The short chapter “The Last Thing He Told Me” near the end of Laura Dave’s sixth novel stands out in comparison to the other chapters in the book. It bears the title “Everyone Should Take Inventory,” and it is an inventory of everything that Hannah Hall, the protagonist of the story, knows to be true about Owen Michaels, her husband.
If given the option, he would subsist solely on Pad Thai. Even when he showered, he never removed the wedding ring he wore. No matter how bad the movie was, he had to watch it all the way through till the end credits before he could turn it off. It was one of his favorite activities to take his daughter out to breakfast. He never ate breakfast.”
“That is the way that we know somebody,” Dave explains to TIME. “We know them in the quietest of moments, when we get the chance to be the witness to someone’s life.”
Not only is the writing in this chapter crystal clear and razor sharp like a diamond, but at this point in the novel, everything that Hannah believed she knew about her husband has been turned on its head. This is one of the reasons why this chapter is so remarkable. And Owen has disappeared into thin air.
Owen is a software developer who was working for a company called The Shop before it was raided by the SEC and the FBI. Owen was developing software that would private people’s online lives. Then, Owen vanishes without a trace, taking with him a duffel bag containing sixty thousand dollars in cash for his daughter Bailey, who is now sixteen, and a letter for Hannah that reads, “Protect her.”
Now, The Last Thing He Told Me has been made into a suspense miniseries, which will debut this Friday on Apple TV+. Jennifer Garner will play the role of Hannah, and Angourie Rice will play the role of Bailey in the series. Dave and her husband, the screenwriter Josh Singer, are responsible for the co-creation of the show as well as its executive production.
On the surface, The Last Thing He Told Me is an engaging mystery that seeks to answer the question of what happened to Owen (who is portrayed by Nikolaj Coster-Waldau). Where did he go, and why did he go there? But behind the surface, a more expansive narrative of motherhood and the unorthodox ways in which a family might be formed is gradually revealed. Even before Owen’s unexpected abduction, Hannah and Bailey have both experienced the pain of losing someone close to them. When Bailey’s mother was still young, she was a victim of a hit-and-run accident that claimed the life of Owen’s first wife. Hannah’s own parents were “largely uninterested in doing any child-rearing,” so her grandfather took care of her while she was growing up.
In the beginning of the book, Hannah had the thought, “My mother left by choice, Bailey’s by tragedy, but it leaves a similar imprint on you either way.” Bailey’s mother died in a car accident. You are left in the same strange spot, trying to figure out how to navigate the world without the most important person watching you. “It leaves you in the same strange place.”Both the novel and the program find Hannah and Bailey in a state of disarray and, not knowing what else to do with themselves, they set off on a frantic mission to locate Owen or, at the very least, to discover the reason why he ran away. Bailey is a typical teenage girl in every way: she has purple and pink streaks in her hair, she is completely consumed by musical theater, and she is adamantly opposed to having any kind of relationship with her stepmother. However, as Hannah continues to demonstrate her worth to her stepdaughter Bailey by always giving her a choice in what they do, Bailey gradually begins to like her stepmother.
The television adaptation keeps true to the novel in most respects, although it does add one more figure to the mix to help flesh out Bailey’s history. Instead of hearing Hannah’s thoughts, the show exposes more backstory: between Hannah and her grandfather, between Owen and his former father-in-law (David Morse), and about the United States Marshall (Augusto Aguilera) who is assigned to the case. Since writing may access interiority in a manner that television can’t, the show chooses to do this rather than hearing Hannah’s thoughts.
“Lean into the idea that no version of motherhood is more honorable, more important, or more ‘natural,'” Dave says in a Q&A that is featured in the back of the book. One way to do this was to create The Last Thing He Told Me. “We often become mothers to people that we didn’t birth, we find our families in people that we may not have planned for, and we define home and love in ways that may be more generous and fulfilling than our younger selves could have imagined. “Dave shared with Team StarBulletin on a day in April that was exceptionally warm that she had already felt like a mother for a long time before she gave birth to her own child because she already had five godchildren. “And I have friends who I’ve been friends with since I was three years old, and the phone rings at 4 a.m. and I’m on a plane for them,” she says. “And I have friends who I’ve been friends with since I’m three years old.” “A close friend can feel like a mother to you. I really appreciate how much effort we put into finding new and creative ways to support one another. On the episode, Hannah and Bailey are treated as if they have a second family by Hannah’s childhood best friend Jules (played by Aisha Tyler) and by Jules’ partner Max (played by Tyner Rushing). Jules and Max bring pizza and ice cream to Hannah and Bailey after they have had a long and difficult day evaluating Owen’s behavior in the town of Sausalito, California. This causes the two women to get overwhelmed. “Hey, little one,” Jules says to Bailey as she envelops her in an embrace. “I’ve missed you.” Should we cut the pizza in half and share it, or should we just go right into the coconut and salted caramel? “I’ll get the spoons,” Bailey says, apparently trying to reassure her.
