The Green Rising

Chapter One

Part One

The Present…June 2017

The phone clattered to the floor, its battery sliding across the tile until it met the apricot-colored wall. I stooped to retrieve the pieces and put the phone back together as emotion singed my throat. Surely I’d heard her wrong. Or maybe even dreamt the call. As the landline rung and the caller I.D. read “Sue Goodwyn,” reality sank in.

 “Are you okay, Lily?” my mother-in-law’s voice sobbed.

“I’m just a little shocked,” I replied with tears trailing down my face. “I was half-asleep when you called. You did tell me that Sheila died, right?”

“Yes. I can’t make sense of it. She was perfectly healthy,” Sue said, her voice frail. “Is Luc there?”   

“No, he’s been overseas for the past couple of weeks. He won’t return for another ten days,” I answered, now annoyed that he had wanted to keep his whereabouts a secret from his mom. He didn't like for her to worry unnecessarily.          

“Do they have any idea how Sheila died?” I asked, brushing away a tear with my shoulder.           

“They say it was a drug overdose, but my daughter wasn’t a druggie. I raised my kids better than that.” Anger wrapped around her words as she sobbed again.           

I stared at the wall for a couple of seconds trying to process the possibility that my sister-in-law had died of an overdose. “I don’t understand. Who said she died of an overdose?”           

“Her neighbor found her. They were supposed to go out for breakfast, but Sheila never showed up and wouldn’t answer her phone. Becky let herself into the apartment since Jessa was over at a friend’s house. She said Sheila looked like she was asleep in the bed, but when she tried to rouse her, she wouldn’t wake up.” Her voice seemed a million miles away. " An empty bottle of sleeping pills was on the floor beside the bed."          

“This is so strange to me. We both know that Sheila did not die from a drug overdose. There’s more to it than that,” I said with conviction. “Ma, I’ll try to reach Luc and then I’ll make arrangements to get to Indiana. You hang tight, okay? We love you.”           

Once I hung up the phone, I walked over to the computer and wiggled the mouse to awaken it. I clicked into my email and typed “Urgent!!! Call home ASAP!” into the heading with a “Please call me, Luc” as the main text. I looked at the time, ten o’clock, and calculated that Luc should be in his work quarters within an hour; soldiers weren't given many free weekends when they were in the Middle East.        

As I fired off the email, I bowed my head as cries overtook me.

How could this have happened to Sheila? She wouldn’t take an over-the-counter painkiller but once or twice a year, and that was only for the worst of headaches. She didn’t drink, wasn’t depressed, and she was in the prime of her life. She’d been like a sister to me ever since I met her and there’d been no forewarning of any problem with her in any of our conversations. It didn’t make sense. She was the most stable person I knew, and there was no way she'd jeopardize her daughter's happiness.

I knew people could be bent, and if far enough, they would snap, but Sheila was more akin to a rock than a twig.           

Deciding that dwelling on this news was imprudent, I called my best friend to see if she’d be able to watch the house and collect our mail while we were gone. I hated pestering her at this late hour since she was in the first trimester of her pregnancy, but she’d be upset if I left without telling her what had transpired. My heart broke because Carrie and her family were in their last few weeks of living in Florida; they were headed to Norfolk in less than a month. With the trip up north, we might have only a handful of times together before they departed.