The Only One Left
by Riley Sager
Contents
Chapter Thirty-Six
Overview
Kit makes a major breakthrough at Hope’s End by uncovering the Hope portraits and discovering that the daughter’s urn is empty, proving the official family story is false. Lenora’s typed narrative then overturns assumptions even more sharply: the first-person voice is revealed to be pregnant Virginia, who was trying to run away with Ricky when Lenora locked her in and went to tell their father. The chapter radically reframes the sisters’ roles in the 1929 tragedy and raises new doubts about who survived, who died, and who has been controlling the story.
Summary
Kit returns to Hope’s End through the still-open front gate and rushes inside without using the intercom. In the hall, Kit tears away the black coverings from the Hope family portraits. Kit studies Winston, Evangeline, and Virginia and is struck by Virginia’s blue eyes, which connect to Berniece Mayhew’s earlier comments and deepen Kit’s suspicion that the family story has been falsified.
Kit then runs to the library and opens the three urns on the mantel. The first two contain ashes, but the third urn, meant for the Hope daughter, is completely empty. That discovery tells Kit that Virginia was not reduced to ashes as the house’s memorial display suggests, and it confirms that a major part of Hope’s End’s history has been staged or concealed.
The chapter then shifts into the typed 1929 account. The narrator explains that on the stormy night of the murders, the plan was to flee Hope’s End with Ricky. After pretending to be bedridden all day, the narrator prepares to leave at ten o’clock, while Ricky is supposed to steal one of Winston Hope’s Packards and meet at the front door. Because the servants are out and Evangeline Hope is heavily drugged with laudanum, the narrator believes only her father and sister could interfere.
The narrator, who is pregnant, dresses in a pink satin gown and packs a suitcase, hoping she and Ricky might even marry before the baby is born. While packing, the narrator is caught by her sister, who quickly realizes she is about to run away with Ricky and is shocked to see the pregnancy. Instead of helping, the sister insists that Winston Hope would never allow the escape and argues that the scandal would ruin the family’s name and both sisters’ reputations.
The confrontation hardens into cruelty. The sister reveals she has the outside key to the bedroom door, invokes one of their old games, and locks the narrator inside before hurrying off to tell their father. She also locks the adjoining door to Miss Baker’s room, fully trapping the narrator. As the narrator pounds on the door in panic, her water suddenly breaks, and her final plea—begging, "Please, Lenora!"—reveals that the first-person narrator is Virginia, not Lenora.
Who Appears
- Kit McDeereReturns to Hope’s End, uncovers the portraits, and discovers the daughter’s urn is empty.
- Virginia HopeRevealed as the first-person narrator; pregnant and planning to run away with Ricky.
- Lenora HopeVirginia’s sister, who catches the escape attempt, locks Virginia in, and goes to tell their father.
- RickyVirginia’s lover and accomplice, meant to steal a Packard and help her escape.
- Winston HopeVirginia and Lenora’s father, whose discovery of the elopement plan is feared.
- Evangeline HopeThe sisters’ drugged mother, described in portrait and absent due to a laudanum haze.