‘The Call’ is a poignant portrait of family

“RESULT: After I felt the horse’s leg, I told the owner about the heat. I told her she would do well to stand the horse’s leg in a bucket of ice water. The woman shook her head. ‘No ice,’ she said… .

“WHAT I SAID TO THE WIFE IN BED: Am I getting grayer? The children told me I have more gray here… .

“WHAT THE WIFE SAID: No, you don’t have more gray than usual. It’s just that the children are taller. They can see the gray they have never been able to see before.’’

“The Call’’ is a portrait of a family, Dr. David Appleton, his wife, Jen, and their three children: Sam (12), Sarah (10), and Mia (6). When Jen says, early in the book, “Be careful hunting, David. I don’t like it. He’s still so young. You only have one son, you know,’’ we can tell something terrible is coming.

“CALL: My son. I can’t get him fast enough… .

“ACTION: … I can see the holes in the cloth of his coat, and the goose feathers sticking out from them, wavering in the wind.’’

When Sam is shot by an unseen hunter, he falls into a coma and the Appleton family feels everything that was once stable slip away. And yet, as much as David and Jen fret about Sam’s prognosis (“WHAT THE WIFE SAID I DID IN MY SLEEP: Cried.’’), life in all its tiny details goes on (“WHAT THE TRUCK IS TELLING ME: Check engine.’’). As David makes his rounds to the horses with toothaches and pregnant goats, his community comes into focus. Aging Dorothy, for instance, with her pet sheep, Alice, who lives inside the house. The rich couple with their mansion and Great Dane. Jim Bushway, the careless farmhand who shoots “rock tiger’’ - chipmunks - and leaves them where they fall. With his son frozen in a coma, each member of this small town becomes either a source of information about his attacker or a suspect. The person calling the Appleton home and then hanging up, over and over, isn’t helping matters.