Chapter 33

33

Abraham Lincoln Panim quickly took out his keys from his pocket, and opened the front door to his house. He immediately saw his mother sitting on the couch, which was unusual in itself as in the evening, she rarely sat on the couch, usually going into her bedroom to prepare for the evening.

And not only was she sitting on the couch, but an envelope was on the floor, and his mother was holding a letter in her hands. She also appeared to be staring out into space.

“Mom, what’s going on?” asked Abraham Lincoln Panim.

Mrs. Panim broke out of her stupor, but still stared into space as she said, “Son, you rushed out of the house today so quick. I wanted to tell you that we received in the mail a letter from—“

“From who?”

“From … from your father.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim stopped in his tracks, and ended up sitting on the couch with his mother.

“I wanted to open the letter with you here. He never writes letters to us, never. I thought that this was something that you needed to hear, to read along with me when I read it, but I guess you had more important things to do.”

“Mom, if I would have known—“

“It doesn’t really matter now. I read the letter myself, and maybe it was better off that I read it myself first. It was the first letter we have gotten from him, ever.”

“What did the letter say? Is he doing OK? Is he finally going to be coming home?”

Mrs. Panim did not answer her son right away, and started to shake her head, almost to herself.

“Mom, what did dad say in that letter?”

“Abraham Lincoln Panim, your father isn’t coming home. You’re father is … he is not doing too well.”

Mrs. Panim handed Abraham Lincoln Panim the letter for him to read to himself. The letter said, in Mr. Panim’s own handwriting:

“Dear Diana:

I know that you must be startled to get this letter in the mail completely out of the blue. I am not a good letter writer, so please, just bear with me. I will try to explain the best that I can.

I admit that I am a coward. You were in the hospital all those years ago, and when you gave birth, I was happy and proud, and then I saw our son. I felt bad for him. I know he has gone through a lot, because what you don’t know is that I went through the same thing when I was a child.

I had the same features that I saw in our son when I was a child. I put up with a lot of ridicule from everyone. Even when I started to shed some of those characteristics as I got older, I was still pointed out as “the rat-faced boy.”

And what is worse, and the worst thing about all of this, is that I passed on that gene—or whatever it is--to our son.

I looked at him in the hospital, and my mind raced back to when I was a kid myself, all the stuff that I had to put up with. I simply could not do it again, so I became a coward, and I ran. I simply could not go through again what I had gone through myself as a child, so I ran away from it all.

I was scared, and yes, I was nothing but a coward. What I should have done and what I did were two different things. I was wrong, and I admit it. I left you and our son hanging there without me.

I know it doesn’t mean anything now, but I apologize for my behavior. Diana, I hope that the monthly checks have come in handy, and yes, I was selfish in what I did, but I felt the checks would help our son to grow into the man I knew he could be.”

“Checks?” Abraham Lincoln Panim asked his mother as he stopped reading the letter.

“Yes, your father has sent checks to you each and every month since you were born,” Mrs. Panim said. “They were sent directly from a bank outside our area, from another state, and there was never a return address on either the checks or the envelope they came in.

“Several years ago I tried to find out where they came from, but the president of the bank told me that he could not reveal any further information about the checks and where they came from to me. I thought that maybe your father would finally come home, but he never did. I guess the monthly checks gave me hope, but he never came home,”

Abraham Lincoln Panim again started to read the letter.

“Yes, I had the same problem that our son had. I had it through my early years, and I had it during my teen years, although much of it left me by the time I was in my mid teens. By the time I was in my early 20s, I just had the problem with my face, and when I met you, Diana, I still had the problem.

A little while after, I woke up one day, and I looked like every other man around. The problem left me! I could not believe it, and it came at just the right time, because it gave me a chance to know you, and that is when our relationship really blossomed.

Anyway, you know the rest. But let me bring you up to date with the reason I am writing this letter to you.

Seeing our son grow up from afar—“

Abraham Lincoln Panim looked up from the letter.

“What is he talking about, seeing me ”growing up from afar? What is he talking about?”

Mrs. Panim looked up and turned to her son. “Keep on reading, please keep on reading.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim turned back to the letter, and once again began to read to himself.

“Seeing my son grow up from afar has not been fun. As you can tell by the envelope that the letter came in, I actually don’t live very far away from where your house is. I live on the other side of the park. I have seen you, Diana, and our son from his earliest days. I saw you from afar, and I saw him, all covered up with his scarf as I was when I was a kid.

“I hope he has outgrown his affliction like I did, as I haven’t seen either of you walking around the neighborhood together in some time.”

“Dad hasn’t seen me because I haven’t taken walks with you for a while,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said to his mother. “So he has no idea how much I have changed, because without seeing you with me, he would have never recognized me.”

“Son, please read on.”

“Diana, I am sick, I mean really sick. I have been in and out of the hospital for the past few months, and the doctors don’t give me long to live. They actually, at least initially, didn’t know why I am so sick, ruling out cancer and a lot of other things.

I wasn’t willing, at first, to tell them my background, you know, about the characteristics I had when I was younger. But I ended up telling them, and they believe that my failing health has something to do with something called ‘zoomorphism’, a very rare disease where animal characteristics are found in humans. The doctors told me that they have discovered that many more people have this than first believed, but most people outgrow the problem as they get older.

They feel that while I did outgrow it, it had some lingering effects on my body, and since they have no other explanation for my current situation, they believe that those effects are greatly impacting my health.

Me, I know that I am dying … dying of a broken heart.”

“Dad … dad is sick?” Abraham Lincoln Panim said to his mother.

“Yes, son, but please read on.”

“I am a sick man. I am not asking for forgiveness. I don’t have long to go. Just writing this letter is taking a lot out of me.

Now that you know where I live, would it be possible, would it be something that you could arrange, Diana, for me to meet our son and to speak with you?

I am hoping he is doing well, and there is nothing that I would like more than to speak with him, even if for a few seconds, a few minutes.

I know that I don’t have much more to go. I just want to meet him, in person, and tell him how sorry I was for my behavior, and really, to tell both of you how sorry I am for what I did and what I put both of you through.

Please do not call me. Simply come to the address on the envelope, and please do it soon.

I hope that I have not upset you too much with this letter. Again, I am not asking for forgiveness, but I need to see both of you, and I want to meet my son and tell him how much I love him.

Thanks. I understand if you decide that a meeting with the two of you is not the right thing to do.”

Sincerely,

Marcus Panim”

“So Mom, are we going to see him?”

His mother looked up again at him as he gave the letter to her.

“Remember what Mrs. Stottle used to say all the time … ‘Do unto others as you would have the do unto you … treat other people the way you would like to be treated yourself.’”

“So that means we are going to see him?”

“I think if Mrs. Stottle were still with us, she would recite that saying and leave it up to us to decide. So what do you think?”

“I—“

“I think that we should get there sooner rather than later.”

“How about—“

“Yes, I think we will go on Sunday morning to see your father.”

With that, Abraham Lincoln Panim got up from the couch and went into his bedroom. He sat on his bed, then laid down in it, and picked up his hand mirror, which he had left on the bed when he went to see Ariel.

He looked in the mirror.

“My father … I am finally going to meet him,” he thought while he gazed into the mirror. “Why did he have to leave like he did? He really hurt mom …

“I am sure that he will find me as good looking as everyone else does. Ariel doesn’t want me, I don’t care at this point. My father wants me, and I just know that when he sees me, he will be … “

He stopped his thought, trying to think of a word that would fit.

“Impressed. Yes, impressed. He will be so impressed at how I look.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim put down the mirror, and closed his eyes.

He fell asleep quickly.