The Only One Left by Riley Sager

FORTY-FOUR

Music drifts out of Virginia’s room.

The Go-Go’s, which she likes more than I thought she would.

Or maybe it’s just the novelty she enjoys. Denied most modern technology for so long, she thrills at all the things I’ve had for years and therefore take for granted. My boom box being the chief one. Most days, it plays nonstop. But also television, which left Virginia awestruck the first time I turned it on. She spent the whole night delighted by whatever was being broadcast. She was the same way when I took her to see Return of the Jedi, even though neither of us understood what the hell was going on. We simply enjoyed the spectacle.

I pause in the doorway of Virginia’s new bedroom. Once my room, it bears no resemblance to the place where I grew up. Archie and Kenny helped me remove the ugly floral wallpaper and paint the walls a soothing shade of lavender. All my old furniture is gone, replaced with things more appropriate for Virginia’s needs. A new Hoyer lift. A modern wheelchair. A bed donated by the local hospital that Virginia can raise and lower with the left-handed press of a button.

I’ve moved into my parents’ old bedroom. A change I wasn’t quite prepared for. Those first few nights, it felt strange to be sleeping on the other side of the hallway, in a bed and room larger than what I was familiar with. But I’m getting used to it day by day. So far, I’ve only had nightmares about my mother twice.

There have been none about my father.

I’m hoping it stays that way.

After what happened at Hope’s End, there wasn’t any question that Virginia would stay with me. I was still her caregiver, after all. Also, she had nowhere else to go. It was either here or a place like Ocean View Retirement Home.

It was rough those first fraught days. Both of us were grieving. Virginia had lost her sister and the only home she’d ever known. I’d lost my father, my sole remaining parent, and the idea of the person I thought he was. Now that two months have passed, things have become slightly more bearable.

It helps that Archie’s still around, as supportive as ever. He got a job cooking at a fancy hotel two towns away and stops by every night after his shift to check in on us. Which is more than can be said for the rest of the people who had once lived at Hope’s End. Jessie’s all but disappeared, not bothering to reach out to us even after what happened made headlines around the world.

As for Carter, well, he’s been having trouble forgiving and forgetting. I can’t blame him, really. I did, after all, accuse him of murder and leave him stranded with no way home. When he finally did get back to Hope’s End, it was hours after the entire place was gone. What had once been his cottage was now part of a massive pile of rubble littering the Atlantic surf.

I tried apologizing that night, and again a few weeks later when I entered the bar where he’d started working part-time. He said he understood why I thought what I did. He even went so far as to say I was forgiven. But I could tell he didn’t fully mean it. It was merely something he said because he wanted me to go away.

So I did. He did, too, leaving town not long after that to search for his birth family. I wish him well. I hope he gets whatever closure he needs.

I hope the same for me.

Like Carter, I’m having trouble with that whole forgiveness thing. Despite helping me save Virginia, I continue to hate my father for what he did, just as I hate myself for also still loving him. I now know Archie was right about being able to do both. I should ask him how he handled it when he stops by tonight.

But for now, there’s Virginia to focus on. Among her new belongings is an electric typewriter that she uses only sparingly, mostly as another way for us to communicate. So far, she’s shown no sign of wanting to write any more of her story. I think she doesn’t see the need now that everyone knows it.

While the initial murders at Hope’s End were upstaged by a historic market crash and the beginning of the Great Depression, the media made a point of not letting it happen a second time. Coverage of the mansion’s collapse, my father’s guilt, and how a still-alive Virginia Hope lived under her sister’s name for decades was everywhere. I still get the occasional phone call from a journalist asking to speak to Virginia.

My standard reply is “Sorry, she can’t talk right now.”

Yet there are days when I wish she could. I think it would help Virginia to be able to articulate how she feels about what happened to her. I can’t imagine enduring everything she went through, from having her baby taken from her to seeing her mother killed by her lover to being hidden away by her very own sister. It makes my own trauma look like child’s play.

Right now, though, Virginia radiates nothing but happiness as she sits in her wheelchair, listening to the steady beat of the song that’s playing.

“Our Lips Are Sealed.”

One of her favorites.

“I’m going to take a quick shower,” I tell her when she catches me watching. “Do you need anything?”

Virginia replies with a single tap and goes back to listening to the music. I head to the bathroom to start my shower, turning on the water and waiting until it gets warm. That’s when I’m hit with the thought that always strikes while I’m alone with nothing to do.

Somewhere out there, I have a half brother.

Maybe.

There’s no way of knowing if he’s still alive. Or, if so, where he is. Or if he has a family of his own. Archie and I have started putting out feelers, trying to find out what happened to the real Miss Baker, hoping that information can lead us to Virginia’s son and my half brother. We do it in secret, reluctant to tell Virginia out of fear it’ll get her hopes up. So far, the secrecy’s been justified. All we’ve managed to learn is that Miss Baker got married sometime in 1930 and moved. Where, we don’t know. The name of her husband is also unknown. For now, all we can do is wait and hope that more information comes our way.

I think Virginia would like that.

I would, too.

Despite technically not being related, she’s the only known family I have left.

