The Last Visit

I remember the night it happened, back when I was in the eighth grade, though I’m a junior in college now. It was a summer night, hot and humid, and I was sleeping in my room in our old farmhouse outside of Millbrook. The windows were open, but there was no breeze, just the drone of crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl from the distant woods.

I woke to the feeling of someone shaking my shoulder, gently, insistently. My eyes fluttered open, and in the faint moonlight filtering through the curtains, I saw my grandfather, Papa Joe, sitting on the edge of my bed. He looked so real, so solid, as if he’d just stepped out of a photograph. But Papa Joe lived two towns over, and he never came to visit without calling first. ‘Dad’s not here,’ I thought, confused. I tried to speak, but my voice came out as a croak. ‘Papa?’ I finally managed.

He didn’t smile. His face was pale, and his eyes seemed hollow, like he was looking through me. ‘I wanted to tell you,’ he said, his voice low and distant, as if it came from a deep well, ‘I’m going away. Somewhere far.’ I blinked, trying to make sense of it. ‘What do you mean?’ I asked, but he just stared. ‘Don’t forget your boots,’ he said, and then he was gone, and I fell back into a dreamless sleep.

The next morning, my mother woke me with a gentle shake. Her face was streaked with tears. ‘Sweetheart,’ she said, ‘your grandfather passed away last night. Heart attack.’ I sat up, my heart pounding. ‘But I saw him last night,’ I blurted out, and then I told her everything. She listened, her hand covering her mouth. When I finished, she pulled me into a hug. ‘He came to say goodbye,’ she whispered.

I didn’t understand then, but as I grew older, I pieced things together. Papa Joe had been a firefighter in his youth, and he always said, ‘When it’s your time, you go, but you make sure you leave your boots by the door.’ It was an old superstition, a way to keep from being called back. That night, when he appeared, he was wearing his old firefighter boots, scuffed and worn. I hadn’t noticed at the time, but his feet were bare in that vision, and his boots were sitting at the foot of my bed, as if he’d kicked them off before leaving.

I never spoke of it again, but sometimes, on hot summer nights, I still hear the creak of a bedspring and the soft shuffle of feet, and I know Papa Joe is still wandering, looking for his boots, looking for his way home.