“We’ll manage,” Saul insisted stubbornly. “We have before.” He glared at me. “We aren’t leaving.”

“I’m afraid there’s something else.” I turned to Sadie. “My stepmother, she found the necklace.”

“Your chai necklace?” Saul’s eyes widened as he turned to Sadie. “I told you not to wear it.”

“It’s my fault,” I said, jumping in to defend her.

“No, it was mine,” Sadie said, taking a step toward me. Saul and his father looked at us reproachfully. It was as if their worst warnings and admonitions about our friendship had all come true. “I gave it to Ella to keep safe for me. I never should have done that.”

“And I should have hidden it better,” I added. “But that doesn’t matter now. My stepmother found it and she realized I was helping Jews. She kicked me out. So I have to leave Kraków.”

“Oh, Ella.” Sadie’s voice was filled with remorse. “I’m so sorry.”

“After I leave, you won’t have anyone to bring you food. You can’t stay here in case the Germans come and you can’t go deeper into the tunnels because of the mines. You need to leave with me now.”

“But what if, I mean when, my mother comes back?” Sadie corrected herself, forcing a certainty that she no longer felt. “When she comes back, I have to be here.” A rock formed in my stomach. The lie I had created weeks ago as a kindness was the very thing that would stop me from saving her life. If Sadie thought her mother was alive, she would never leave. I knew then that I had no choice.

“Sadie, about your mother...”

“What is it? Is there news?” Then seeing my face, she stopped. “Is she all right?”

I knew in that moment that I had to tell her. “I went to the hospital where your mother had taken the baby. Only she wasn’t there anymore.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Your mother went to the hospital where she planned to take the baby. The nuns at the hospital gave her a bed and care.”

“But my mother didn’t go to the hospital as a patient. She went to hide my sister.”

“I know. But she was sicker than anyone realized from having the baby. She had developed a fever and an infection after childbirth. So they admitted her to try to heal her. The Germans found out she was there and came for her.”

“Was she arrested?” I wanted to lie and say yes. Telling Sadie that her mother had been taken by the Germans would be awful, but at least it would give her hope.

It would also be another lie. “The hospital didn’t let the Germans take her. They knew that would be a far worse fate, so they gave her a medicine that let her pass painlessly in her sleep.” I walked over and put my arms around her. “Sadie, I’m sorry.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “Your mother is dead.”

“No...that can’t be true.” Her face went rigid with disbelief. Although she had suspected her mother was gone the day I had gone to the hospital, some part of her had held on to hope until now. “You’re saying that just so I will leave.”