Chapter 40

40

Abraham Lincoln Panim walked home, and again, he felt that nobody was staring at him at all. In fact, for a late spring afternoon, he discovered that he was just about the only one on the street at the time.

He walked straight home, opened the door, and he saw his mother sitting on the couch.

“Mom, what are you doing home so early?” he asked her.

“Sit down, son,” she said.

Abraham Lincoln Panim took of his jacket and his scarf and put these things on another chair near the couch, which is where he put his briefcase. He then sat down on the couch opposite his mother.

“Mom, what is going on? In school today—“

“I know what happened in school today. I did not want it to happen that way, but let me explain. First of all, that is the reason that I am home so early. Let me—“

“What is going on?”

“Let me tell you. Please let me talk.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim slid back on the couch, and listened to what his mother had to say.

“This has been a very difficult time for both you and me right now, what with your father and everything else. And then, to get this thrown on top of everything—“

“What—what about my job?”

“I am getting to that. Let me explain.

“A few weeks ago, the days that I came home very late from school, I was at various conferences with the Board of Education. They only have a certain amount of money that can go around, and they were talking about budget cuts.

“One way that they cut the budget that they have is to get rid of teachers, get rid of administrators, and even get rid of schools. And that is what they were talking about during these meetings that I attended.

“But mom, what does that have to do with us?”

“Let me continue.

“One of the reasons that I was at these meetings is that our school was being looked at as one that might be closed down at the end of the school year. There is a similar school on the other side of town, and the Board of Education believed that that school could handle both their own pupil population and the new population of students coming from our school.

“So after long and hard deliberation, they decided to close our school down. Some of our teachers will go to the other school, but for all intents and purposes, or school is history after the school year ends.”

“But what about now? How does that affect me …?”

Abraham Lincoln Panim knew that he had made a mistake with that question, and he rephrased it.

“ … how does that affect you and me?”

“Well, since everything will be moving over to the other school during the next school year, after the current school year is over and done with, I am out of a job. The other school has a principal who has been there forever, but there is no place for me, so I am out of a job in a few days. I am done.”

“Mom, that is terrible,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said to his mother as he moved closer to her and gave her a hug.

After he let go of the embrace, he saw that she had started to cry.

“Mom, I am sure there is some other school you can work at.”

“No, because of the budget cuts, there is no place for me in this school system. I am done. I think I am going to have to retire, retire before I wanted to.”

Tears were streaming down Mrs. Panim’s face. There was a long pause, and then Abraham Lincoln Panim asked his mother:

“Mom, what about me¿ I am sure the school on the other side of town needs someone like me … I am so young, so good at what I do—“

Mrs. Panim wiped away her tears and tried to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out of her mouth.

“Mom … mom … ?

Mrs. Panim wiped away some more tears.

“Abraham Lincoln Panim … you are also out of a job.”

“Why mom … how can I be out of a job? I did a—“

“Remember, I pulled a lot of strings for you to even get that job. You had no experience, you had no teaching license, you had nothing. But you filled a need when we were in a pinch. We had no idea that Mr. Praeger would be out as long as he was, and you kind of fell into the job.

“Now that I don’t have a job and I can’t pull any strings anymore, you are also out of a job.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim stood up.

“How can that be … how can that be … ?

“In fact, Mr. Praeger is well enough to come back right now, and the Board of Education wants him to come back and teach the last few days before the end of school, and they are retaining him for next year, even with the budget cuts. Maybe he knows someone in high places … I just don’t know, But he is being retained.

“So today was your last day as a teacher. I have to go back and tie up some loose ends, so you have to give me everything you have from your class, and I will give them to Mr. Praeger when he gets to school.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim was incensed. He started to pace back and forth.

“Look, that was not my decision. That is what the Board of Education decided. Mr. Praeger is a well-respected teacher who has been doing this for years. You just started out.”

Abraham Lincoln Panm continued to pace back and forth as his mother kept on talking through her tears.

“That is one reason that I was home so late every night. I have had a long career, and while the end came a bit sooner than I thought it would, I tried to convince the Board of Education to keep you on, but again, without—“

“Mom, I am going to take a walk,” said Abraham Lincoln Panim to his mother, and he grabbed his jacket and scarf and headed out the door, slamming it as he left.

