A chill ran through Batya. Drinking liquid carbolic acid, as many prostitutes did, caused agonizing pain. So many had tried it that the hospital and the police dubbed it “blue-fingers death.” Freda read aloud the newspapers’ detailed descriptions so all the girls understood what was awaiting them if they attempted it. The mouth, esophagus, and stomach lining burned off, followed by convulsions, uncontrolled vomiting, and fingers and lips turning blue before one died in excruciating pain. “You’ll be lying in your vomit,” Freda had warned, “writhing like a worm, with the pain of hell’s sulfur eating your mouth and throat so you can’t even scream.”

“You knew?” Batya asked Rochel. Nettie had lied when she said she’d seen a doctor, and the bottle she’d shown Batya hadn’t been an elixir for appetite.

“I suspected.”

And you didn’t stop her?

They reached the freshly dug grave, where a burly Spanish man stood beside the gaping hole.

Nettie’s shrouded body was lowered to the bottom of the grave. There was no man to say kaddish for the soul of the departed, so the two elderly women recited this prayer while the laborer shoved the earth back. The thump of the earth dropping on top of Nettie’s body jolted Batya with the finality of her friend’s life. With a new burst of tears, she joined the sisters in reciting the sacred words. “O God, full of compassion, who dwells on high, grant true rest upon the wings of the Divine Presence, in the exalted spheres of the holy and pure, who shine as the resplendence of the firmament, for the soul of Nettie who has gone to her supernal world.”

The prayer ended before the grave was fully filled. Each sister picked up a fistful of earth and threw it into the hole. When it was Batya’s turn, she scooped earth with both her hands, threw it, then scooped more, digging her fingers deep in the warm soil. Rest in peace, she cried silently, not merely full of grief over her friend’s death but filled with fury over their life. Like Rochel, who had done nothing to stop Nettie, she, too, understood why Nettie had reached the end of the road. Were Batya not holding on to the hope of someday bringing her family over, she could very well have done the same.

The grave covered, each of the sisters lit a candle, stuck it in the freshly turned earth, and asked Nettie to carry her regards to her deceased loved ones.

Nettie, please send my love to my mother, Zelda, daughter of Tova. Please ask her to watch over me. Batya placed a small stone on top of the grave, then forced herself to turn away.

She walked with Rochel, their arms around each other under a dense cloud of sadness. They spoke little as they made their way back to the house.