It was the suicide of my older sister Zoe, in all her shimmering teenage glory, that pushed my father to the edge. Perhaps everyone has a breaking point. An incident or event that cannot be overcome, a moment in time that can never be erased. Most of us might get through life without encountering it, but my father was not so fortunate.

We lived far outside town, nestled in green hills, on a winding dead-end road a thousand kilometres north of Sydney. Filled with hopes for a new start, a tree-change—another world—my parents had packed up their busy city lives for the freedom of the country. My father, a psychiatrist, worked only three days a week. On days off he toiled in the garden. He began fantastical tasks and finished them in one day. Covered in sweat and dirt, with an aching back and a tired body he came in and told my mother of his progress. A Japanese garden, with a real slated pond and giant lilies, huge boulders and bamboo. An orchard with endless rows of citrus humming with bees. A rainforest, shady and ancient-seeming, strewn with fallen coloured leaves.