He hurriedly got to the park, and sat on the bench that he usually sat at. It was earlier than normal for him to have come for his walk in the park, but the sun soon faded.

He thought to himself, “Ariel … then dad … now this. What is happening to me?”

Abraham Lincoln Panim looked around, hoping to see the older woman sitting on the bench some ways down from him, but she was not there. And as had happened when he walked home from what became his last day as a teacher, he didn’t see anyone at all walking in the park.

“What is happening? What is going on? What am I? What did dad say to me?”

He put his head in his hands, and started to cry.

“I almost wish that I was that rat face again … no, I do wish that I was that rat-faced guy again. I REALLY DO WISH I WAS THAT RAT-FACED GUY AGAIN!”

Abraham Lincoln Panm sat there weeping, as the sun gave way to the dark, with the moonlight the only light cascading down on him.

THE BEGINNING

Chapter 39

39

The weeks came and went quickly for Abraham Lincoln Panim.

The end of the school year was nearing, and his class was getting more rambunctious and out of control by the day.

He did what he could with his class, but it was clear that they were not in the same learning mode that they were in right after he had lost his rat face.

But he persevered, did everything he was doing before when the class was listening to him, and he dutifully took each day as “a new day,” but the class continued to act up on him on a regular basis.

With just one more week of school, the class was acting even more out of control than they had been during the previous weeks. As he was trying to teach, the class was laughing while his back was turned, and as he turned around, he saw Melissa toss a ball of paper to the back of the class in the direction of another student.

“Melissa, this is not the gym. What did you throw back there?”

“Oh, nothing. It’s really nothing.”

“Mr. Abraham” went to the back of the class, and picked up the ball of paper, which had fallen short of its destination. He started to unroll the ball of paper.

“’Mr. Abraham,’” Melissa said in a giggling voice. “You don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim ignored what she said, and fully unrolled the ball of paper. In big block letters, he read it to himself:

‘HE’S GONE. HE’S GONE. WE DON’T HAVE TO LISTEN TO HIM ANYMORE. MR. RAT FACE IS GONE!”

“Mr. Abraham” looked up from the unrolled paper.

“What does this mean, Melissa? What do you mean ‘He’s gone?”

Melissa started to laugh out loud, and the class followed her lead, laughing until the bell rang for lunch. The students got up from their desks and ran out of the room, laughing all the way out.

Abraham Lincoln Panim stood where he was, pretty much not moving, and once again, he never received the answer he was looking for.

After a minute or two, when he looked back and forth at the unrolled paper, he rolled up the paper himself, threw it in the wastebasket, and hurriedly got his lunch and walked directly to the teachers’ room. He sat down in his usual spot, and ate his lunch, gulping it down faster than ever.

As he ate, he once again looked around for Mrs. Meyer, but she was nowhere to be found. Instead, he saw the usual group of teachers talking as they normally did. Among them was Mr. Sedall, who had not said a word to him since he lost his rat face all those many weeks ago.

Abraham Lincoln Panim finished his lunch in a flash, and then took out some more papers to grade. This time, Mr. Sedall broke away from the other group of teachers and sat next to him on the couch.

“Hey, ‘Mr. Abraham,’ bad break.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim looked up from his papers. “What do you mean, ‘bad break?’”

“Well, I thought you knew,” said Mr. Sedall, smiling and seemingly holding back a full laugh. As he did that, the group of teachers that had been talking together gathered around the couch, also with big smiles on their faces.

“You sure you didn’t know?” Mr. Sedall asked.

“Know what?” Abraham Lincoln Panim asked.

“I don’t know if it is my place to say this,” Mr. Sedall said.

“Say what?”

Well … Praeger is better, He isn’t sick anymore. And like I told you a long time ago, we wanted him back.”

“So, what does that mean?”

“You are gone, you are out of here, you are history when the school year ends in a few days,” Mr. Sedall said with a big smile on his face. “Praeger is coming back, and you are gone!”

The other teachers let out a big laugh as the bell rang to end the lunch break.

“What do you mean?” Abraham Lincoln Panim asked again and again, but Mr. Sedall and the other teachers filed out of the room, laughing all the way out.

