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Summary: Chapters 37–41
Chapter 37: The Devil Is in the Details
Grady strenuously argues against Hannah’s deal with Nicholas, insisting that Nicholas’s former employers will still try to hurt Bailey to punish Owen. Although he believes she is disregarding Bailey with this deal, Hannah explains that this deal is the best outcome for Bailey. Grady doubts that Owen would have wanted her to make a deal that means he never gets to see Bailey again, but Hannah continues to reject his offers. She is convinced that preserving the life Bailey knows is the best—indeed, only—way to protect her stepdaughter.
Chapter 38: Finding My Way Back to Her
Hannah and Bailey reunite tearfully at the Marshals’ office. Bailey says she had returned to the library to continue researching the class roster and, while there, she communicated with her father. He called her through an encrypted app he had insisted she load onto her phone. During the call, he explained it would be a long time before they could speak again and that she should not expect him to return home. Realizing Hannah is a lost cause, Grady pitches witness protection to Bailey, but she too refuses the offer. Like Hannah, she concludes that, if it were genuinely safe, Owen would be there with them. Turning to Hannah, she asks to go home.
Chapter 39: Two Years and Four Months Ago
Hannah recalls how she and Owen returned to her workshop after their first date and talked about woodturning. She had explained to him that woodturners have to start with a good piece of wood, which always has a single defining characteristic. Owen proposes that, in this way, people are like wood. His single defining characteristic, he says, is that he would do anything for his daughter.
Chapter 40: Sometimes You Can Go Home Again
As the women travel back to California, Bailey asks for more information about how much she will see Nicholas and Charlie. As Bailey thinks about her future, Hannah wonders about her past, namely whether she would have married Owen had she known what would happen. The answer, she decides, is yes, without question. Hannah hands her stepdaughter a sweatshirt, which Bailey happily accepts. The two women place their elbows on the armrest and lean into each other.
Chapter 41: Five Years Later. Or Eight. Or Ten.
Years have passed, and Hannah and Bailey now live in Los Angeles. On this night, Hannah has an exhibition and will meet Bailey and her new boyfriend Shep for dinner afterward. Hannah is dubious about Shep but proud of Bailey. No matter where she goes, Hannah assumes she (as well as Bailey) is being watched in case Owen decides to make contact. Among the people attending the exhibition, Hannah spies a heavily disguised Owen. They do not make eye contact, but she can see that he wears the wedding ring she made for him. As he walks past her, he softly tells her, in code, that he still loves her. Across the room, Hannah sees Bailey and Shep arrive and wonders whether it is better or worse that she does not see her father. Shep does not surpass Hannah’s expectations, but she is more focused on Bailey, who greets her with a huge smile and calls her “Mom.”
Analysis
The chapter title “Sometimes You Can Go Home Again” plays on the common saying “you can never go home again,” which suggests that one can only do so by accepting life’s inevitable changes. The saying “you can never go home again” posits that people cannot return home as adults because it will be too different from their childhood memory. The issue is not so much that home has changed but that people’s understanding of home evolves as they mature and gain life experience. In the book, Owen never really changes. However, Hannah and Bailey’s view of him significantly does. Though they end the story with their faith in him restored, his actual background is far more complicated than what they initially believed. Their return home also means a return to an incomplete home since he cannot join them for fears of his own safety. The fact Hannah and Bailey can still view their return to the houseboat as a return home, even factoring in Owen’s absence, indicates both characters have significantly expanded their view of what constitutes home, family, and security throughout the course of The Last Thing He Told Me.
The final chapter’s title suggests an uncertainty to the bittersweet future Hannah envisions. Hannah discusses the events of the final chapter in certain terms, as if they are unfolding in the same way as previous chapters did. However, the chapter’s highly imprecise title “Five Years Later. Or Eight. Or Ten.” suggests that Hannah may not be relating an event that has occurred so much as relaying what she sincerely hopes will occur one day in the future. That does not mean Hannah is lying about the emotional beats of the chapter or the facts that she presents—that Bailey now calls her Mom, that she and Owen still love each other greatly, that she sold the houseboat after Bailey’s graduation. Those things can all still be true while her fleeting reunion with Owen remains a hope she experiences in the future. Essentially, the chapter invites readers to embrace the same level of uncertainty that Hannah and Bailey have had to accept in their lives after Owen fled.
The novel employs small physical gestures to symbolize the major changes in the characters’ relationships as they now truly see themselves as a family rather than uneasy allies or potential adversaries. In contrast with the earlier moment on the plane, Hannah remembers to bring Bailey’s sweatshirt. Unlike earlier, Bailey also appreciates Hannah’s thoughtfulness and expresses her thanks openly. Bailey no longer feels the need to hide her thoughts and feelings about Hannah, and Hannah no longer doubts her instincts as a maternal figure or her role in Bailey’s life. They even lean into each other, forming a literal physical connection, to underscore their closeness. Owen himself demonstrates his continued closeness with Hannah and Bailey, despite his life on the run, through the wedding ring he wears and his determination to attend the exhibition to catch a glimpse at them. Owen cannot have an open relationship with his family, but he still desires physical closeness to them and openly wears a symbol of that closeness. All these physical gestures form tangible, concrete, silent illustrations that speak volumes of the family bond among these characters.
