Still Alice Page 0,60
the shiny traffic creep along Memorial Drive.
OCTOBER 2004
She sat up in bed and wondered what to do. It was dark, still middle of the night. She wasn’t confused. She knew she should be sleeping. John lay on his back next to her, snoring. But she couldn’t fall asleep. She’d been having a lot of trouble sleeping through the night lately, probably because she was napping a lot during the day. Or was she napping a lot during the day because she wasn’t sleeping well at night? She was caught in a vicious cycle, a positive feedback loop, a dizzying ride that she didn’t know how to step off. Maybe, if she fought through the urge to nap during the day, she’d sleep through the night and break the pattern. But every day, she felt so exhausted by late afternoon that she always succumbed to a rest on the couch. And the rest always seduced her to sleep.
She remembered facing a similar dilemma when her children were around two years old. Without an afternoon nap, they turned miserable and uncooperative by the evening. With a nap, they stayed wide awake hours past their usual bedtime. She couldn’t remember the solution.
With all the pills I’m taking, you’d think at least one would have drowsiness as a side effect. Oh, wait. I have that sleeping pill prescription.
She got out of bed and walked downstairs. Although fairly confident it wasn’t in there, she emptied her baby blue bag first. Wallet, BlackBerry, cell phone, keys. She opened her wallet. Credit card, bank card, license, Harvard ID, health insurance card, twenty dollars, a handful of change.
She rifled through the white mushroom bowl where they kept the mail. Light bill, gas bill, phone bill, mortgage statement, something from Harvard, receipts.
She opened and emptied the contents of the drawers to the desk and file cabinet in the study. She emptied the magazines and catalogs out of the baskets in the living room. She read a couple of pages from The Week magazine and dog-eared a page in the J. Jill catalog with a cute sweater. She liked it in sea-foam blue.
She opened the junk drawer. Batteries, a screwdriver, Scotch tape, blue tape, glue, keys, a number of chargers, matches, and so much more. This drawer probably hadn’t been organized in years. She pulled the drawer completely off its tracks and dumped the entirety of its contents onto the kitchen table.
“Ali, what are you doing?” asked John.
Startled, she looked up at his bewildered hair and squinting eyes.
“I’m looking for…”
She looked down at the items jumbled before her on the table. Batteries, a sewing kit, glue, a tape measurer, several chargers, a screwdriver.
“I’m looking for something.”
“Ali, it’s after three. You’re making a racket down here. Can you look for it in the morning?”
His voice sounded impatient. He didn’t like having his sleep disrupted.
“Okay.”
She lay in bed and tried to remember what she’d been looking for. It was dark, still middle of the night. She knew she should be sleeping. John had fallen back to sleep without ceremony and was already snoring. He was a fast sleeper. She used to be, too. But she couldn’t fall asleep. She’d been having a lot of trouble sleeping through the night lately, probably because she was napping a lot during the day. Or was she napping a lot during the day because she wasn’t sleeping well at night? She was caught in a vicious cycle, a positive feedback loop, a dizzying ride that she didn’t know how to step off.
Oh, wait. I have a way to get to sleep. I have those pills from Dr. Moyer. Where did I put them?
She got out of bed and walked downstairs.
THERE WERE NO MEETINGS OR seminars today. None of the textbooks, periodicals, or mail in her office interested her. Dan didn’t have anything ready for her to read. She had nothing new in her inbox. Lydia’s daily email wouldn’t come until after noon. She watched the movement outside her window. Cars zipped around the curves of Memorial Drive, and joggers ran along the curves of the river. The tops of pine trees swayed in the turbulent fall air.
She pulled all of the folders out of the bin marked HOWLAND REPRINTS from her file cabinet. She’d authored well over a hundred published papers. She held this stack of research articles, commentaries, and reviews, her truncated career’s worth of thoughts and opinions, in her hands. It was heavy. Her thoughts and opinions carried weight. At least, they used to.