Abraham Lincoln Panim sat there motionless. The bell for the afternoon period rang, but he was still sitting there. He finally realized that he had to get back to his class quickly, got his things together, and ran back to the locked door of the class.

He was met by Melissa and the other students.

“Hey, ‘Mr. Abraham.’” Melissa said. “Why are you running? Did a cat catch your rat face … err, your tongue?”

Abraham Lincoln Panim ignored what she said, and the class filed into the room, giggling and laughing from the moment they entered the room until they left school at the end of the day.

During the afternoon, very little work was done, and the students seemed to be in almost a festive mood. “Mr. Abraham” tried to teach them, but again, he was constantly thinking about what Mr. Sedall told him, and he had a hard time concentrating during the afternoon, which seemed to go on longer than it really did.

When the afternoon bell finally rang and the students left the classroom, Abraham Lincoln Panim was happy to see them all go, but he called over Melissa before she left the room.

“Who told you about me?” he asked her. “How did you know?”

Melissa was still giggling. “Look, I have to meet up with the other kids, I have to go.”

“Please, just answer me one thing and then you can go. How did you know?”

“About you losing your job?” she asked, as an even broader smile broke out on her face.

“Yes, please tell me.”

“Well, OK … I heard about it a few days ago from Mr. Sedall.”

“Why is Mr. Sedall telling things like this to you behind my back?”

“He’s my uncle. I see him all the time outside of school. He’s my uncle, my Uncle Joe. He told me, so I told all the kids—

“Listen, I have to go—“ and Melissa ran out of the room, giggling and laughing all the way out.

Abraham Lincoln Panim just sat at his desk, and continued to sit there as the janitor came in to tidy up the room.

“Anything wrong?” the janitor asked him, but he did not answer.

The janitor, sensing that something was wrong, came closer to the front desk where Abraham Lincoln Panim was sitting.

“Believe me, I know all about it,” the janitor said to him. “I have been doing this for 40 years at the school. You would not believe some of the things that the kids have said to me here.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim barely heard him, and the janitor saw that he was upset.

“Listen, I have seen it all and heard it all for the past 40 years, but let me tell you, I have said this one thing over and over to myself when things seem low, and it has helped.

“This is what I have said:

“Do unto others as you would have the do unto you … treat other people the way you would like to be treated yourself.”

Upon hearing that, Abraham Lincoln Panim abruptly looked up, but the janitor, who had been right at the desk when he uttered those words, was gone. He looked around the room, but the floors were still dirty, as if the janitor had never been there.

After looking out at the classroom, Abraham Lincoln Panim got his things together and left the room.

Chapter 38

38

Not much happened during the next few weeks after Mr. Panim’s death.

Mrs. Panim, after grieving for a spell, ended up putting the urn with her husband’s ashes on a shelf in the living room that held numerous photos of Mr. and Mrs. Panim during happier days, including their wedding portrait. She had never taken the photos down during Mr. Panim’s absence; the urn was the first addition to that shelf since he left.

Abraham Lincoln Panim’s grieving time was much less than his mother’s. He really did not know his father well, so although he had met the man briefly, it is not as if the man was a major presence in his life.

However, he continued to think constantly about that unfinished sentence, constantly asking himself, “Dad, what did I become?” over and over again.

He continued to take walks late into the afternoon into the early evening, hoping that Ariel and Snuff would venture back into his sights, but that never happened. He also looked for the older woman sitting a few benches away from him but she, too, had vanished.

Every once in a while, when he would sit on the bench, his mind would drift to the same question he constantly asked himself: “Dad, what did I become? What did I become.”

He asked himself that question constantly, but he never formulated a possible answer to the question.

Mrs. Panim took some time off from her duties at school, but after mourning for a few days, she decided that the best place for her to be was in school, and she returned.

Abraham Lincoln Panim returned almost immediately to school. At this point, school had become his refuge, but things seemed different to him even there.

When he would walk to school or back home at the end of the workday, no one appeared to be looking at him, and he found that he was staring more at the people he passed in the street than they were staring at him.

When in school, his class had pretty much returned back to the way they were when he first took over the class. The students were not as attentive as they once were, had stopped staring at him, and there were some occasions that he had to discipline a few students for their behavior in class.

