“So did you ride after school? How is that horse of yours?” Dad asks me.
We’re eating dinner, which I made—chicken with feta cheese and green peas on linguine. Learning to cook was one of my New Year’s resolutions. “He’s doing well,” I say. “Walking and trotting without a limp. I’m taking it slow with him though. Letting that tendon heal.”
“Well, it was just as well you decided to retire from jumping when you did,” Mom says. She points at her dinner plate with her fork. “Franny, this is delish.”
“Don’t know where she got it from, but our girl can cook,” Dad says approvingly. “This recipe is definitely a keeper.”
“Good. Glad you like it.” I’m not surprised he does—the dish is way too salty, which is exactly what his blood pressure doesn’t need. I’d forgotten how high in sodium feta is. “I wouldn’t have had time to show this year anyway,” I say, twirling my fork on the pasta. “Even if Buddy wasn’t lame. The amount of homework I have is insane.”
“Not to mention your love life,” Dad says, rolling his eyes. “Every time I see you, you’re texting your girlfriend.” He’s grinning though. He adores Leah. He and Mom both do.
“What bothers me,” Dad says, “is that your horse got to retire before I did. I mean, I’m pushing seventy.”
“Sixty-seven,” I correct him quickly. He’s ten years older than mom, and she was forty when I was born, so they are kind of old for parents. But seventy? That’s well into grandparent age.
“And Buddy is still in his teens.”
“Almost twenty,” I say. “Which is getting on for a horse.”
Dad ignores me. “And he has a sore ankle. I had a stroke! Shouldn’t that trump a sore ankle?”
“Sore fetlock,” I say, even though I know he’s well aware that horses don’t have ankles. “And you didn’t have a stroke, Dad. You had a transient ischemic attack. Which isn’t a real stroke. Just a warning.” What I don’t say is that a third of people who have a TIA go on to have a stroke within a year. He’s well aware of that too.
“Who’s the doctor here?” he says.
And then the phone rings. I start to get up, even though Leah doesn’t usually use the landline, but Dad waves a hand at me. “Let the machine get it. Neither of us is on call.”
I sit back down, twirl a fork full of linguine and chew slowly. Definitely too much salt. Not good, considering the only reason I took over the cooking was to stop the family reliance on takeout and make sure Dad ate healthier meals.
The phone rings and rings. Let it be Leah, I think, let it be Leah. I picture her face—her blue-green eyes, her silky brown hair, the deep dimples that appear when she smiles, the way she covers her mouth with her hand when she laughs.
I was just with her, but I miss her already.
Leah’s family owns the farm where I keep Buddy now. Gibson’s Farm—or Buddy’s Retirement Home, as Dad calls it. I was heartbroken when Buddy developed a limp right at the start of last show season, but if he’d stayed sound, and we’d kept jumping and competing, I’d probably never have met Leah Gibson. So that’s kind of a crazy thought. We’ve only been together for a few months, but I’ve never felt like this about any other girl.
No matter how much time I spend with Leah, it’s not nearly enough. Even when I’m with her, I sometimes feel this ache, like I can’t get close enough, can’t hold her tight enough, can’t kiss her long enough. I’ve had other girlfriends, but I’ve never felt like this before.
It’s crazy and, to be honest, a little scary.
Just two hours ago, we were sitting on a bale of hay outside the tack room, cleaning the school horse bridles and listening to the horses munch their oats. Leah’s brother, Jake, was teaching a private lesson in the arena, and I could hear his voice—“Extended trot doesn’t mean go faster, Brandy! I want to see longer strides, not speed! Contain that energy!” It was like listening to the soundtrack of my childhood. Leah turned to me and said, “I love the sound of horses eating.”
I love you, I thought. I love you.
We hadn’t said those words yet, but I thought them the whole time I was with her—and most of the time I wasn’t with her too.
The machine beeps and picks up. “You’ve reached the home of Heather, Hugh and Franny Green. Leave a message and one of us will get back to you.”
I stop chewing for a second, listening, in case it’s for me. But it’s a man’s voice, deep and oddly muffled. “Baby killers,” he says. “You’re going to burn in hell for what you do.” Click.
My heart flip-flops in my chest, and my cheeks flare hot.
Mom sighs. “So much for changing the number and having it unlisted,” she says. “How long did it take for them to get the new one?”
Dad runs his hands over his bald head. “Not nearly long enough.”
The phone starts to ring again.
“Unplug it, would you, Franny?” Mom says. Her voice is calm, as always. She’s the most level-headed, unflappable person I’ve ever met.
“We’ll have to change the number again,” Dad says.
“We should just get rid of the landline,” I say. Hardly anyone uses it anyway, mainly because we’ve changed the number so many times that no one can keep track of it. Except, apparently, the anti-abortion psychos. I stand up and walk toward the phone, and I’m just about to yank the cord from the phone jack when the next message starts.
It’s the same voice. “Hello again, baby killers,” he says. “I just left a little surprise for you in the mailbox.” Click.
I freeze.
“Don’t unplug it,” Dad says. “Pass me the phone. I’m calling the police.”
My heart is beating fast and my hand is slippery with sweat as I hand him the phone. “It’ll be okay,” Mom says. “We’ve been here before, right?”
I nod. Last time we had a bomb threat, someone actually left a package on the front steps and we had to evacuate the house. The bomb squad came and everything, but it turned out to be just a cardboard box full of phone books and cans of hairspray.
That was over a year ago, but I still have nightmares about it.
Dad is talking to Detective Bowerbank, AKA Rich—balding, beer-bellied and solid as a rock. Over the last few years, we’ve seen so much of him that he’s become kind of a family friend.
I pull my cell out of my pocket. Mom grabs my arm. “Wait.”
“Can’t I call Leah?”
“Turn off your cell,” she says. “Remember?”
Bomb threat protocol: don’t touch the light switches, turn off your cell phone. I swallow and shut down my phone.
Mom tucks a wiry curl behind her ear. Her hair is a mass of tightly coiled silver springs. Like hundreds of tiny Slinkys. “Just to be on the safe side,” she says. “I’m sure it’ll turn out to be nothing.”
Dad hangs up the phone. “He says to sit tight and they’ll have someone here within a few minutes.”
“Shouldn’t we get out?” I ask.
“He doesn’t want us opening the doors until they’ve made sure it’s safe for us to do so.”
I imagine a sniper hiding behind a tree. Picture wires trailing from the mailbox to the door hinge. My breathing is fast and shallow, and I have to remind myself to push aside the scary images. Don’t make this worse than it is, Franny. I count silently to ten, trying to slow my breathing.
But I can’t stop my thoughts. What if it’s starting all over again?