The Go-Go’s are still playing when I get out of the shower. I hear the music echoing across the hall as I dry off and put on my uniform for the day. Jeans, comfy blouse, cardigan. No more nurse’s whites for me.

I cross the hall while using my fingers to comb my still-wet hair. “Hey, Virginia, what flavor oatmeal would you like for—”

I freeze in the doorway. Although the music is playing and the wheelchair is right where I left it, Virginia herself is gone. I scan the room, stupidly, as if she’s merely been misplaced and not completely missing from the room.

By the front door is a table normally used for mail and car keys. On it sits a single sheet of paper bearing six typed lines.

Holding my breath, I pick it up and begin to read.

At sixty-nine, Virginia Hope

Wrote her nurse this little note

Thank you, dear, for saving me

Now it’s time to let you be

I take my leave, walking tall

Knowing that I fooled them all

My dearest Kit,

I hope you’re not surprised to receive this letter. I hope you knew, deep down in your heart, that I would contact you again. Leaving you the way I did was for the best, you see, even though I hated doing it. But I was afraid of how you’d react once you learned the truth.

Then again, you always suspected I was capable of more than I let on. To most people, my silence and stillness rendered me almost invisible.

But you, Kit, saw me.

And now you know the truth. I can walk, talk, and use my whole body. Right now, I bet you’re wondering why I spent such a long time pretending I couldn’t. The reasons are many, beginning with the simple fact that at first I had no desire to move.

I was as surprised as anyone when I survived my suicide attempt. And disappointed as well. Despite a miracle occurring, I still wished I were dead. I longed for it. I wanted the sweet relief of death so badly that I pretended I truly had died. I simply lay there, not moving, trying not to breathe.

Stupid as he was, Dr. Walden might not have been entirely off base with his diagnosis. For something was indeed wrong with me, although I’m still unsure if it was physical, mental, or emotional. Perhaps it was a combination of all three, which rendered me paralyzed even though I technically wasn’t. All I know is that I felt lifeless, mute, and immobile. And so that’s how I stayed.

I might have remained that way forever if it hadn’t been for Archie, who refused to leave my side. “You’ll get better one day, Ginny,” he often whispered. “I’m sure of it. And when you do, we’ll find your son.”

That got me wondering if he was right and that it was possible to one day find my little boy. The more I thought about it, the more I felt a spark of the old me still burning inside.

Without letting Archie know, I began the drawn-out task of forcing my body to start working again. It began with a wiggle of the fingers on my left hand and ended many, many years later with me walking around my room in secret.

I suspect the first question you have is: Why didn’t I leave Hope’s End then?

I wanted to. I wanted so many things. To travel. To run and dance and sing. To raise the child who was so cruelly stolen from me.

But I was frightened of what was beyond Hope’s End. I knew the world had changed greatly since my youth. I feared that if I were to leave, I wouldn’t recognize it. But Hope’s End was familiar, and I took solace in that familiarity. Even a prison becomes comforting if it’s the only thing you know.

The second question I bet you’re asking yourself right now is: Why didn’t I tell at least Archie that I could move, walk, talk?

The answer to that is slightly more selfish. I didn’t tell him because I feared my sister would find out if anyone else knew. And after she’d returned from Europe, where she lived the kind of life I had long dreamed of, I wanted to punish her. That’s the brutal truth of the matter.

At first, I simply considered killing her. A murder for which I would have happily taken the blame.

But death is quick.

And I wanted her punishment to last a long, long time.

So I made myself the burden she thought me to be. She assumed she was punishing me by keeping us both here. In truth, she was only punishing herself, and I enjoyed watching it. Think of it as a variation on the game my father forced us to play. I finally won. And the amount of time I chose to keep Lenora in her room was more than fifty years.

But it wasn’t just about animosity toward my sister. The main reason I stayed was because I wanted to be there in case my son ever decided to come looking for me. I feared that if I left, he’d never know where I was and therefore would never be able to find me.

The idea that we might one day be reunited was, to me, worth the wait.

So I chose to continue to appear hopeless, even though I was capable of so much. Shockingly, not a single person noticed, including the many nurses I had before you arrived. So many that I’ve forgotten most of their names and faces. I suspect I was just as forgettable to them, for very few ever paid me much mind. Yes, they performed the basic job of keeping me alive. But only a handful treated me like I was an actual human being. Someone with thoughts and feelings and curiosity. I suppose my silence played a small part in that. One can be easily ignored when one doesn’t speak. And so I was.

Of course, nearly all of those nurses were terrified of me. I can’t blame them, really. I’d be scared, too, based on all the rumors that have swirled around me. None of those previous nurses were interested in the truth. Even the ones who deemed me worthy of a little kindness or a bit of conversation.

That all changed when Mary came along. Poor, sweet Mary. She’s another person who saw me. Like you, she was curious. So much so that she bought that typewriter in the hope I’d learn how to use it and eventually write my story.

I did, as you well know.

I only wish I’d been able to do the same with you, Kit. You deserved to know the truth. Yet I couldn’t bring myself to disappoint you with the news about your father. So I stalled, evaded, and misled, knowing it was inevitable that you’d one day find out.

