The next scene shows Esther going to the graveyard where her father is buried, behind a Methodist church. She remembers that her mother had been a Catholic before his death, and Esther thinks that she wants to become a Catholic because the Catholic Church might have a way to persuade her not to commit suicide. Her mother, however, has laughed at Esther and said she would have to learn the Church's catechisms — one can't just suddenly "become a Catholic." Esther concludes that it's probably true; besides, priests are terrible gossips. Then she begins to remember a story about an insane nun. Her mind wanders back to her father and his neglected grave and all the things he would have taught her if he had lived. She can't find her father's grave and as she searches for it, she recounts her problem of trying to buy a waterproof raincoat that morning. She decided to buy a black one, but it is not waterproof and she is now damp and feels clammy. Finally, Esther finds her father's gravestone; there, she arranges a bouquet of azaleas that she picked near the entrance, and then she collapses in tears. She remembers that she has never cried for her father before. Her mother has not cried either; she has said that his death was all for the best because he would have rather been dead than a cripple. We see here how much Esther's mother has influenced her. Esther has not been able to mourn, and she has been pondering how she herself would be better off dead — than living in this less-than-perfect state. Perfection is all, it seems. "I laid my face to the smooth face of the marble and howled my loss into the cold salt rain."
However, Esther's tears come too late and perhaps are too few because in the next scene, she carries out a suicide attempt. She wants to join her father. And she actually goes through with this plan. She leaves a note stating, "I am going for a long walk," then she gets the key to unlock the strongbox where her sleeping pills are kept and seizes the new bottle (she'd plotted that it would take too long to save up enough, so this is the only way; Esther's mind is always cleverly plotting every detail), gets a glass of water, and goes down to the cellar, where she crawls under a breezeway addition to the house, and puts the logs back across the opening to lock herself in. She takes the pills, one by one, and finally she starts to see flashing red-and-blue lights. She sees the wreckage of her life in front of her, at the "rim of vision," then she is swept off, as if in a tide, to sleep.
