The brunch time phone call that had an aimed threat to Samantha Twist and given to Frances Twist shook Ben to his very core, that people would threaten the two people that might as well be blood family to him. A part of him would always be curious about his biological parents, who had been friends with Samantha and Frances, and the things he'd been told about them made him like his biological parents in many ways. But most of his childhood memories were of things done with the Twists. They'd cared for him and loved him, the way any good parent should, and as such he loved Samantha and Frances as deeply as any child could love his or her parents, the fact that he was adopted and sixteen years old was irrelevant to all of that.
As such, he took the threat delivered as serious and with some degree of disbelief that fellow weres would threaten each other so blatantly. Sure there had always been occasions with rogue weres of some kind and anger over mistakes made, but many of those things were rare. Especially in Moon Lake, which had seemed to avoid many of the issues that plagued the rest of America at times. He'd remembered all the commentary on how Moon Lake was more open on interracial marriages, homosexuality, and civil rights issues before other parts of the country and embraced those things with conviction that seemed like good things. Then came this past City Council meeting and their vote to accept a proposal to reveal the were secret to the world and some random stranger calls the Twist home from a payphone and essentially gave his mothers a death threat, betraying many of the sorts of things that Moon Lake claimed to be different from.
It was something that effectively ruined much of the day in the Twist household and had Ben pacing the living room even after the detectives left. Ben hoped the two would find the caller and bring him to justice. He glanced over to Samantha and Frances, who were seated on the couch with Samantha holding Frances' hands as they sat together and that only further strengthened Ben's hopes that things would be okay.
"They'll catch him, Ben," Samantha said slowly, "can't say how long it will take... but they'll catch him. Especially if our home wasn't the only one he called."
"I hope so," Ben said slowly and stopped his pacing to look back to his mothers. A part of him was surprised by Samantha's comment, as had the sort of sense like she could read his mind, but he put that up as her knowing that he was worried.
"We'll still need some things for dinner," Frances commented softly, "We'd need to run errands... but... after that call..."
"They'll catch him," Samantha assured her wife as she noted Ben looking down for a moment, "and if need be... we can eat light or order in..."
"We can't do that every night," Frances reminded her.
Ben sighed as he looked up to them. It was pretty clear that Frances was the far more shaken of the two, possibly because she was the one who had the threat made directly to her or possibly a bit of a hold-over from the battle that had taken place on the front lawn of the neighboring home to the north of their own home. Samantha was often the more confident and outgoing between the two, who could and often did deal relatively well with stressful situations. Frances could help people manage stress and was outgoing in the sense that she could talk to people, but Frances wasn't the sort to go looking for trouble or confront those sorts of situations.
"If you have a list... I can go get what you need," Ben volunteered.
"You'd do that?" Frances looked up.
"Yeah... I mean... I'm angry that someone would just call and threaten you," Ben spoke, "but it's not like we can not eat and wait for the guy to be arrested. I have my car, and Moon Lake's Safeway isn't too terribly far from here. I can get what you need and be back quickly. And given the guy's confusion with the phone... it'd be doubtful that he'd be looking for me."
"That can work... though as I said last night," Samantha spoke, "don't argue with anyone over this. The fact that the threat was made at all shows how much people are on edge. Don't give anyone reason to take it out on you."
Ben nodded.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Getting the list of things to buy went quickly, and Ben quietly collected his keys and then drove up from Wood Street toward Main Street and turned west once he came to Main Street. The drive west was then completed quietly until the western most edge of town where a lone large rectangular building dominated the south side of the street. While Moon Lake had striven to stay hidden and be "self-sufficient" as it were for years, by the time that Washington State began to be settled, it became clear that some outside trade was needed to either get fruits and vegetables that weren't easy to grow, even after all the work done to plant the sort of artificial forest that took up the area between the various spokes that made up Moon Lake's straight line streets, and gain access goods and services and allow for Moon Lake normals to gain access to meat as needed.
