My Year of Rest and Relaxation - Ottessa Moshfegh Page 0,68

something, how shall I put this . . . psychosomatic. Running that risk, I believe we should be conservative.”

“I’ll try the Infermiterol,” I said curtly.

“Good. And eat a high-dairy meal each day. Did you know that cows can choose to sleep standing up or lying down? Given the option, I know what I’d pick. Have you ever made yogurt on the stove? Don’t answer that. We’ll save the cooking lesson for our next meeting. Now write this down because I have a feeling you’re too psychotic to remember: Saturday, January twentieth, at two o’clock. And try the Infermiterol. Bye-bye.”

“Wait,” I said. “The Ambien.”

“I’ll call it in right away.”

I hung up and looked at my phone. It was only Sunday, January 7.

I went to the bathroom and took stock of the medicine cabinet, counting out all my pills on the grimy tile floor. In all, I had two Ambien but thirty more on the way, twelve Rozerem, sixteen trazodone, around ten each of Ativan, Xanax, and Valium, Nembutal, and Solfoton, plus single digit amounts of a dozen random medications that Dr. Tuttle had prescribed only once “because refilling something this peculiar might trigger speculation by the insurance wizards.” In the past, this supply of medication would have been enough for a month of moderate sleeping, nothing too deep if I was conservative with the Ambien. But I knew in my heart that they were all useless now—a collection of foreign currency, a gun with no bullets. The Infermiterol had made all other drugs moot. Maybe it was radiating detoxifying energy into everything on the shelves, I thought, and although I knew that was nonsense, I put all the pills back in the medicine cabinet, but left the Infermiterol bottle out on the dining table, its blue plastic top flashing like a neon light as I looked through the mail. I took a few Nembutal and shot back the dregs of a bottle of Dimetapp.

I found a notice from the unemployment office: I’d forgotten to call them. The measly payments were running out anyway, so it wasn’t a huge loss. I threw the notice in the trash. There was a postcard from my dentist reminding me to come in for my yearly cleaning. Trash. There was the bill from Dr. Tuttle for my missed appointment—a handwritten postcard on the back of an index card. “November 12th no show fee: $300.” She’d probably forgotten all about it by now. I put it aside. I threw away a coupon to a new Middle Eastern restaurant on Second Avenue. I threw away spring catalogues from Victoria’s Secret, from J. Crew, from Barneys. An old water shut-off notice from the super. More junk. I opened up last month’s debit card statement and skimmed through all the charges. I found nothing out of the ordinary—mostly ATM withdrawals at the bodega. Only a few hundred dollars at Bloomingdale’s. Maybe I had stolen the white fox fur coat, I thought.

And there was a Christmas card from Reva: “During this hard time, you’ve been there for me. I don’t know what I’d do without a friend like you to weather life’s ups and downs. . . .” It was as poorly composed as the aborted eulogy she’d given for her mother. I threw it away.

I hesitated to open a letter from the estate lawyer, worried that it would be a bill that I’d have to pay, which would require that I find my checkbook and go out into the world to buy a stamp. But I took a deep breath and saw stars and opened the letter anyway. It was a brief handwritten note.

“I’ve tried to reach you by phone several times but it seems your mailbox is full. I hope you had a happy holiday. The professor is moving out. I think you should put the house on the market rather than look for a new tenant. Financially speaking, you’re better off selling and putting the money into stocks. Otherwise it’s just going to sit there empty.”

A waste of space, he was saying.

But when I closed my eyes and pictured the house in that moment, it wasn’t empty. The pastel depths of my mother’s swollen closet lured me back. I went inside and peeked out between her hanging silk blouses at the rough beige carpeting of her bedroom, the cream ceramic lamp on her nightstand. My mother. And then I traveled up the hall, through the French doors, into my father’s study: a dried plum pit on a tea