I truly regret the way you did eventually learn the truth--and all the events that came after it. You didn’t deserve that. The fact that you’ve handled it so well speaks highly of your character.

Around the same time Mary was teaching me how to type, something else extraordinary occurred.

I was given an amazing device called a Walkman. With it was a cassette featuring a book read aloud by Jessie, the new maid at Hope’s End. Although I did read in secret at night, it was nice to be able to enjoy a book out in the open, so to speak. I didn’t care what the story was about. I just liked being told a good tale.

Imagine my surprise when, halfway through that first cassette, the book stopped. One minute, I was listening to North and South by John Jakes. The next, Jessie’s narration ended and regular talking began.

“Listen, I know you’re not Lenora Hope, but her sister, Virginia. I know a lot about you. More than anyone else, I think.”

And so it continued, a one-sided conversation between me and Jessie, conducted via the messages she slipped in between chapters.

“I don’t think you killed your parents. And even if you did, from what I’ve been told, they kind of had it coming. At least your father did.”

“I haven’t told Mary, but I’m pretty sure you can move and possibly talk. I’m curious to hear what your voice sounds like.”

Finally, the most important message came.

“By the way, I’m your granddaughter.”

Jessie told me all about her father, who was named Marcel. He grew up in a loving home with Miss Baker and her husband. He played hockey, loved to read, and excelled at painting. After university, he got a job as a commercial artist in Toronto. He didn’t get married until his thirties, when he met and fell in love with a fellow artist. They had one child, Jessie, and lived a happy life together, savoring every moment until Marcel passed away from illness in 1982.

After his death, Jessie was told the truth about Marcel’s parents by Miss Baker, a woman she had always known as Grandma. Undertaking a bit of detective work, Jessie found out Hope’s End needed a maid and applied for the job. Her intention was to try to dig up information about who I was and if I’d really killed my parents like everyone said.

What she ended up finding was me.

While I’m sad to never have gotten the chance to meet my son, I know that life doesn’t always grant you your greatest wish. But happiness can still sneak in, and now I am overjoyed to be able to know my granddaughter. The noises I’m certain you heard during the night were Jessie, who would come to my room in the wee hours so we could whisper the ways in which we planned to escape. Plans that were derailed by Mary’s murder, your arrival, and the eventual collapse of Hope’s End. (Good riddance to that place, by the way!)

Jessie also had to return to Canada when Miss Baker passed away. Another disappointment. I wish I had been able to thank Miss Baker for taking care of my son, even though he ended up being her child much more than he was ever mine.

The day I disappeared from your house was the day Jessie came to my window. I let her inside and she quickly told me the new plan--leave immediately.

So we left, hurrying to Jessie’s car parked at the curb. Once we were inside, she handed me a forged passport with my real name on it.

“Where do you want to go, Grandma?” she said.

I looked through the windshield, gazing at this great big world I had never been able to experience until now.

“Everywhere,” I said.

By the time we reached the airport, I had narrowed it down to Paris. That’s where I now type this letter, from a top-floor apartment with a view of the Eiffel Tower.

Please don’t be angry at me for leaving you the way I did. I beg you. The way life has treated us, you and I have enough to be angry about. Let’s not be that way with each other.

I wanted to tell you, my dear. I didn’t because I feared you wouldn’t let me leave or be angry that I hid so much from you the whole time you were caring for me. And, yes, I selfishly wanted some time alone with my granddaughter.

Who, don’t forget, also happens to be your niece.

You also deserve time with her.

Just as you deserve to finally live a life that belongs to you and no one else.

To that end, I’ve included two one-way plane tickets to Paris. One for you and another for Archie, with whom I’m certain you’ll share this letter. Your flight departs on the first of February. It is my dearest hope that both of you will be on it.

Until we meet again!

Virginia

VIRGINIA HOPE DEAD AT AGE 101

ROME (AP)—Virginia Hope, the key figure in one of the most sensational crimes of the 20th century, died Monday at her villa in Porto Vergogna on Italy’s Amalfi Coast. She was 101.

Hope’s alleged murder alongside her well-heeled parents, Winston and Evangeline Hope, caused a stir in 1929 and shocking headlines 54 years later when it was revealed she was still alive and had been forced to assume the identity of her older sister, Lenora. Thought to be mute and paralyzed, Hope gained even greater notoriety when she admitted she had faked her condition for decades.

“Did I enact the greatest hoax of the century?” she wrote in her bestselling memoir, Still Life. “I don’t think so. But I like to believe it’s at least in the top ten.”

That blend of wit and braggadocio made her a beloved fixture on the talk show circuit, where viewers gobbled up the details of her tabloid-ready story. When asked by David Letterman why she was so eager to talk after pretending she couldn’t for decades, Hope replied, “Just making up for lost time, darling.”

When she wasn’t enjoying her late-in-life celebrity, Hope spent her time traveling the globe, visiting all seven continents, including Antarctica, where for a time she held the record for being the oldest woman to do so.

Hope is survived by her granddaughter, Jessica Oxford, and her husband, Robert; her great-granddaughter, Mary Hope Oxford; and her devoted friend, caregiver, and traveling companion, Kittredge McDeere.