please come back

I slid my arms under him and rolled him onto his back. He was alive, though just barely, his eyes glassy, his face sunken and white. Then I saw the gashes across his midsection and nearly fainted. They were wide and deep and clotted with soil, and the ground where hed lain was muddy from blood. I tried to pull the rags of his shirt over the wounds without looking at them. I heard Ricky shout from the backyard. IM HERE! I screamed, and maybe I shouldve said more, like danger or blood, but I couldnt form the words. All I could think was that grandfathers were supposed to die in beds, in hushed places humming with machines, not in heaps on the sodden reeking ground with ants marching over them, a brass letter opener clutched in one trembling hand.

A letter opener. That was all hed had to defend himself. I slid it from his finger and he grasped helplessly at the air, so I took his hand and held it. My nailbitten fingers twinned with his, pale and webbed with purple veins. I have to move you, I told him, sliding one arm under his back and another under his legs. I began to lift, but he moaned and went rigid, so I stopped. I couldnt bear to hurt him. I couldnt leave him either, and there was nothing to do but wait, so I gently brushed loose soil from his arms and face and thinning white hair. Thats when I noticed his lips moving.

His voice was barely audible, something less than a whisper. I leaned down and put my ear to his lips. He was mumbling, fading in and out of lucidity, shifting between English and Polish. I dont understand, I whispered. I repeated his name until his eyes seemed to focus on me, and then he drew a sharp breath and said, quietly but clearly, Go to the island, Yakob. Here its not safe. It was the old paranoia. I squeezed his hand and assured him we were fine, he was going to be fine. That was twice in one day that Id lied to him. I asked him what happened, what animal had hurt him, but he wasnt listening. Go to the island, he repeated. Youll be safe there. Promise me. I will. I promise. What else could I say I thought I could protect you, he said. I shouldve told you a long time ago I could see the life going out of him.

With that he sank back, spent and fading. I told him I loved him. And then he seemed to disappear into himself, his gaze drifting past me to the sky, bristling now with stars. A moment later Ricky crashed out of the underbrush. He saw the old man limp in my arms and fell back a step. Oh man. Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus, he said, rubbing his face with his hands, and as he babbled about finding a pulse and calling the cops and did you see anything in the woods, the strangest feeling came over me. I let go of my grandfathers body and stood up, every nerve ending tingling with an instinct I didnt know I had. There was something in the woods, all rightI could feel it.

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