When she wakes , she finds the plan has worked . She readjusts to life slowly , spending hours over the summer of 2001 sitting in a park and refurnishing her once-expensively decorated apartment with mismatched , used furniture from Goodwill . But as she hoped , her world view has been transformed by her rest : her contempt for Reva has evaporated and for the first time she earnestly reciprocates her friend 's previously-insistent declarations that " I love you " , though now Reva is the one who has become distant . The narrator calls Reva once more , on her birthday in August , but Reva brushes off the call . They never speak again ; on September 11 , Trevor is out of town on his honeymoon but Reva dies in the terror attack on the World Trade Center . The narrator goes out to buy a new VCR to tape the news coverage , returning as time passes to watch the video , in particular footage of a woman leaping out of the tower
terror attack on the World Trade Center
September 11 attacks
My Year of Rest and Relaxation