Under Threat (3 page)

“I love you too, Leah Gibson,” I say. And then I kiss her, tasting the mint of her
lip gloss, and she buries her cool fingers in my short hair and pulls me down beside
her on the bed

And that is the end of that conversation—of any conversation—for quite some time.

After Leah leaves, I go online and torture myself for a couple of hours reading articles
about bombings at abortion clinics, receptionists and nurses being gunned down in
Planned Parenthood offices, doctors shot in their own homes.

Most of the stories are from the States, but some are from as far away
as Australia
and a surprising number are from Canada too. Like this doctor who was shot by a sniper
firing a rifle into his kitchen. The bullet hit an artery, and the doctor would have
died if he hadn’t used his bathrobe belt as a tourniquet. After he recovered, he
kept on providing abortions. He’d seen what it was like in the sixties, before abortion
was legal. He’d worked on hospital wards that were literally overflowing with women
suffering complications from illegal abortions. He’d seen women die.

A few years after he was shot, he was attacked again and stabbed. And he still didn’t
quit. Two months later, he was back at work.

Not everyone’s been so lucky, if that’s even the right word. I’ve grown up with the
stories. I know the names of those who’ve died: Barnett Slepian, John Britton, George
Tiller, David Gunn,
Shannon Lowney, Lee Ann Nichols…so many brave men and women.

A couple of years ago someone made a website with a list of abortion providers on
it.
Killers Aborted
, it was called. The doctors who’d been murdered were at the top
of the page, with their names crossed out. And down at the bottom was a long list
of other names—doctors still alive and doing abortions.

Including my parents.

The site’s been taken down, but I still google my parents’ names regularly, just
to make sure they’re not on some nut’s hit list.

I type their names into the search bar, but all that comes up is the usual stuff—a
handful of hits, mostly articles they’ve published, conferences they’ve spoken at
and a ton of links about another Dr. Heather Green, who’s a cosmetic surgeon. Nothing
alarming.

Nothing alarming on the Internet, that is. There’s still someone out there, somewhere.

Someone who knows where we live.

Chapter Five

The next day, I suffer through six hours of classes, toss my heavy bag in the backseat
of my old hatchback and drive down to the barn to see Buddy.

Leah’s in the stables already, waiting for me. “Buddy’s looking good today,” she
says. “He was cantering around in the field like a yearling when I got home.”

The air smells like alfalfa and molasses and saddle soap. I breathe in deeply and
feel comforted. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. You want to take him out? Come with me for a gentle trail ride?” She gestures
at the gray mare standing in cross ties in the aisle. “Buddy’s girlfriend’s hoping
you’ll say yes.”

I laugh. “Yes. But since when did we decide our horses were straight?”

We tack up Buddy and Leah’s mare, Snow, and head out. The air is cold and clear,
and the frozen crust of earth on the dirt trail crunches under the horses’ hooves.
It feels good to be back in the saddle.

“School okay?” Leah asks as we cut off into the woods.

She’s at a private Christian school. I’m at the regular public one. “Fine,” I say.
“Blah, blah. You know.”

I don’t feel like talking about school. Not that it’s terrible or anything.
It’s
just what I have to do. I’m in my second-last year, so grades matter. I’m pretty
sure I want to be a vet, and veterinary medicine is even harder to get into than
med school. So I work hard, manage mostly A’s and generally feel disconnected from
it all.

My life—my friends, my heart, my every spare minute—has always been with the horses.
From sixth grade, when I got Buddy, to last spring, when he started having trouble
with his leg, I spent every evening and weekend at the hunter-jumper stables where
Buddy used to board. Lessons three days a week. Setting up jumps, schooling over
trot poles, hours riding without stirrups to strengthen my legs, cleaning tack and
braiding manes and rubbing down horses and getting up in the middle of the night
to travel to shows.

I thought the kids I rode with were my friends, but when I retired Buddy
and moved
him to the Gibsons’, those relationships kind of fizzled out. There are a few people
I still talk to occasionally, but it’s not the same as when you’re together all
the time.

Leah and I ride on through the bare trees, mostly in silence, enjoying the stillness
of the woods. Then Snow whinnies, her head lifted, and I can see the white cloud
of her breath. A second later, I hear hoofbeats—someone coming down the trail at
a steady lope.

