37
Neither Mrs. Panim nor Abraham Lincoln Panim heard about
Mr. Panim for many weeks.
The monthly checks still came, again directly from the bank
without Mr. Panim’s home address.
A few times, Mrs. Panim retrieved the letter that Mr. Panim
had written to them some time before, copied the return address onto a new
envelope, and wrote her husband a new letter, but she never received a return
letter from him.
Abraham Lincoln Panim suggested to his mother on more than
one occasion that the two should go over to his home again, but she would not
do so.
“He wanted us over there the one time, and we obliged him,”
she would tell her son over and over again. “If he wanted us to come over
another time, he would have written me back.
“He never did, or at least, he hasn’t yet, so until he
does, I think we should stay away from him, at least for now.”
In the ensuing weeks, and with the weather warming up,
Abraham Lincoln Panim continued to take walks in the early evening, but he did
not enjoy the walks as he once had.
People did not stare at him when he would walk to the park,
and into it, as they once did, and he found that he was staring more at them
than they were staring at him.
Each time he had his walk, he would sit down on the same
bench where he met Ariel and Snuff, but he never saw either one of them again.
And again, he found that he was staring at people more than
they were staring at him.
He also would periodically look down the row of park
benches to look for the older woman who seemed to be always sitting on one of
the far-off benches, but she also was nowhere to be found, even though Abraham
Lincoln Panim still looked for her.
With little to keep his interest, his time in the park
became shorter as the weather became warmer, and he spent less and less time in
the park during the ensuing weeks.
But he still made the walks, almost out of habit, and he
did not give up hope that he would see Ariel and Snuff, and the older woman in
the distance, once again.
One evening, he dutifully made one of his walks, and once
again, he went unnoticed by others, him staring at them more than they were
staring at him.
He sat down on the same bench, looked for Ariel and Snuff,
but they were nowhere to be found.
Abraham Lincoln Panim sat for a few minutes, and then felt
it was time to leave. As he had continued to do, he looked down the row of
benches, but this time, he saw what looked like the older woman sitting a few
benches away, like she had done before.
He got up, and ran towards where she was, and stopped at
the bench where he had seen her sitting.
But as he ran over to where he thought she was, seemingly
in a blink of an eye, she wasn’t there anymore. He briefly looked around, but
she was gone.
“I thought I saw her,” he thought to himself. “I know I saw
her. She was here, I just know it.”
As he walked back to his house from the park that night, he
didn’t see anyone pass him, which he found very unusual. And when he got to his
house and took out the key to open the front door, he found his mother sitting
on the couch, holding a letter and weeping. There was also a medium-sized box
on the couch which appeared to be unopened.
“Mom, what’s the matter?”
Mrs. Panim tried to get out the words, but her tears washed
away any hope that she could say something. Instead, she handed over the letter
she was holding to her son, who read the letter to himself:
“Mrs.
Panim:
I regret
to inform you that your husband, Mr. Marcus Panim, passed away after a long
illness.
Adhering
to his wishes, he was cremated, with his ashes in the enclosed urn. He had no
worldly possessions, but I am sending you this last, final check, which amounts
to all the money he had in the bank.
He wanted
you and your son to have it. He had nothing else to give you but this money. I
have already taken out my final pay from his account, and I have also paid off
any outstanding debts that he had.
Again, I
am sorry to have had to tell you this way, but it might be for the better.
Be Well,
Nurse
Stottlemeyer”
Abraham Lincoln Panim dropped the note on the floor, and he
sat down next to his mother, who continued to cry. He put his arms around his
mother, but no tears came out of his eyes.
“What did I become?,” he thought to himself. “Dad, you left
us before you could finish your sentence … how could you do that to me?
“Dad, what did I become?”
