The Last Thing He Told Me

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Chapters 19-21Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2

Chapter 19 Summary: “Sorry, We’re Open”

Hannah, shaken by what Jake revealed about Owen’s past, recalls that Owen began telling her his life story on their first date. The things Owen told her about his past are the same things Bailey knows about her childhood—things that happened before Bailey was old enough to remember but which she accepts as truth because her father told them to her. Hannah explains, “That’s how you fill in the blanks—with stories and memories from the people who love you. If they lie to you, like he did, who are you then? Who is he?” (144).

Bailey and Hannah go to a diner and Hannah broaches the subject of Owen’s past. Bailey has no clue why her father might have lied to her. As Hannah watches Bailey process the fact that Owen did lie about their past, she realizes what Bailey needs from her is not a friend but rather a stable person who will not fail her—the same role Hannah’s grandfather played for Hannah.

Bailey tells Hannah that a few months earlier, her boyfriend Bobby was unable to find Owen on Princeton’s alumni roster, but she had chalked it up to a mistake on Bobby’s part rather than a lie on her father’s. As Hannah and Bailey prepare to leave the diner, Hannah reiterates her core belief: ”Owen is running from something that he is terrified of. He has spent his life running from it. And, more important, he has spent his entire life trying to keep Bailey from it” (150).

Chapter 20 Summary: “Two Can Play at That Game”

The following morning, Hannah calls US Marshal Grady Bradford and tells him she has heard from Owen, which is a lie. Bradford reminds Hannah that the software Owen was developing was designed to erase the data trail that accompanies people into adulthood. Hannah pushes back, demanding Bradford tell her what he knows about Owen’s life before Sausalito, but Bradford claims to know nothing and warns Hannah it will be best if she cooperates with him before the FBI searches her house. But Hannah’s suspicions about Grady’s motivation only multiply: “If Grady were just investigating Owen, if he were just trying to bring him in, if he was just trying to end this, he wouldn’t care as much as he does” (155).

Hannah is convinced something far deeper and more dangerous is happening and that Bradford holds the key to this information. She tells Bradford about the money Owen left for Bailey and says she and Bailey might go somewhere else until the storm of Owen’s disappearance blows over: “[W]e don’t have to be in Sausalito, do we? I mean, we don’t have to stay there for any legal reason, correct?” (156). Agent Bradford immediately picks up on the fact that Hannah has referred to Sausalito as “there,” and realizes that Hannah must be in Austin. Hannah hangs up before the conversation can go any further.

Chapter 21 Summary: “One Year Ago”

Owen surprised Hannah at her workshop in this flashback scene, dropping in on a weekday afternoon, which was highly unusual. While he was there, his phone repeatedly rang, and each time it did, Owen looked at the phone, grimaced, and refused to answer it. When Hannah pressed him to say who was on the phone, Owen admitted it was Avett, CEO of his company, and tried to pretend nothing was wrong. Hannah explains, ”But it was flashing in his eyes—a mix of anger and irritation. Two things he rarely displayed. Two things he had displayed more recently” (160). Again, Hannah proves how attuned she is to her husband’s emotions. Yet she still did not press Owen for answers.

The chapter ends with playful banter between Owen and Hannah about a chair, which Owen claimed will be his because he was sitting in it and the law favors physical possession. This banter is, on the surface, unimportant. In hindsight, however, Hannah’s playful question to her husband regarding what he knows about the law is a loaded one, since—as Hannah will soon discover—her husband has had rather extensive interaction with lawyers: namely, his former father-in-law, Nicholas Bell.

Chapters 19-21 Analysis

The fact that Owen shared his life story with Hannah on their first date could be interpreted in several ways. Perhaps it was a sign that Owen immediately knew he and Hannah would end up together. Maybe it was simply evidence of Owen’s talkative nature. Or maybe—and this seems likely given the benefit of hindsight—the fact that Owen told Hannah about his past right away, including various landmarks (Massachusetts, Princeton, Seattle), was an intentional act on Owen’s part because it meant those facts would be the lens through which Hannah would see and hear his life. This is called “anchoring bias”—a cognitive disposition to believe the first facts offered and filter subsequent acts in light of that knowledge.

Dave’s deployment of this flashback at this point, when the reader is doubting not only Owen’s history but also Hannah’s ability to correctly discern fact from fiction, ratchets up the tension in the story, raising the stakes again but for Bailey, this time. It is one thing for Owen to have lied to Hannah for two years. But to have lied to his daughter for her whole life? That is entirely something else.

Is anyone in this story completely truthful? Hannah proves to be an adept liar as she tells Grady Owen called her. In fact, Hannah is such a convincing liar and able to so quickly think under pressure that it is only one letter in one word that allows Grady to catch Hannah in her lie about where the location of her call when she refers to Sausalito as “there” instead of “here.”

In a bit of irony, Hannah recalls an afternoon one year prior to Owen’s disappearance where Owen surprised her in her workshop and related some of his aggravation with Avett about the IPO and the software not ready to be deployed. In response, Hannah says, ”My grandfather used to say that most people don’t want to hear the thing that will make it work better [...] They want to hear what will make it easier” (161). It may be the case that Hannah is falling into this trap because if Owen had been contemplating telling Hannah the truth about his past or what was happening at work, the easier path is to lie to Hannah about both things—which is exactly what Owen did.

Chapter 21 ends with another prescient cliffhanger. Owen is sitting in a chair that Hannah made that he wants to keep. When Hannah reminds him it has been commissioned, Owen replies, “Good luck to her [...] Possession is nine-tenths of the law.” Hannah retorts, “What do you know about the law?” and Owen replies, “Enough to know if I’m sitting in that chair [...] no one else is going to take it” (161). As the reader will soon discover, Owen knows quite a bit about the law, and must also have realized if he were no longer with his family, “sitting in the chair” as it were, his family would be vulnerable to being taken.