The Only One Left

“I move on, although not before taking one last look at Lenora’s portrait. Three others, identical in shape and size, hang in a row next to it, all hidden behind black silk crepe. Rather than draped over the paintings, the fabric is stretched taut and held in place by nails driven directly into the frames. All that effort, though, doesn’t entirely hide the portraits. I can faintly see them behind the sheer crepe, hazy and featureless, like ghosts. Winston, Evangeline, and Virginia Hope. And Lenora’s the only one still on display because she’s the only one left.”

Kit McDeere’s introduction to the grand estate at Hope’s End is a chance to peer inside a world she has been aware of since childhood from the outside. She’s heard about the Hopes through the ghoulish nursery rhyme about Lenora murdering her parents and sister, and she’s been indoctrinated to mistrust and resent the wealthy by her bitter father Patrick. Now, Kit encounters the people behind these stereotypes for the first time: The portraits of Winston, Evangeline, and their daughter have been covered so that the household will not be reminded of tragedy, which highlights the emotional toll the gruesome killings took on their survivors. The scene also serves the novel’s central mystery. Mrs. Baker gestures to the only uncovered portrait, identifying its green-eyed subject as Lenora, but eventually, Kit will realize that this image represents Virginia, her patient; the real Lenora—Mrs. Baker—has blue eyes.

“Because here’s an intriguing fact about Hope’s End: The doors to all the bedrooms can only be locked from the outside, with individual keys required to open them. When my sister and I were young, one of my father’s favorite games was to lock us in our bedrooms. Whoever went the longest without begging to be let out received a prize. Usually a bit of money or a fancy dessert, and once, a gold bracelet. The winner also got to decide how much longer the loser had to stay in her room. My sister won every time.”

This description of the typist’s childhood contributes to the ominous and sinister atmosphere at Hope’s End. Her father’s cruelty and the animosity he gleefully cultivated between Virginia and Lenora undercut the misconception that the Hopes lived an idyllic life. After the murders, the estate attained a blighted, haunted, folkloric status. Locals, true crime aficionados, and the press are perversely curious about how and why a young woman of such privilege might so viciously and gruesomely attack her family. The typist insists that she must tell her story chronologically, as only then will her readers see why events unfolded as they did.

“I pause, unsure if I should continue. Or if I even want to. But then Lenora gives me a sidelong glance, looking as curious about me as I am about her. ‘That’s the biggest thing we have in common,’ I finally say. ‘That everyone thinks I also killed my mother.’”

Kit McDeere feels an immediate kinship with her patient, believing that Lenora Hope is the only person who might understand the social isolation and suspicion Kit has endured over the past six months. Kit sees her nonverbal patient as a safe confidante, so she unburdens herself, expressing aloud for the first time her guilt over her role in her mother’s death. Kit sets an example of truth-telling that encompasses protestation of innocence and acceptance of responsibility—something few other characters in the novel are capable of. While Kit did not give her mother an overdose of fentanyl, she acknowledges that she left the medication deliberately within her mother’s reach, trusting Kathleen to self-administer.

“I’d assumed she wanted to tell her story in an attempt to finally clear her name. And that she chose me to help because she saw us as kindred spirits. One falsely accused woman telling her story to another, working together to declare her innocence. Now I fear it’s the opposite. Lenora didn’t pick me because she thinks I’m innocent. She did it because she thinks I’m guilty. And what we’ve been typing today isn’t an attempt to clear her name. It’s a confession.”

Kit develops affection and admiration for her patient, despite the atrocities Miss Hope is assumed to have committed as a teenager. Despite a conscious effort to push past her fear of being close to an infamous local legend, Kit wonders whether Lenora Hope might be guilty after all. Kit is hurt when she presumes her patient’s narrative is progressing toward a confession: Kit does not want to believe her patient is a killer, because if Lenora feels comfortable telling Kit about killing her family, she must, like everyone else, believe that Kit is a liar who also committed matricide.