As for his relationship with other teachers, he continued to take his lunch in the teachers’ room each day of the workweek, but the teachers pretty much ignored him, and he often sat alone while eating his lunch. Nobody stared at him anymore, none of the female teachers fawned after him, and the teachers pretty much excluded him from any discussions they had.

He was cordial to the other educators, always saying hello to them when he entered the room, but he rarely received any reply.

The days turned to weeks, and the warmer weather had come upon the school as it moved on to the last days of the school year.

On one of these days, Abraham Lincoln Panim had another rough morning in the classroom when the bell sounded, and his room emptied as students went to lunch.

As he always did, Abraham Lincoln Panim took his lunch out of his drawer, and proceeded to the teachers’ room. He entered, and said “Hello” to the other teachers without any response. He sat down on the same couch he always sat on, and proceeded to eat his lunch. And as had been the norm, nobody spoke to him, or even seemingly acknowledged that he was there.

As he ate his lunch, he saw the usual group of teachers talking. On the far side of the room, he also saw someone he had not seen before, who was sitting at a small table in the corner of the room.

To Abraham Lincoln Panim, at least from what he could see from the back and with a glare in his face coming from the window by the table, the person at the table appeared to be a woman who was sitting there, all alone. Based on what he could see through the glare, it appeared to be a woman who was sitting away from everyone else in the room.

He didn’t think anything of it, and he continued to eat his lunch. He was also looking over some papers, a recent spelling test that he gave his class that needed to be graded, so he took out a pen and looked over the tests one by one.

But as he was finishing his lunch and concentrating on the tests, he felt a “p-lunk!” right next to him, and he looked up from the tests, and the woman who he had seen sitting alone at the table on the far side of the room, had sat next to him on the couch.

“Hello, how are you doing?” asked the woman.

Abraham Lincoln Panim looked up from his tests, and he looked at the woman. He did a double take.

“Anything wrong?” asked the woman, who was now clearly in his sights.

The woman was older, and even though she was sitting, he saw that she had thick legs and he also saw that she wore her hair in a bun on her head, something he did not see when she was sitting across the room.

“Mrs. Stottle? Are you Mrs. Stottle?” he asked her, now thoroughly focused on her.

“Mrs. Who?” she asked. “I didn’t get the name you asked—“

“Mrs. Stottle. Mrs. Stottle. You are Mrs. Stottle.”

“No, you must be mixing me up with someone else.”

“But your ARE Mrs. Stottle.”

“No, I am Mrs. Meyer. I guess I must look like someone else. But I have been Mrs. Meyer for the past, I don’t know, many years.”

“But you look like Mrs. Stottle. You talk like Mrs. Stottle—“

“But I am not Mrs. … Mrs. Stottle.”

When Abraham Lincoln Panim calmed down a bit, Mrs. Meyer told him about herself.

“I was a teacher, a regular teacher, so many years ago. I met another teacher, we were married, and I left the profession. But when he died a few years back, I came back to teaching, as a sub.”

“But … well … –“

“Yes, I know, you have never seen me before, Actually, in all my years of teaching, I never taught at this school, not as a regular teacher and not as a sub. Just about all of my teaching was at the school on the other side of town. This is my first time here. No one knows me here at all. But you have to go where the work is.”

“Yes, but Mrs. Stottle … I mean, Mrs. Meyer—“

“Look, the bell is about to ring for the next class. I walk with a bit of a limp, so I have to leave a minute or two early. But just let me leave you with this thought:

“Do unto others as you would have the do unto you … treat other people the way you would like to be treated yourself.”

When she uttered these words, Abraham Lincoln Panim became so ruffled that he dropped his test papers on the floor. He bent down to pick them up, gathered them quickly, and looked up, but Mrs. Meyer was gone.

“Mrs. Meyer … Mrs. Stottle … Mrs. Meyer—“ he shouted out, but no one answered as the bell rang to begin the next period.

As the other teachers filed out of the room, Abraham Lincoln Panim sat there, completely perplexed.

“Mrs. Stottle WAS here,” he thought to himself. “She was here. I know she was here.”

