The Only One Left

by Riley Sager

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.”

You’ve always been my pride and joy.” Then my father turns back to the house and enters without hesitation.

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.

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

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

Nahhhh what

And now you know the truth. I can walk, talk, and use my whole body.

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.

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

I finally won. And the amount of time I chose to keep Lenora in her room was more than fifty years.

I wanted to be there in case my son ever decided to come looking for me.

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.

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.”

I knew Jessie wasnt what she seemed

Finally, the most important message came. “By the way, I’m your granddaughter.”

Omg

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.

Ok but why did they have to run why couldn’t they all be together

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

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.

Ok good

“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.”

Shes an author!

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.