To all the lizards who offered sympathy and hopeful words after our cat Hootie ran away and disappeared some six weeks ago in the aftermath of a natural disaster:

This morning a kind lady called and said that she had seen one of my lost-cat flyers at a local vet’s, and it sounded a lot like her new cat Jack, a stray who had showed up on her doorstep about five weeks back. The timing was right, but her place is more than fifteen miles away and on the other side of what passes for a town around here.

Of course I went to see, telling myself all the way that the odds were a thousand to one it was just some other furry black cat. But when she and her husband, who have ten other cats, tempted “Jack” out from under their porch, it was Hootie without any shadow of doubt.

So a miracle, after all.

He’s home now, but cowering in the corner like he did the very first day we brought him from the shelter. I have the feeling he might actually have been happier living what amounted to the life of a feline beach bum at the other place.