“It’s Jake,” Leah says as a huge black horse with a red-jacketed rider appears around
a bend in the trail.

Jake pulls his gelding, Schooner, up to a walk. He nods to us without smiling.

“Hi,” I say, moving to the side of the trail and halting to let them pass.

“Buddy’s looking good.” He takes both reins in one hand and adjusts his helmet.

I can see the steam rising from Schooner’s sweat-soaked chest and neck. “He’s definitely
better,” I say. “And he’s happy to be out here, for sure.”

As if in agreement, Buddy tosses his head up and down, and Leah laughs.

“I have to get back,” Jake says and nudges Schooner into a trot.

Leah looks at me and sighs.

I shrug. “Whatever. It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine,” she says. “He’s being a jerk.”

Jake and I got along really well all last summer, when I first moved Buddy to the
Gibsons’. When Buddy was too lame to ride, Jake used to let me take out one of his
horses, so we could ride together. And I helped with his riding lessons, setting
up jumps for the kids he teaches. We weren’t super close or anything—he’s a lot older,
for one thing—but we hung out. Not friends, but friendly.

Right up until I got together with his sister. He’s barely spoken to me since he
found out.

“He’ll get over it, or he won’t,” I say. After almost three months, I’m not holding
my breath. “Either way, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Leah has that pink flush under her eyes that means she’s trying not to cry. “I’m
sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” I say. “You can’t control what he thinks. Anyway, you’re way more
upset about it than I am.”

She twists her fingers in Snow’s long white mane. “He’s my brother. You know?”

“Yeah.” Though as an only child, I don’t know that I can really understand. “At least
Hannah and Esther are cool with us,” I say.

Leah laughs. “Hannah and Esther think it’s the coolest thing ever.”

After we get the horses settled back in their stalls and give them a couple of flakes
of hay, we head up to the house. Leah’s mom, Diane, has invited me to stay for dinner.

“Pizza,” she says as we walk in. “Is that okay, Franny? You eat dairy, right? And
wheat?”

“I eat everything,” I say. “Seriously. I don’t think there is any kind of food that
I don’t like—except okra.”

Leah makes a face. “Doesn’t count as a food.”

Diane laughs. “Luckily, I made my special okra-free pizza.” She opens the oven door
and peeks in. “Maybe five more minutes. So, can I get your advice about something?”

She sits down at the kitchen table and gestures for us to join her. She looks a little
nervous—biting her bottom lip like Leah does and twisting her fingers together. Diane
is ten years younger
than my mom and a hundred times less confident.

“Sure,” I say, curious. “What’s up?”

Diane puts her elbows on the table and props her chin on her hands. “It’s about a
woman at my church. She approached me the other day because she’d heard about Leah.
Being gay, I mean. Turns out her son has just come out to her. He’s older—almost
thirty, I think—but she’s beside herself. She hasn’t told her husband, and she’s
scared of how he’ll react.”

I roll my eyes. It’s rude, I know, but I can’t help it.

Diane catches my expression and smiles. “I know it must seem silly to your generation,
but these people are older. In their sixties.”

“So’s my dad,” I say. “Doesn’t mean you have to be a bigot.”

“Did you tell her about PFLAG?” Leah asks. “Maybe if she could meet
some other parents
and hear their stories…”

“Of course,” Diane says. “I invited her to our next meeting.”

My phone rings in my pocket and I pull it out, glancing at the screen.

“Sorry,” I say to Diane. “It’s my mom. I should just…” I answer the phone. “Mom?
What’s up?”

“Oh honey,” she says, and I can hear the strain in her voice. “I’m in the emergency
room. It’s your father.”

And the air all whooshes out of my lungs like I just got kicked in the chest.

Chapter Six

“At the hospital?” I say. “What happened? Is he…is Dad…”

Leah’s hand flies to her mouth, and the color drains from her face.

“So stupid,” Mom says. “He was just taking out the recycling, and he slipped on the
ice. Broken ankle. Badly broken, apparently. They’re going to pin it.”
She breaks
off. “Franny, honey. Are you
crying
? What’s wrong?”

