Spoilers!
I’m a sucker for a good mystery, particularly when, as readers, we’re still not even sure what exactly the mystery is. Case in point, Laura Dave’s 2021 book, The Last Thing He Told Me. This is Dave’s book, so, I’m always hesitant to compare to another author, but if I was going to give you an idea of what the book is like, it’s like a Harlan Coben book, but with a much different sort of ending than I anticipated. Which is almost always good, and is in this case.
In The Last Thing He Told Me, we are seeing the story through Hannah’s eyes, who is newly married to Owen, and is the anxious stepmom to 16-year-old Bailey. We know from the outset that Owen’s disappeared, left Hannah a note that states, Protect her, and left Bailey more than $600,000. Oh, and the tech firm, The Shop, he’s the coder at, is under investigation by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, and its founder (his boss) was arrested on charges of fraud. Then, an agent with the U.S. Marshals Service shows up at their house to talk about Owen and oddly enough, recommend Hannah get a lawyer. As always, my brain is screaming, “Don’t talk to the police without a lawyer!” anyhow.
But that’s what I meant at the top: yes, Owen disappearing like that, leaving vague notes, and lots of money, is itself a mystery, but we still don’t know if it has anything to do with The Shop, something else entirely, and if the situation is dangerous or not. What Hannah does find out through her own sleuthing and connections is that Owen isn’t Owen. That’s not his real identity and all the pieces of his past he’s mentioned to her, such as his schooling, isn’t true, either. Well, then!
I’ve never been married, and I’ve only ever had one serious relationship, but it’s perplexing to me to vow your life to someone and not know or better inquire about someone’s past. We get flashback chapters of Hannah with Owen, and we know he’s cagey about his past. Yes, she didn’t have to do a background check on the pieces he did tell her to confirm their veracity, but I always find it odd to not be more curious about someone’s past when planning to marry them. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the jaunt our unlikely protagonists of stepmom and stepdaughter go through to solve the what-is-going-on of it all. Their main objective is to figure out Owen’s real identity and if that leads to why he disappeared. They’re never in any particular danger, notwithstanding a tense moment at a bar with Bailey’s uncle (unbeknownst to both of them), but the book flows so well, it doesn’t need those tension-filled and violent beats.
As it turns out, Owen, when he was Ethan, was married to a woman whose father, Nicholas, was a criminal defense attorney for a criminal enterprise. Ethan turned against Nicholas when someone or some bad organization — not his criminal organization, Nicholas proclaims — kills his wife, landing Nicholas in prison. Ethan then absconds with Kristin (Bailey), changing their names and backstories. He even forgoes witness protection from the U.S. Marshals Service, which is how he knows the aforementioned agent, because there was a leak in their office around the time of this incident. Thus, when The Shop situation became apparent to Owen, he first felt blackmailed to trying to fix the software before the IPO launched because his boss sort of knew something was amiss about Owen, and then once it did become national news, Owen knew the people after him — Nicholas’ organization, mad he ratted them out — would discover his fake identity and get to him and Bailey.
The last thing Owen told Hannah (since we’re getting repeated flashbacks, this is naturally the last flashback we get) was: “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for my daughter.” Everything comes back to the daughter. To Bailey. Which is how Hannah orients her decision-making in heeding Owen’s note to her: Protect her. That’s why she makes the decision to still forgo witness protection, but also to reconcile with, or rather offer a truce with, Nicholas. He can finally see the granddaughter he was robbed of, but he must ensure her (and Hannah’s, less certain) safety. Ethan/Owen, though, is still up for grabs, which means he won’t be returning to their family. This is what I meant when Dave’s ending was different than a Coben ending. A Coben ending would have brought the family happily together again — he would have found some way to thread that needle. Instead, here, Dave has Hannah go with the harder decision — the Bailey decision — enabling Bailey to still have the life she’s known without sacrificing it, but also while sacrificing the life she’s known with her dad. Life is a repeated calculation of trade-offs.
Of course, I have all kinds of judgements about a father who would first, lie to his daughter (and wife), then secondly, leave both them in the lurch to figure all of this out, and thirdly, continue being out of their lives going forward. Yes, you can say he did it all to protect her (and then Hannah), and he’s still doing it to protect her (and now Hannah), but it still feels really crappy, dangit! Which is why Dave’s ending is so interesting because it bucks expectations.
Anyhow, this was a fun, lazy Memorial Day weekend read, and my first Dave book. I liked her fast-paced style, and the theme about wood throughout (Hannah worked with wood), like a branch connecting all the chapters. Plus, she foreshadowed the difficult choice Hannah made with that great Albert Einstein quote to kick off Part 1: “I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes where drilling is easy.” Unfortunately, life is complex and difficult precisely because it often forces us to drill down where it’s hard and cumbersome, where splinters are aplenty. And yada yada, I don’t want to go too cheesy on the wood metaphor. You get the roots I’m putting down. Hannah’s most important craftsmanship was negotiating Nicholas into giving Bailey her life back. You can’t put a price on that, I suppose.
Milam's Musings 