“It occurs to me that much of what she’s typed so far could be, if not a lie, then at least a banding of the truth. Shaping the story in a way that suits her best. I did it myself when talking to Mrs. Baker upon my arrival. I could have said it was my mother who overdosed on pills. Instead, I told her it was merely a patient. Not a lie, exactly, but also not the full truth. Not by a long shot. I suspect Lenora’s been doing the same.”

The Only One Left incorporates many elements of Gothic fiction, which often features isolated, foreboding mansions, gruesome murders, oppressive secrets from the past, and the supernatural. Though Kit does not believe in ghosts, she is perplexed by the unexplained sounds, missing and moved objects, and clear indications of someone moving in her patient’s room. Kit’s apprehension deepens when Lenora refuses to give satisfactory answers to questions about changes to Lenora’s environment. This refusal casts doubt on the veracity and transparency of her patient’s entire memoir, especially since Kit does not yet fully understand the dynamics of the relationship between her patient and others who reside at Hope’s End.

“My sister smiled at me, a look I’d seen so many times that it rarely registered how vicious it could be. Her smile contained neither humor nor warmth. It was as cold and calculating as the girl it belonged to. […] In the end, she was right. Eventually she did find out, and disaster soon followed. At least she got her wish. All these years later, she’s still here, roaming the halls. And she’s never going to leave. As long as Hope’s End still stands, my sister will remain.”

The typist of the memoir paints her sister as a competitive, vindictive, and cruel sibling who enjoyed perpetuating their one-sided rivalry, relentlessly seeking out opportunities to use the typist’s secrets to incite their father’s wrath and gain his approval. These passages paint the typist as the meeker and gentler of the two Hope sisters. To careful readers, this becomes another clue, as they might question how this person could have been the murderer. The last sentence clearly foreshadows the inevitable destruction of Hope’s End and the inextricably correlated demise of a Hope daughter.

“But whoever pushed her off the terrace knew what she was up to. They knew her. Which means it was likely someone at Hope’s End. Other than me and Lenora, only four people fit that description—Mrs. Baker, Archie, Carter, and Jessie. Why one of them would feel the need to kill Mary over something Lenora typed is beyond me. I reach for the phone again, itching to call Detective Vick back. He needs to hear this, even if it’s doubtful he’ll believe me. He hadn’t yet. About anything.”

Despite how unprofessional Detective Vick has been in his treatment of Kit since the death of her mother, unwavering in his chauvinistic, patronizing, and paternalistic attitude toward her, Kit’s concern for her own safety compels her to ask for his help. She struggles to remain patient as Detective Vick suggests that she, confused and riddled with guilt, is unable to separate the death of Kathleen McDeere from the death of Mary Malin. In the novel, authority figures wrongly convinced they know the truth are vocal and aggressive, obstacles to the truth in their arrogance.

“I was referring to me and my sister, who were set to inherit the sizeable fortune left behind by my grandparents. They had neither liked nor trusted my father, and when they died, they left nothing to their only daughter out of fear it would be squandered. Instead, their money was split between me and my sister and placed in a trust that neither of us could access until we turned eighteen.”

Class Status, Resources, and Privilege come with need to successfully observe prescribed gender expectations in The Only One Left. Winston Hope, a chauvinist and hypocrite, reveled in reminding others of the power he wielded as a man of financial privilege—though he was unable to become part of the old money society he so coveted. To his upper echelon in-laws, Winston Hope was a greedy opportunist who married their vulnerable daughter for his social ambition; this is why they structured their will to disinherit Evangeline and ensure their granddaughters would be left resources their father could not waste. This passage from the typist’s memoir also hints that money might have been a motive for the killer.

“I wasn’t hurt by Archie’s words. I knew he didn’t say them to be cruel. It was simply his way. He had a gentle soul and told things the way he saw them, unlike most everyone else at Hope’s End.

‘If things were different, you know I’d have chosen you,’ I said.

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘But they are different. With me and with him. People like us and people like you and your sister—we’re not meant to mingle. Society won’t allow it. The longer you let this thing g on, the worse it’ll be when it inevitably ends.’

I sat up, adamant. ‘It won’t end.’

