Chapter 3

3

A phone rang in the maternity ward, and a nurse picked up the phone.

“Maternity ward,” the nurse said.

“Yes, this is Dr. Newsom, and SHE is on down to see you,” with the emphasis on the word “she.”

“Should we let her see her little … bundle of joy?” the nurse asked with a little giggle.

“She is going to have to see that kid sometime, we held it off for long enough, let her see her kid, no matter what, and have a nurse, or maybe even a doctor go with her,” said the doctor. “This way, we will have backup if she … well … if she can’t take all the joy she is going to get from seeing this kid.”

As the nurse hung up the phone, Mrs. Panim entered the maternity ward with her IV still fully attached to her arm.

“I want to see my baby!” she yelled at the nurses stationed there.

“But m’am,” one of the nurses said, “You still have on the hospital gown on, and —“

“Let her in, but go with her to see her kid,” said the nurse who was on the phone with Dr. Newsom. “Go with her, and help her if she needs it.”

As they walked together further into the ward, the nurse, a young woman seemingly right out of nurse’s school, with long blond hair under her nurse’s cap, said to Mrs. Panim, “You were out for a couple of days, so we put your baby with others, and you can view the baby through the glass for now. I am sure you will be able to hold your child soon.”

The nurse and Mrs. Panim went further into to the ward, navigated all the twists and turns, and finally came to the viewing area, where some of the newborns could be seen behind glass.

Mrs. Panim hurriedly looked from one baby to another.

“Which one is mine?” she asked. “Is it a boy or a girl? Which one is mine?”

All the babies could be seen clearly as Mrs., Panim’s eyes darted from one baby to another.

The nurse knocked on the window, alerting another nurse that she needed her help. The nurse tending to the babies went to the far back of the area, almost instinctively, and turned around one baby who was facing the wall in the opposite direction of the other babies.

“There is your baby, m’am,” nervously stated the nurse with Mrs. Panim, who put her arms on the new mother’s shoulders when she pointed out her new child. “That is your son,” she said, as the inside nurse turned the baby around so Mrs. Panim could see him.

As Mrs. Panim caught sight of her son for the very first time, she smiled a broad smile, but the nurse holding onto her shoulders passed out at her side. Other nurses and doctors attended to the fallen nurse, but Mrs. Panim kept her eyes straight on her new son.

“He is beautiful,” she said. “Simply beautiful.” I can’t wait until I can hold him, feed him, bathe him … “ Mrs. Panim said, oblivious to the fallen nurse and to the hubbub surrounding her baby, and the reason that the nurse helping her passed out.

Her new son looked like a rat, had the face of a rat, was hairy from his head down to his toes, and although he did not have a tail, that is where the tale of “Abraham Lincoln Panim” actually begins.