The bell than rang, with Abraham Lincoln Panim having not moved from the couch. Other teachers came into the room, and he realized that he needed to get back to the classroom immediately. He gathered up his things, and ran out of the room as quickly as he could, right to his classroom, where he saw his class lined up outside the door.

“What happened to you, ‘Mr. Abraham.’ You look like you just saw a ghost!” said Melissa, leading the class at the door as she always did.

As he unlocked the door and let himself and the students into the class, he had a tough time getting into the educational rhythm, as he kept on thinking about the older lady with the bun on her head.

His class continued to be rambunctious, but he let a lot go this time around, because he, himself, could not concentrate fully on the class, only on that woman.

Somehow, he got through the day, and as the students exited the class, Abraham Lincoln Panim continued to sit at his desk, pretty much staring into space while he thought of the older woman.

Finally, he realized that he had been sitting at his desk for many minutes, and when the janitor came in to start to clean the floor in the class, he knew it was time to leave.

He gathered up his things and left the school, and this time, he didn’t know if anyone was staring at him, and he wasn’t the one doing the staring, either. He walked right home, opened the door, and went right into his room.

The hand mirror was on his bed, but unlike most other times since he lost his rat face, he did not look into the mirror at all. He pushed it aside, and just put his head on the bed’s pillows, pretty much lost in his thoughts about the older woman.

Later in the afternoon, his mother came home, and while she was taking her coat off, Abraham Lincoln Panim hurriedly left his room and saw his mother go into the kitchen and take out some food which she was going to prepare for dinner.

“Oh, I didn’t think you heard me come home,” Mrs. Panim said. “I know I usually tell you that I am home, but today was a really busy day for me, and honestly, I don’t think I have the strength—“

“Mom, I had an interesting experience today,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said to his mother as he sat down at the kitchen table. “Can I talk to you about it now?”

“Yes, I guess so, but as you are talking, I need to get this food going, or we won’t eat until late, and I know you like to go for a walk—“

“Mom, I met a teacher today in the teachers’ room … well, do you remember when we went to see dad, and the nurse … I mean … we both thought that she looked like Mrs. Stottle?”

“Well … yes … I thought that she kind of did at first, but the more I looked at her, the more I know that I must have been grieving for your father, because I don’t think she really looked like her that much at all.”

“Well, I did, and the more I looked at her, the more I knew that she was Mrs. Stottle, as odd as that might sound.”

“It is impossible. But what is your point?”

“Well today at school, while I was eating lunch, I saw this older woman … she was sitting alone, an older woman, and she … she started to talk to me … I had never seen this woman before … but she looked like Mrs. Stottle.”

Mrs. Panim chuckled. “You know what they say … we all have a double somewhere.”

“No, mom,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said. “She looked like Mrs. Stottle, talked like Mrs. Stottle, was a teacher like Mrs. Stottle—“

“Just a coincidence. These things happen,”

Abraham Lincoln Panim then stood up from the kitchen table.

“And you said that the woman was older … a sub?” his mother asked him.

“Yes, she was in the teachers’ room and she told me that she normally taught at the school across town, and had never been in this school, so she didn’t know anyone … but for some reason, she came over to me.”

Mrs. Panim stopped preparing her dinner meal, and turned toward her son.

“Now, you are sure that you met this woman in the teachers’ room?” she asked.

“Yes, while I was eating lunch.”

“That is really odd. Do you remember her name?”

“Meyer, Mrs. Meyer.”

“No … no … I am thinking about today, and all of our teachers were present, with the exception, or course, of Mr. Praeger, who you have taken over for. We didn’t use any substitute teachers today.”

“What? How could that be?”

“And you are saying her name was Meyer? I don’t know a single sub by that name, and an older lady … no, I don’t know any sub named Meyer in the entire school district. You are sure of it?”

“Mom, I swear to you that she was there. She sat right next to me. She was an older woman who walked with a limp, and she wore her hair in a bun. I swear to you that she was there.”

“Sorry, you must be mistaken. There is no Mrs. Meyer who I know as a sub, and we did not use subs today at all.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim made a bee line back to his room, jumped on his bed in dismay, and the hand mirror feel to the floor with such a thud that it cracked right down the middle of the glass.

He did not notice what happened.

Chapter 37

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?”

