The Only One Left

In addition to the recent alienation she has felt from her father, Kit’s job has kept her largely isolated over the past 12 years; residing in the homes of her patients, Kit has little social life and no close friends to confide in. This means Kit had no one to support her during her suspension and investigation. On meeting Lenora, Kit finally encounters a person who can understand how painful and frustrating it is to be thought capable of a terrible crime. Kit sizes the opportunity to divulge exactly what happened when her mother passed away. When she does so she is taking a risk, but the novel demonstrates that one of the Uses of Secrets is in-group bonding. Kit and Lenora’s shared experience of social ostracism and the inability to adequately defend against public opinion makes them natural allies.

Kit confesses to her patient that she left the bottle of pills out knowing that her mother might break her promise to only take one extra—a choice that makes her feel guilty for leaving her mother in a vulnerable position without considering how her mother’s state of mind might affect her decision-making. Riley Sager does not delve into the question of assisted suicide, but Kathleen’s death asks whether someone should be able to decide to end their own life, particularly when in unbearable, intractable pain without hope of recovery. Kathleen had a terminal, debilitating illness; her hastened, but peaceful, death offers a sharp contrast with the violent murders of the Hope family, leaving readers to consider the ethical differences between them.

The novel plays on contemporary—and historical—interest in the genre of true crime. Jessie takes Kit on a murder tour, reveling in the grisly traces of the crimes that took place at Hope’s End. Several characters also discuss their theories about the Hope murders. Carter suggests that groundskeeper Ricardo Mayhew was responsible, while Jessie posits that Winston Hope was the killer. Jessie’s theory hinges on the date of the murders, October 29, 1929—the actual date of Black Tuesday, the day that the stock market crashed and triggered the Great Depression. This historical tie-in connects Winston’s financial troubles with the real stories of wealthy individuals who reacted to the financial disaster with violence—either turned on themselves or their families. Modern criminologists refer to those who kill in this manner, particularly in response to stressors or perceived threats to their authority, as family annihilators. The characters’ speculation encourages readers to also consider their own theories, particularly in light of the typed interludes that flesh out the Hope family’s past. This connects us to the residents of the town and the press, all of whom are still eager for any lurid details of the murders as a form of entertainment. Kit rejects this kind of conjecture, deciding that Jessie is at Hope’s End only to satisfy her morbid curiosity; for Kit, getting to the truth means actual research, as she has had personal experience of insinuating but evidence-free investigation from Detective Vick.

Based on Lenora’s interaction with the typewriter, readers assume that the typewritten interludes are what Kit is reading as Lenora types. We therefore expect that Kit’s knowledge corresponds with the reader’s. It is symbolic that Kit chooses to store the pages in the same locked box where she would have placed her mother’s fentanyl if she had followed protocol on the night that Kathleen took an intentional overdose. Aware that Lenora’s endangers herself by typing the truth, Kit is using her lockbox to protect her patient from something potentially lethal—something she failed to do with her mother.