Archie raised his hands in surrender. ‘I believe you. But whatever happens, good or bad, know that I’ll be with you the entire time.’”

As her memoir unfolds, the typist reveals herself to have been a young, naïve teenage girl desperate for love, acceptance, belonging, and adventure beyond the world of Hope’s End. She was naïve and hopelessly sheltered as well—she was blindsided when the father of her child betrayed her. Archie, her devoted friend, tried to gently warn her that her innocence of the harsh realities of the world made her vulnerable and gullible, but she refused to listen. Instead, he promised to support and love her no matter what happened. It is surprising to Kit that Archie and the typist appear to have grown so distant from one another, given the strength of the bond they shared when they were young.

“My mother’s voice was loud and clear behind the door. A sign that she was well and truly furious. Normally, the laudanum kept her sounding meek and muddled. It pleased me to her hear sounding like her old self again, even though I knew it was prompted by the worst fight my parents had had in years.”

Evangeline’s change in mental status indicates to her daughter that her mother’s circumstances at Hope’s End deteriorated completely. The revelations the typist overheard completely eroded her sense of herself, of her parents, and of the domestic security she relied upon. Hope’s End faced foreclosure, Winston had taken advantage of Evangeline’s pregnancy by one of her family’s servants to marry into the rich family, and since then Evangeline has been unable to stop Winston’s affairs with those in his employ. After a surge of courage she mustered to confront her husband, Evangeline intentionally overdosed on laudanum, unwilling to suffer any longer.

“Lenora hesitates, her left hand hovering over the ground, as if she’s not sure of the answer. I feel the same way. Also hovering. Also uncertain. As much as I need to know the truth, I’m also cognizant of the danger it might put me in. If Lenora finally tells me and someone else finds out, I could end up just like Mary. I stare out across the grass to the edge of the cliff. No railing there. Just a straight, screaming drop into the ocean. Lenora’s aware of it true, even though he can’t see it from where she lies. There’s no way to miss its presence. It pulls at us, daring us to come closer, peer over the edge, tempt fate. It dawns on me that’s what I’ve been doing since the moment I arrived at Hope’s End. Edging toward the forbidden. Looking at things I shouldn’t see, poking at this that shouldn’t be poked. All because of a misguided hope that proving Lenora’s innocence might somehow make me look innocent as well.”

When Kit brings her patient out onto the lawn at Hope’s End, it is the first time the frail woman has been outside her bedroom in 50 years. Kit is taking this risk because of empathy—she has devoted her life to caring for others, and her patient’s plight makes Kit see herself in Miss Hope. Kit needs others know the truth of what happened to her mother; she fears growing old under the same cloud of suspicion and animosity that has isolated Miss Hope from the world. Here, the novel explores the literal and figurative image of the sheer cliff face: Hope’s End is positioned precariously on the edge, and Kit feels the temptation to get closer and closer to that danger.

“My excuse for taking to my bed—exhaustion brought about by extreme nervousness—was also inspired by my mother. Everyone believed it. Like mother, like daughter. Even clueless Dr. Walden had no trouble thinking it was the truth. Rather than examine me, he simply provided a bottle of laudanum and told me to sip it regularly to ease my delicate condition. I poured the foul liquid down the sink as soon as I was alone. I might have been acting like my mother, but I certainly had no plan to become her.”

Throughout the novel, patronizing paternalism is omnipresent in male authority figures. Doctor Walden and Detective Vick, though men of different vocations separated by more than five decades, readily attribute to emotional distress anything women do that doesn’t match their preconceived ideas. Dr. Walden and Detective Vick do not believe that the women they interact with might be rational, they dismiss women’s justifiable indignation to unfair treatment, and they never consider that their assessments might be incorrect. The typist of the memoir may have been in a vulnerable position as a pregnant, unwed teenager, but she manages to outsmart Dr. Walden by leaning into the rigid strictures of his biases.

“But three people were murdered that night. The only way that can possibly be right is if the person who called the police did so after finding only two of the bodies.

‘Who was the caller?’

‘Lenora Hope.’