Chapter 36

36

Abraham Lincoln Panim read the plaque over and over to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. After a few minutes of doing this, he heard a door open, and saw his mother come out of the room.

The nurse went over to her, as Mrs. Panim looked clearly distressed, crying and shaking as the nurse led her to the couch to sit down.

“Can I get you something, m’am, maybe some water to calm you down?” said the nurse to Mrs. Panim.

“No, no,” Mrs. Panim said through tears. “I will be OK.”

“I pretty much expected your reaction. Mr. Panim is pretty sick, and he has been that way for awhile,” the nurse replied. “If you need anything, let me know.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim rushed over to his mother, but the nurse stood between him and his mother.

“It is your time to see your father. Are you ready to see him now?” the nurse asked.

“Yes, yes,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said, as he put his hands through his hair again.

“Do you have a mirror? I need to make sure—“

“This is not a beauty pageant,” the nurse replied. “Go in like you are.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim followed the nurse to the door, and as he did, he instinctively pushed up his scarf over his face, exactly as he had worn it when he had a rat face.

The nurse opened the door, and Abraham Lincoln Panim entered. He looked to the left, and his father was lying on what looked like a large hospital bed, with tubes and nozzles coming out of seemingly every part of his body.

With all the machinery covering his father, he could barely see his father’s face, and barely could see his eyes.

“Abraham Lincoln Panim, please come closer to me so I can see you,” his father said, and his son moved closer to him so he could see him better.

“How are you doing dad?” Abraham Lincoln Panim asked.

“I can barely hear you,” Mr. Panim said in a very breathy voice. “Why do you have that scarf over your face?”

“Well—“

“Please take it off. Your mother told me all about it, and I know all about what you look like now.”

“Abraham Lincoln Panim almost ripped the scarf off his face, and it dropped to floor, exposing his full face to his father to see.

“So dad, what do you think?”

“What do I think about what?”

“What do you think about how I look? Aren’t I—“

“That is not important now,” his father said, followed by numerous coughs. Abraham Lincoln Panim was ready to go out to get the nurse, but the coughing stopped.

“I’m doing as good as I possibly could be, with all of these things coming out of me,” his father said. “Now tell me about you.”

“Dad, you still haven’t told me how I look.”

“Well, I will answer that when you tell me how I look.”

His father then started coughing again.

When the coughing stopped, Abraham Lincoln Panim asked his father, “Why did you leave--”

“I was a coward,” his father said through more coughing. “I saw you as me, going through a good part of your life with a rat face. I remember what I went through … I just could not do it again.”

“So you just left us? I never knew you, but do you know what you did to mom?”

“Yes, I do. I really do. And I was sorry, I told her so today. You don’t know how many times I wanted to come back to the two of you, but I just couldn’t. I was scared, I was a coward. I thought that the money I sent each month made up for me not being there, but I was a fool. I missed out on so much.”

“And we missed out, especially mom. Do you know we used to walk in the park when I was a kid, and I always thought she was looking for you when we were there. You said in your letter to us that you often saw us from afar in the park. Why didn’t you ever come up to us, contact us … I mean, you were so close.”

“Yet so far,” his father said, followed by more coughs. “In my mind, I was thousands of miles away from you, even though there were times I was just a few feet from the two of you. I am just so sorry for what I have done to both of you.”

There was a pause in talking, and then Abraham Lincoln Panim said, “Now dad, what do you think about me … your are ‘impressed,’ aren’t you--?”

“Look, I know that you became a teacher. Mom says that you are a good teacher. That is really what I am concerned about. You became a—“

Before his father could finish his sentence, he began to cough uncontrollably, and the nurse came into the room, walking over to Abraham Lincoln Panim.

“I am sorry, but his health is very bad,” she said in a whisper. “I can only give you a few minutes with him. He is weak. I can’t give you any more. Please say your goodbyes and meet your mother in the foyer.”

Abraham Lincoln watched the nurse go back out the door, and when she left, he said to his father, “Dad, what did I become? Please let me know, what did I become?”

The nurse peaked her head through the door. “Young man, you have to leave now.”

“But dad did not finish what he was saying—what did I become dad, what did I become?”