So far as Ben knew, when the town was small and in its first few years, that was largely limited to a few small stores that were closer to the center of town than its edges, but as Moon Lake grew toward its present size and cities like Seattle grew even bigger, it had been opened up to include some of the larger chains like the Target on the east side of town and Safeway on the west. It would allow for greater access to goods and allow Moon Lake some measure of contact that wouldn't stress either Moon Lake or the outside world. It made things easier for all involved. People on their way through wouldn't have to "wait" if they had to make an emergency stop and some of those weres that commuted to work in Seattle or outside Moon Lake wouldn't have to go far to get things they needed. In many was it was a compromise that ultimately helped all, and now it would help Ben as he pulled into the parking lot, picked a space, shut off the engine and went inside.
The list his moms gave him wasn't super long, but it was large enough that Ben knew that they had eaten through a lot of food. He collected a cart and was soon moving into the main part of the store while looking down the list. He barely noticed the music that was playing softly over the store's loudspeakers as he looked over the list and found what was first and where he'd need to go in the store. When he was little, he remembered trips like this where he'd often ask for candy of some kind. Now he had a mission to pick up the things they needed while Samantha comforted Frances and tried to assure Frances that things would be fine, before she had to head to meet the new family that was coming in that afternoon, the Ross family from what she told Frances and Ben. A part of Ben wondered if that was the smart thing to do, but Samantha was firm enough to handle her work that he doubted he'd be able to convince her not to and thus went about his own mission, while Frances recovered. He was so focused on his list that he failed to notice a familiar scent coming up on him.
"Hey, Ben..." came Kenya's voice making Ben jump a little, "You okay?"
Ben turned to see Kenya standing there with one plastic bag and what looked like some bagels in it. He took a deep breath for a moment and raised one hand.
"I'm fine... you startled me... that's all," Ben admitted.
"I could see that... you okay?" Kenya asked again.
"Yeah... just running a few errands for my moms, you?" Ben asked back, wanting to be careful to not reveal anything as he resumed pushing his cart toward the aisle where the first items on his list were.
"Some minor errands of my own," Kenya nodded, "are your moms with you?"
"No..." Ben gave a sigh and looked around the aisle they were in at the moment, "I think some of the plan was to cover some of these errands earlier... but we had some issues this morning..."
"Not another fight?" Kenya asked hopefully.
"Nothing within the family... but..." Ben said slowly, gripping the handle on the cart tightly and the paper that the list he had crackling as he did so, still irritated that someone would threaten his moms. It was not something that Kenya missed.
"What happened?" Kenya asked, wondering what this could be. There were people upset over the city council's decision and there were plenty that had their concerns. She'd had her own, and was quite grateful to get answers from Ben the previous night and they'd run into no fights or trouble while they were out, but that didn't necessarily mean that something odd like that might have happened.
"Some guy called our home twice this morning... I answered the first time, and got no response," Ben explained softly, again checking to make sure they were clear, "he later called again and this time mom-Frances answered. The guy threatened to kill her if she didn't "fix" the whole reveal problem... thinking that mom-Frances was mom-Samantha. That pretty much ruined brunch. Add in that there is a new family coming in today and there has been plenty to worry about."
"I can't believe someone would do that..." Kenya spoke, a look of horror flashing over her face, "Your moms have seemed to be quite good people... and accepting of me..."
"Yeah... and I'd been mulling over some idea to invite you and your Aunt and Uncle over... let everyone eat together and get to know each other," Ben sighed as he relaxed a little, "but with all these surprises today..."
"Yeah," Kenya agreed, "today wouldn't be a good day. Maybe some other evening..."
"Maybe," Ben nodded and resumed walking along, though he was glad to have Kenya tag along, "I guess the real shocking thing was that there didn't seem to be too much of that sort of stuff going on last night... at least not where you, me, the Andersons, and the Ramsey's live."
"It may be like you said last night... this won't be easily solved," Kenya reminded him, "though... I'd understand your frustration at an attack on family over this."
Ben nodded and relaxed a little when he felt a soft pat on his back.
"And let your moms know that my family and I are behind you and would look forward to a good family dinner when it could be arranged," Kenya told him.