It makes sense she’d be the one to call the police. It’s naturally the first thing Lenora would do if she was innocent—or trying to make herself look innocent. But in both cases, she she’d surely know the number of victims. Either Lenora lied to the police—or someone else was still alive while she was on the phone.”

Detective Vick is Kit’s only resource for information for the official police record about the Hope murders. While Detective Vick never redeems himself as a true investigator, he does help Kit’s own research. Here, the old documentation points to a discrepancy—one of several clues that indicate that Lenora did not kill her parents. By piecing together the many conflicting pieces of evidence, Kit will eventually determine what really happened and why.

“Pausing a moment at the painting of Lenora, I take in her pert nose, ripe lips, green eyes. Despite the many years between them, the girl in the portrait is unmistakably the woman I’ve been caring for. […] Unlike her husband, Evangeline Hope looks very much like she knew what was coming. There’s only one portrait left. Virginia. I jab and poke. I claw and tear. I keep ripping until I see a young woman who bears some of the features of her mother and absolutely none of her father. She’s beautiful, too, in a slightly haunting way. In the painting, her smile comes off as forced, almost cruel. Then there are her eyes, which are colored an icy blue. Staring at them makes me recall what Berniece Mayhew said about Ricardo being a goner once Lenora batted her big eyes at him. Her big, blue eyes.”

After her conversation with Berniece Mayhew, Kit confirms her new suspicion by unveiling the portraits in the great hall at Hope’s End. The Only One Left often presents important clues as extraneous details. Here, Kit recognizes that the green-eyed teenager, who resembles both of her parents, is her patient—but this cannot be Lenora, since the eldest Hope daughter is not Winston’s child. When Kit sees the striking resemblance between Evangeline and the other, blue-eyed, girl whose portrait has been covered up, Kit realizes that this must be the older daughter, and that her patient is actually Virginia Hope. These physical resemblances are important for the novel’s characterization of Lenora’s obsession with pleasing her adoptive father, whose dismissive cruelty in talking about illegitimate children she has internalized.

“I find Mrs. Baker in the kitchen, corkscrew in hand, opening a bottle of Cabernet on the counter. She looks up, surprised to see me enter from the hallway and not the service stairs.

‘Is everything all right with Miss Hope?’

‘Yes, Lenora,’ I say. ‘Virginia is fine.’”

Kit’s decision to confront Lenora Hope by using her true name shows her character growth. Throughout the novel Kit has been cautious, asking questions and gathering information carefully and sparingly so as not to arouse suspicion that she is investigating the past. She has guarded the pages of her patient’s memoir, carefully locking them away. Always, her primary concern has been for her patient’s safety, especially after Mary’s body is discovered and Kit realizes that someone in the household is willing to kill to keep their secret. However, now, Kit acts with anger, tired of the endless lies holding Hope’s End together.

“Lenora looks up from her glass, seeking sympathy.

‘Certainly you can understand that. You know what it’s like to be accused of something you didn’t do. To have everyone leave, to grapple with fear and grief alone. In the past six months, haven’t you wanted to change everything about your situation?’

I have. And I did. I came to Hope’s End.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘But my options were limited.’

Lenora flinches, as if this is the first time someone has pointed out that people like her have advantages people like me can only dream about.”

The status-obsessed Lenora, having internalized her father’s social ambitions, has always clearly delineated between her elite family and members of the working class who work for the Hope estate. Here, even as Lenora looks to Kit for sympathy, she makes certain that Kit understands her place at Hope’s End. Kit counters that far from suffering under public scrutiny, Lenora has used her resources to deflect blame and distance herself from her family’s tragedy while maintaining the lifestyle to which she was accustomed.

“This time, no elaboration is necessary. I understand exactly what she means—rather than try to help her sister, Lenora moved the chair so the police wouldn’t know Virginia killed herself.

The realization causes me to recoil. I take several backward steps, wanting to put as much distance between us as possible. Until now, I could almost summon some grudging sympathy for Lenora. But this? This was monstrous. […] ‘I did it to protect her,’ she says […] ‘If I hadn’t, then the police would have known the truth,’ Lenora says, her voice ice cold. ‘They, like me, would have realized the reason Virginia tried to commit suicide.’