The nurse came over to Abraham Lincoln Panm, put her hand firmly and forcefully on his shoulder, and tried to lead him out of the room. He resisted.

“I just want to know what my father said I had become. That is all I want to know.”

“Look, I am sorry, you must leave now,” the nurse said. Mrs. Panim, much more composed than before, came into the room, and she had to lead her son out.

As they left the room and the nurse closed the door, Mr. Panim, still thinking his son was in the room, said in almost a whisper,

“A success.”

Mr. Panim coughed some more, and then closed his eyes.

Abraham Lincoln Panim and his mother never heard what Mr. Panim said, as the door had closed behind them when he answered his son’s question.

“What was I, what was I?” Abraham Lincoln Panim continued to scream out as his mother put her hand on his shoulder.

“Keep that thought. Maybe the next time we visit, your father will answer you,” she said to her son.

The nurse turned to them as she showed them out the door.

“If there is a next time,” she said, as Mrs. Panim and Abraham Lincoln Panim walked out the door and walked home.

They didn’t say a word between them.

Chapter 35

35

Mrs. Panim and her son got to the door of Mr. Panim’s home, and Abraham Lincoln Panim saw the doorbell and pushed its button, which produced a loud ring.

There was an intercom on the door. After a few seconds, a voice came through the intercom.

“Who is there?” the voice said.

“It is Mrs. Panim and my son.”

“We were expecting you. OK, I am going to buzz you in.”

The buzz came, and Mrs. Panim turned the doorknob and the door opened. Both stepped into a small foyer, and they almost immediately saw a woman with her back turned. The woman was poring over some papers, and Abraham Lincoln Panim noted that she appeared to be an older woman, short in stature, with her hair tied up in a bun.

In an instant, the woman put down the papers and turned toward the mother and son.

“Hello, I am Nurse Stottlemeyer, and I have been taking care of Mr. Panim for a few years. He has been very, very sick.”

Mrs. Panim gulped, and Abraham Lincoln Panim looked at her and said in a whisper, “It’s Mrs. Stottle!”

“No, it can’t be,” his mother replied. “She died several years ago. She just looks like her. Her last name is different.”

“She said Stottlemeyer. Didn’t she tell you that she was ‘Miss Meyer’ before she got married?”

“Hrrumph!” said the nurse, trying to get the full attention of Mrs. Panim and her son. “Are you ready to see Mr. Panim now?”

The mother and son quieted down, both shaking their heads affirmatively.

“Mr. Panim has requested to see you each individually. He can only see you each for a few minutes. He simply does not have the strength for any time more. Mrs. Panim, would you like to go in first?”

“Yes,” Mrs. Panim said, still kind of staring at the nurse as she was led to a room by her. The nurse, who had something of a limp, opened the door and let her in to speak with her husband alone.

Abraham Lincoln Panim sat down on a couch in a corner of the foyer, nervously put his hand in his hair, pushing it up in place, and when the nurse came back into the room, he continued to stare at her.

“Can I help you with anything?” the nurse asked, aware that she was being stared at.

“No … no … you just look like someone that my mom and I used to know,” Abraham Lincoln Panim said, staring at the woman’s thick legs. “No, it can’t be.”

“What can’t be?” the nurse asked.

“Umm … nothing … umm … how do I look?

The nurse hesitated, then said, “You look like an average person your age,” as she went back looking at her papers.

“No, how do I really look?” Abraham Lincoln Panim asked again, a little more forceful this time.

The nurse looked up from her papers. “Look, you appear to be fine to me. You look good enough to see your father, if that is what you are asking me.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim, looking for a different answer than he was getting, sat back on the couch, and continued to play with his hair. He looked around the small room, which was pretty barely furnished, but across the room, he saw a plaque on the wall. It appeared to have some writing on it, and not being able to clearly see what the plaque said, he got up from his seat and walked over to wall where the plaque was.

The nurse looked up from her papers, saw that Abraham Lincoln Panim had become interested in the plaque, and said, “Yes, I put that up a year or so ago. It is something I believe in fully, and I hope that everyone believes in it, to tell you the truth.”

Abraham Lincoln Panim got to the plaque, and read its inscription to himself:

“Do unto others as you would have the do unto you … treat other people the way you would like to be treated yourself.”