A method is described in which, during execution of a distributed transaction, a representation of persistent data stored at an entry in a database is placed into a cache. Then, in response to an application's decision that the entry should be removed from the database, the representation is kept in the cache and marked as corresponding to an entry that is to be removed from the database. Then, during execution of the distributed transaction's two-phase commit protocol, the database is informed that the entry is to be removed from the database if the representation was marked as corresponding to an entry that is to be removed from the database when the application completed its execution for the distributed transaction.