The heart monitor stopped, and Kakuro was gone. Her husband stayed by her side, holding onto hr hand faithfully to the last. He looked at her face; she was smiling and looked almost like she was sleeping. As he studied her face he noticed how few lines she had for her years, it was said that each line was the mark of great sadness in her life. He counted them, there were some for which he knew the reasons of their making, the deeper ones being the time when her father died, some were from losses of friends, smaller ones from minor crisis's such as losing a job. However there were two that he did not know the cause of, one he suspected was from the death of her mother, but the other he would never know. It was the mark of a deep scar from her youth, when she had been hurt more deeply than at any other time of her life.

He sighed and leant back, at ease for the first time in years, yet not at ease. The passing of a loved one is always hard, but at least he knew that she was in a better place. But he then started, for on Kakuro's bed was a small figure, the figure of a small orange cat. This cat looked too as if it had been through hardship, but as if sleeping there on that bed had taken most of it away. He sighed as he thought that the small cat seemed to have more right to that place than even he, and left it purring on the bed.

Both he and the orange cat fell asleep in the hospital room, as outside the window the cherry blossom tree was blooming, a sign of hope and new life, new love.