Under Threat by Robin Stevenson Page B

face calm, her back as straight as a dancer’s.
All that yoga. I straighten my own spine and lift my chin in an effort to look less
like a curled-up ball of fear. “Which means someone knows where we live,” I say.
My voice is shaky. I clear my throat. “Do you think it’s the same person as last
time?”
    He shakes his head. “Highly unlikely. I’ll double-check, but I’m pretty sure he’s
still getting three meals a day at taxpayers’ expense.”
    “He’s still in jail?” I ask.
    Rich nods. “Could be linked, I suppose. We’ll look at every possibility.” He leans
toward me. “You know how seriously we take this, right?”
    I nod. I do know. And Rich is a good guy. He investigated the threats at the hospital
and the fake bomb at our house, and he’s the one who helped bring in the guy responsible
for it all. He’s got daughters—twin girls, a year behind me at school—and I know
he cares about our safety. And he gets it too: unlike a lot of people, he understands
why my parents don’t give up, even after my dad’s not-quite-a-stroke.
    The crazy thing is, my dad was actually just about to retire before this all started
up the last time. He had high blood pressure and some other health stuff going on,
and he thought less stress might be a good thing. But then all three of the doctors
who did abortions at the hospital—my parents and Jennifer Lee—started getting death
threats, and someone threw a brick through Jennifer Lee’s dining-room window with
a note attached: NEXT TIME IT’LL BE A BULLET .
    Jennifer has a paraplegic husband and two little kids. She decided she couldn’t risk
it. Now she delivers babies, does some routine surgeries—but no more abortions.
    So if my dad had retired too, it’d only be my mom left. And it’s not just the hospital
clinic here in town either. Both of them also do clinic hours each month in several
smaller rural hospitals, because otherwise abortion wouldn’t be available there.
Sure, if you can afford to travel, you can go to a city to get an abortion. But if
you’re poor and live out in the sticks and don’t have a car, or you have a houseful
of kids to look after, or you’re a sixteen-year-old whose parents don’t have your
back, you’re screwed.
    And since abortion is legal and the anti-choice people haven’t had much luck getting
that changed, they’re going after the doctors. Trying to stop abortions by making
doctors too scared to do them.
    My parents don’t like being bullied. I think all the threats have just made them
even more committed to their work.
    My dad sighs and leans back in his chair. “Rich, assuming the anthrax turns out to
be baking soda, what’s our next step here? Obviously, we can change our phone number,
but knowing that someone has our address… I’m not sure what more we can do.”
    They start discussing security systems and cameras, all of which we already have.
I excuse myself and clean up the dinner table, tossing the congealing pasta into
a container and sticking it in the fridge. Then I head up to my room to call Leah.
    My bedroom is my favorite place in our house. I repainted it myself last year, two
walls white and two walls lime green. It’s got a wood floor, and the rug is a dark
cherry color. My parents bought me matching bedding—dark red with big geometric shapes
in the exact same green as the walls. Show-jumping ribbons hang from a picture rail,
and my dresser is covered with trophies. When I first invited Leah over, I was worried
she’d think it was bragging to have them all out, but she totally understood. “Well,
they’re not really yours, right?” she said, when I started apologizing. “They’re
yours and Buddy’s.”
    I have photos of Buddy all over the wall—Buddy jumping, Buddy rolling in the mud,
Buddy looking out over his stall door, the white star on his forehead with a trail
like a comet. I’ve had Buddy since I was eleven, and for the last six years he’s
been my best friend. No matter