FOR A FEW weeks when I was in school, my mother’s friend came to live with us, recovering from a half-hearted attempt at suicide. She had taken pills, and in the stupor that followed had seemingly gone through her phone, calling everyone she knew. Mum was the first to answer; she has never missed a telephone call, much less the opportunity to intervene in a crisis.

Mum did not tell us that Sabina had tried to kill herself. She said that she was unwell, and because she was unmarried and her children lived interstate Sabina would stay with us while she convalesced. We figured it out after she arrived; she did not appear sick, but lively and plump. Nor was there any regularity to her medical appointments. Though Phoebe was irritated that she would have to share her bathroom we found the situation morbidly glamorous, the sick woman with the elegant name whose stay would end with recovery or its opposite. So many sibilant words: suicide, convalescence, Sabina. Having no knowledge of death or any conviction we would ever die, suicide seemed tinged with romance. That Sabina lived confirmed our belief that death was not serious.