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Quote #10
She'd been driving with both of Elsie's pictures on the passenger seat beside her, staring at them as she drove. "I can't get all these thoughts outta my head. I just keep thinkin about what she must've gone through in those years before she died." (278)
Deborah's anxiety and sadness for the sister she never knew gets worse every time she looks at her sister's picture. In the photo, there's clear evidence of physical abuse and neglect. We can imagine that the little girl lived a miserable life without her mother and family. Worse, we learn about the experiments conducted on the vulnerable patients at Crownsville. Elsie doesn't live very long there. Although finding out the truth about HeLa cells had been cathartic for Deborah, the truth about Elsie breaks her heart.