Nevermore by Danielle Allen

Author:Danielle Allen [Allen, Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Danielle Allen
Published: 2017-01-16T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

“According to the detective, they found her unconscious and with a faint pulse in her apartment. Toxicology report found…three hundred twenty milligrams of Oxycontin in her system. They didn’t see any evidence of foul play and they didn’t find any drugs in her apartment—not even over-the-counter drugs. Pending the results of the autopsy, they said it is looking like a suicide,” Mom informed us in her professionally brisk tone around lunch time. “But no official determination has been made yet.”

The room was deafeningly quiet in response.

After receiving Phoenix’s call, we’d made it to Virginia Medical Center in record time. We quickly found my family and Sparrow’s best friend, Billie, frantically pacing around the waiting room. I listened as Billie recounted finding Sparrow passed out and assuming she was sleeping since she said she had a headache. But when she tried to wake her, she realized something was wrong. She called 9-1-1 and continued shaking her hard to wake her.

Later, a doctor explained that EMTs found a weak pulse and the doctors and nurses were doing everything they could to revive her. All signs pointed to an overdose, but the naloxone and the epinephrine weren’t successful. Sparrow never regained consciousness. It was a rough night and we were all inconsolable around nine o’clock when the doctors came out and told us the news.

At the age of twenty-three, my baby sister was dead.

JP, Phoenix and I headed to my parents’ house while they went down to the police station. On the way, we ended up grabbing overnight bags so we could be together all night. I didn’t know what time Mom and Pop returned because I’d ended up crying myself to sleep. According to JP, I woke up several times throughout the night and even continued to cry in my sleep.

No wonder I’m so exhausted.

I felt like life was kicking my ass.

I stared at my mom, waiting for more information or a comforting word, but it didn’t come. She’d just gotten off the phone with the detective they met with after she and Pop left the hospital. Her short, dark hair with silvery streaks was slicked back and her outfit was more casual than I’d seen her in years. Between her lack of information and her dressed down appearance, I knew she was a wreck.

But a wreck for Maria Biya was a typical, lazy Saturday afternoon for most other people. She just wasn’t her normal pulled together self as she paced the living room. On the surface, if it weren’t for her glassy eyes and ever present drink in her hand, one would assume it was business as usual for her. And seeing my mother in that unfamiliar territory made me uneasy, because she was unpredictably critical on a normal day. And the day after Sparrow died was not a normal day.

And none of us were handling it well.

“How did we miss it? How didn’t we know? What didn’t we see? Why was she suicidal? Where did this come from?” Mom asked aloud for the hundredth time.

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