“I thought…” I choke out. “For a second, I thought…” I thought he’d been shot. But
I can’t say it. Not in front of Diane.

“You thought he’d had a stroke?” Mom says. “No, no. Stop worrying. Your dad’s as
fit and strong as plenty of men twenty years younger.”

“Yeah.” I wipe my hand across my eyes, blinking away tears.

“Though he’ll be off his ankle for six weeks. Honestly, I can’t quite see how we’re
going to manage that. Still, one step at a time, right?”

“Right.” My heart rate is slowly returning to normal. Leah and Diane are both staring
at me. “Should I come to the hospital?”

“No point,” she says. “You’d just be waiting around anyway. I’ll stay here with him
until he’s out of surgery.
We’ll see you at home, though probably not until the morning.
Don’t wait up.”

“Okay,” I say. “See you in the morning.”

When I hang up, Diane puts her hand on my shoulder. “What is it, Franny? What happened?”

“My dad slipped on the ice,” I say. “He broke his ankle.”

“Oh dear.” She hesitates. “I’m glad it’s not worse. You looked so upset…”

I look down at the floor. “I thought… um, he has high blood pressure. And awhile
back, he had a ministroke type thing.” I shrug. “So I thought the worst, you know?”

None of that is technically untrue, but I still feel like I am lying to her.

“Do you want to stay the night?” she says. “If you’d rather not be at home by yourself?”

I hesitate. The front door bangs open and Jake walks in. He stands there,
staring
coldly at me for a moment, then pulls off his boots and walks down the hall without
saying a word. I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I should go home. I’ll be fine.”

A couple of hours later, I regret those words.

I’m not fine at all. The house is too empty, too quiet. The street outside is too
dark. The park that runs along our backyard is full of trees, any one of which could
hide a sniper. I close the blinds, double-check the locks on the front and back doors
and turn on all the lights.

I’m seventeen, for god’s sake. It’s not like I’m not used to being home alone. But
I haven’t been this spooked since I watched three horror movies back to back at a
sleepover when I was thirteen.

I want to call Leah, but it’s almost midnight. I curl up on the couch in
the family
room—it’s at the front of the house, away from the park—and check my email and Facebook.
Then I flip through the photos on my phone. Almost all of my pictures are of Leah,
Buddy and other people’s horses. Finally, my almost-dead battery dies, which I guess
is probably a sign that I should go brush my teeth and get into bed.

Then the phone rings. The landline. And the only person who would call me this late
is my mom. I jump up, run to the phone and answer it on the second ring. “Hello?”

There is an odd pause, and I know even before I hear the voice. Maybe I should just
hang up, but I can’t. I’m frozen to the spot.

“You’ll burn in hell for what you’ve done.” The voice is low, muffled—like he is
covering his mouth or speaking into a towel to disguise his identity. “All those
babies you’ve killed.
All those unborn children whose deaths you’re responsible for.”

I’m flooded with anger. And I want to know who this person is at the other end of
the phone line, this person who thinks he has a right to threaten my parents. To
turn our lives upside down. “Stop calling us,” I say. “You’re crazy.”

“There’s a target on your back, Heather Green,” the voice says. “If you don’t stop,
we’re prepared to use lethal force to stop you.”

He thinks I’m my mom. “You’re wrong about everything,” I say.

“You’re a mother. You should know better.”

“Why are you doing this?” I demand. “Who are you?”

“Baby killer. Maybe we’ll murder
your
child,” he says. “Your daughter. Her name’s
Franny, right?”

I hang up, drop the phone and stare at it like it’s a poisonous snake that might
suddenly attack me. My heart is racing, my whole body shaking.

They know my name.

Then I feel stupid and embarrassed, because they’ve known my parents’ names for years.
My mom and dad live with that every single day, and they don’t let it stop them.

I pick the phone back up and dial my mom’s cell.

She answers right away. “Franny?”

“Mom.” I’m determined not to cry, but my voice wobbles. I can’t help it. “That guy
called again.”

“Oh, honey. Are you okay?”

“Kind of freaked out. He knew my name.”

“Look, maybe you should call Rich Bowerbank.”