I take another step back, this one driven purely by shock. ‘You think Virginia murdered your parents.’

‘I know she murdered them,’ Lenora’s tone shifts from steely to tremulous, as if it’s being chipped away with a chisel. ‘Honestly, I’m not surprised, considering what we did to her.’”

As a novel written from two first-person perspectives, The Only One Left plays with the technique of the unreliable narrator. Personal recollections throughout are meant to be regarded with scrutiny, as both Kit and the typist have reason to obscure their culpability while highlighting the misdeeds of others. Here, the same thing happens during a spoken confession. While Virginia’s memoirs portray Lenora as callous—a trait supported by Lenora’s decades-long imprisonment of her sister—Lenora claims that she loves Virginia. Lenora wants Kit to see Lenora’s decision to move the chair from beneath Virginia’s body as an attempt to save her sister from being thought a murderer. Lenora still believes Virginia to be guilty of their parents’ murder, but has developed the empathy to see that Virginia’s actions were justified.

“Archie responds with a nod. ‘It’s one of the reasons I loved her so much. She didn’t judge me. Or shame me. Or, thank goodness, try to change who I am. She simply accepted me. And I couldn’t leave her. […] because that’s another thing Ricardo told me—that Berniece had spotted her the night before and knew of her condition. That meant everyone would soon know. When that happened Virginia would need me more than ever.’

The sadness of this story leaves me convinced that Hope’s End Is cursed in some way. Maybe it was bad luck. Or perhaps because of Winston Hope’s hubris in building a mansion at the edge of a cliff despite knowing that it was only a matter of time before it crumbled into the ocean.”

The novel’s title can be interpreted in several ways. At the beginning of the novel, Kit sees her patient as “the only one left”—that is, the only remaining member of the Hope family. Here, however, Riley Sager presents another candidate: Archie, the only person who stayed with the Hope daughters after they fired or were abandoned by everyone else. Archie is there because of the promise that he made to Virginia when they were young, that he would never abandon her. Instead of running away with the man he loved, Archie decided to sacrifice his happiness and whatever future was possible for a young gay man in mid-20th century America to protect Virginia’s life. The crumbling of Hope’s End will be a cathartic release for this secondary prisoner of the Hope family.

“When I went to bed that night, I had a sickening feeling my mother intended to take every pill in that bottle. Call it a sixth sense. Or a premonition. Yet I convinced myself that she knew better, ignoring how extreme suffering could cloud someone’s judgment. I wanted to think she wouldn’t purposefully overdose, so that was what I believed.

As a result, my mother is dead.

All because of my actions. […]

I refuse to treat my father the way Virginia treated me. Pretending to be innocent. Forcing him to live with nagging doubt for the rest of his days. Driving a wedge between us until we’ve become exactly like the Hope sisters—stuck with each other in a cycle of suspicion and guilt.

The truth will set me free—even if it might also send me to prison.”

Kit, though innocent, has excoriated herself for her tangential involvement in her mother’s death. Like Winston Hope, Kit’s father allowed his daughter to suffer for the choices and actions he made in his marriage, and protected himself above all others.

“Ricky’s gaze also skipped about. To the unlit fireplace, to the zebra rug under his feet. Anywhere but at me.

‘It’s true, Ginny,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘See?’ My father’s tone was shockingly boastful. He was, I realized, enjoying the worst moment of my life. ‘I know you’re hurt now but it’s for the best. You don’t want trash like him dragging you down for the rest of your life.’

‘But—’

It was all I could muster. Shock and heartbreak had silenced me. But I knew I could still speak volumes with the knife in my hand. […] My father didn’t scream when the knife plunged into him. I did that for him, letting out a sharp cry that pinged around the room in an infernal echo. I could still hear it when my mother yanked the knife from my father’s gut.”

