“It’s okay. Don’t apologize. I mean, no kidding you’re upset. Who wouldn’t be?”
“You feel okay about being here?” I ask. “I mean, not scared or unsafe or…”
She laughs. “Given that the police are right in your living room, I’m not too worried.”
“What did you tell your mom?”
Leah pulls away, studying my face. “About why I was coming over? Nothing. I just said you’d had a hard day and wanted company.”
“Right.” I flop onto my bed, and she lies down beside me, both of us staring up at the ceiling. There’s a long silence, and I wonder what she’s thinking. It’s weird that you can be so close to someone and not know what they’re thinking. I have to bite my tongue to not ask her that all the time.
“You think I should tell her, don’t you?” she says at last.
I roll onto my side and prop myself up on one elbow so I can look at her. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.” She sighs. “I hate keeping secrets from her. Hannah and Esther always did that, and it really upset her. She says she wants to be the kind of mom whose kids can tell her anything.”
Hannah and Esther are Leah’s twin sisters. They’re twenty—three years younger than Jake and three years older than Leah—and they’re away at college. In the Gibson family, Jake and Leah are “the good kids.” They tell the truth and go to church and help out with the horses and don’t keep secrets from their mom. Hannah and Esther are the rebels. The bad girls. Although I think all they really did was get drunk at a few parties and talk back to their mom. They’re in their third year of degrees in commerce and tourism or something, so it’s not like they’re crack addicts.
“You thought your mom would have a hard time when you came out, right?” I say, treading carefully. “And that went okay.”
“Yeah. I mean, it wasn’t easy. She cried when I told her. She asked if I was sure, and if it was her fault or because of what happened to Dad.” She makes a face. “Which was a weird thing to say, really. Have you ever heard of someone deciding she was a lesbian because her father died? It doesn’t even make sense.”
Leah’s dad died of a brain tumor when she was thirteen. Her mom, Diane, was left to raise four teenagers and run the farm while somehow holding on to a full-time teaching job. Which had to be tough. What got her through it all, she says, was her faith. There are framed Bible quotes all over the Gibson house.
“Still,” I say. “You only came out a year ago. So she accepted it pretty fast.” Leah’s mom joined PFLAG—Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. She’s even spoken at her church about how their community can be more inclusive of everyone.
Leah nods. “Yeah. She got her head around it. She says there is no way that God’s plan doesn’t include every single one of his children. She says if this is what I am, then it’s because God intended it to be that way.”
I’ve heard this story before, but it gives me goose bumps every time. Because although I’m not religious at all, I can see that what Diane did was seriously huge. To take something you’ve always believed was wrong—and then, because you love your kid, turn that belief upside down? “It’s impressive,” I say. “You know? To support you like that, given where she started.”
Leah shrugs. “Well, your parents supported you too. And you were way younger when you came out. If I’d come out at twelve, I don’t think my mom would’ve even believed me.” She blushes. “At twelve, I didn’t have a clue. I was really young, you know? Still playing with dolls.”
“I’ve always known,” I say. “Always. But it wasn’t a big deal for my parents. They have lots of queer friends. And it wasn’t like it came as a big shock or anything.” I shrugged. “I’ve wanted to marry my best girl friends since preschool. And I wasn’t ever a very girly kind of girl.” I run my fingers through my short hair and grin at her.
“I was,” Leah says. “Pink clothes, princess obsession and all.”
“You still are,” I say. “I mean, maybe not the princess obsession, but yeah. Total girly-girl.”
She laughs. Then the smile slips from her face, and her forehead creases. “My mom being so accepting about the lesbian thing…are you thinking that means she’ll accept this too? What your parents do?”
“I think it shows she can be open-minded,” I say. “It shows she can rethink her beliefs.”
Leah shakes her head. “It’s totally different. Because—”
“Why? Both have to do with thinking a certain way and then—”
She puts her fingers on my lips, shushing me. “Let me finish, okay? It’s totally different, because when I came out, she had to question what she’d learned.”
I nod. “Uh, yeah. I get that.” Religion was a subject we mostly avoided.
“But this abortion thing,” Leah said. “My mom is definitely against that. And there’s no reason for her to change.”
“But there is,” I say, pulling away from her and up to sit cross-legged on the bed. “She likes me, right? And she knows that you…well, that you like me.”
“But she hates what your parents do. Or she would if she knew.” Leah shakes her head. “Seriously, Franny. It’s not worth it.”
“I’m not worth it, you mean.”
I’m feeling argumentative. Maybe I’m just full of fight-or-flight chemicals after all the stress of the evening, I don’t know, but I feel like I need to know that Leah’s on my side. “What do you think?” I blurt out. I’ve never asked her this before, and as soon as the words are out of my mouth, I wish I could snatch them back.
If she sees my parents as evil baby killers, I’m not sure I want to know.
Chapter Four
Luckily, Leah misunderstands my question. “What do I think? I think the only reason my mom changed her mind about gay people was because I came out. Otherwise she’d still think it was wrong and a sin and all that.”
“But if she met my parents…If she understood what they do and why it matters…” I trail off. “Women used to die because they couldn’t get safe abortions. That’s how my dad got into this in the first place. When he was a medical student, in the early seventies? He used to see women admitted to hospital with bleeding, infections, all kinds of awful stuff. Some of them had abortions in dirty back-alley-type places. Or they tried to give themselves abortions.”
Leah interrupts. “It doesn’t matter, Franny. Not to my mom. She says life begins at conception and that’s that.” Her blue-green eyes meet mine, wide and honest and steady. “To her, it’s murder. And so it doesn’t matter how you explain it. You can’t justify murder.”
“To her, it’s murder,” I repeat. In my mind, I am hearing the voice on the phone: baby killers.
Leah nods. “Yes. To her, Franny. Not to me.”
I relax ever so slightly. I needed to hear that. “You don’t see it that way?”
She drops her gaze. “I don’t know what I think exactly. I like your parents. I know they’re good people. But the way I was brought up—we were taught it was wrong.”
“You were taught that being queer was wrong too,” I point out.
She sighs. “I know. But abortion? I mean, I wouldn’t judge anyone for doing what they think is right for them. I guess…well, it’s complicated.”
“Complicated. How is it complicated? Women have a right to control their bodies. Abortion is legal. We’re getting death threats because my parents are doctors providing care to women who need it.” My heart is racing. “It seems pretty obvious who the bad guys are.”
“Look, there’s a whole lot of things that aren’t clear to me anymore. This last year…I’ve had to rethink a lot of what I’ve been taught. You know that.” Leah takes both of my hands in hers. “My mom really likes you. And she accepts us being together, which means so much to me. Can we please not wreck everything by telling her about your parents?”
I know she’s right. I just don’t want to accept it.
The stupid thing is, until the phone call tonight
, I’d hardly even thought about Leah’s views on abortion, let alone her mother’s.
But if the threats and everything are going to start up all over again, I’d really like to know that my girlfriend is 100 percent on our side.
I squeeze her hands and let out a long, shaky sigh. “Okay. I mean, fine. Why rock the boat, right?”
“Exactly.” She smiles, and the relief on her face is as clear and bright as sunshine. “I love you, Franny Green.”
I close my eyes for a second, holding my breath, trying to hold on to this moment and keep it inside me. Then I open my eyes and she is still there, wide-eyed, waiting.
“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?”
Under Threat Page 2