SOMEBODY DIES EVERY two seconds, and then every two seconds somebody is born. It’s what Mum told me when my rabbit died. And I’m thinking and it’s too quiet, so I say it now that somebody dies, I say it aloud, and Julia lets out a sudden sob like a death-rattle, like it’s the last breath she’ll ever take, like breathing’s the hardest thing she could do right now. That sob is almost worse than the silence, so that’s when I ask them:

“Do you think she still has a vagina?”