When Winston Hope referred to Ricky as “trash,” he was also expressing the opinion of Evangeline’s family about Winston. Both Winston and Ricky are characterized as upstarts who believed they were entitled to the same lifestyle as those in the upper echelons of society. Winston lumps together Ricky and Lenora’s birth father, both of whom accepted bribes to abandon their pregnant lovers; however, Winston fails to appreciate that all three are motivated by opportunism and ambition. By turning the knife on Winston, Evangeline tries to break free from her husband’s tyranny.

“The only thing that pulled me away from my mother’s corpse was the knife that killed her. Still on the foyer floor, it caught the light in a way that felt like a taunt. […] I went to it, picked it up, and considered driving it into my heart. I stopped myself before I could do so, worried that once the blade entered my chest, there’d be no heart left for it to pierce. Instead, I walked out to the terrace, buffeted by the wind and driving rain, and threw the knife into the ocean. Something capable of such violence deserved to be in a place where no one could find it. Yet I still wanted to end my life. No, that’s not quite it. I felt like I had to end my life. To me, it already seemed over. All those hopes and dreams I’d held close to my heart had gone with everything else. In their place was a dark void from which I never thought I’d escape. My body might have been alive, but my soul was dead.”

The trauma and loss of this nightmarish night compel Virginia to attempt suicide. Her immediate separation from her child after giving birth throws Virginia into a state of grief that consumes her; learning that Ricky, who claimed to love her, was prepared to betray her for a fee drove her into a rage, and her father’s malicious enjoyment of the scene drove her to attack him. Later, imagining the emotional frenzy of the moment allows Lenora to assume that her sister really did kill Winston, and also gives her enough insight to consider Virginia’s actions justified.

“Yet despite all the functions currently failing me, hearing is the only one left. I have no choice but to take in every word he says.

‘I didn’t force the pills on your mother. She took them willingly. We both knew it was better that way. What I didn’t intend—what neither of us intended—was for you to be blamed for it. When that happened, I didn’t know what to do. But believe me when I say I wasn’t going to let Richard Vick arrest you, Kit-Kat. I vowed to turn myself in if it came to that. But it never did. So I stayed quiet, because I knew you’d hate me if you ever found out.’

I do hate him.”

Patrick McDeere’s confession reveals his self-serving cowardice. He claims that he would have come forward and confessed if Kit had been arrested, but he was willing to allow his daughter to be accused of murder rather than save her with the truth. Since readers know that Patrick killed Mary to stop her from identifying him as Virginia’s lover, they have seen how far he is willing to go to preserve his reputation. The novel posits that the patriarchal power structures that rule families in its small town preclude fathers from being protectors or providers.

“I follow him inside, where the room rattles like a broken carnival ride. The tilt, often felt but rarely seen, is now a memory. In its place is a full on slant that turns the room into an obstacle course. All around us, the furniture has started to slide toward the windows, including the bed Virginia still lies upon. […] On the landing, my father hoists her onto his shoulder, freeing my hands to help Lenora. […] Lenora shakes her head. ‘I’m not leaving.’ […]

All I can do is scream for my father to come back, as, through the still-open doors, I watch him join Lenora on the grand stairs. […]

They merely sit. As chunks of ceiling fall around them.

As the stained-glass window over the landing shatters from the strain.

As the entire house shudders through its final death rattle.

The last I see of them is my father and Lenora finally clasping hands as the front doors swing shut.

Then, amidst a chorus of groans, creaks, and ear-splitting pops, Hope’s End follows the collapsing cliff and slides into the ocean.”

Lenora’s decision to remain inside Hope’s End as it crumbles into the sea is one of the most Gothic touches in the novel. Lenora and the house have become irrevocably linked—she is its living embodiment, or a ghost doomed to haunt it forever—a connection between character and place that often shows up in fiction of this genre. Lenora refuses to live under scrutiny and cannot imagine a future outside the mansion; dying in this way, almost like a captain going down with the ship, allows her a last-minute redemption: No one can disprove her claim that she is finally gifting her sister the opportunity to live. Conversely, Ricky’s decision to also die in the house is less pure: It appears to be guilt-ridden penance, but is in fact cowardice. By dying in the collapse, he will never have to publicly confess to his involvement in Kathleen’s death.