The Last Flight

“A person doesn’t just walk out of her life and disappear. Why can’t anyone find her?”

In the lead up to her flight, Claire imagines the consternation of her husband and his staff as they gradually realize that Claire was smarter and emotionally stronger than they ever suspected. The irony is that this voice in her head foreshadows the failure of her attempt: As it turns out, a person cannot just walk out of their life. 

“And then I end the call, doubt tumbling around inside me, feeling as if I have just slipped into a nightmare—spinning, turning, three hundred sixty degrees of danger.”

Claire is not sure she can separate logic from paranoia—an example of The Effect of Domestic Abuse. She struggles in the aftermath of finding her entire plan undermined by the whim of her predator husband. So close to freedom actually means so far from freedom.

“Do you think it’s possible for someone to disappear? Vanish without a trace?”

Claire and Eva learn that the answer to this question is no. In this apparently coincidental meeting at JFK, Eva establishes the theme that will guide the opening chapters. It is here phrased as a question, as the two women plot to find out whether this is actually possible.

“If you pay attention, Claire, solutions away appear. But you have to be brave enough to see them.”

Claire’s mother delivers this wisdom in a memory that occurs to Claire as she settles into the flight to California and to freedom. Her mother’s words appear to refer to this flight; only later will Claire see her mother is talking about standing up to her husband rather than running from him.

“Eva watched as the cat slunk off carrying the bird in its mouth and felt as if the universe was sending her some kind of message. The only problem was she didn’t know if she was the cat or the bird.”

The image of the cat snatching the bird at the bird bath symbolizes the uncertainty of victims of domestic abuse. In plotting their escapes, neither Claire nor Eva is ever entirely sure whether they are in control of their lives or are still being manipulated by very dangerous men.

“Eva will never laugh, or cry, or be surprised again. She won’t grow old, with sore hips or a back that aches. Never lose her keys or hear the sound of birds in the morning.”

Eva dies to free Claire. It is a sobering moment for Claire, who assumes the meeting at JFK was coincidental and that a perfect stranger (inadvertently) sacrificed their life to free Claire from her husband.

“Looking at us side by side, it makes me wonder if Rory had a type, zeroing in on women alone in the world who might be eager to join an established family like the Cooks.”

What gives Claire’s flight to freedom its urgency is the rumor about what actually happened to Rory’s first wife. Here she examines a newspaper wedding photo of her and Rory and sees ominous resemblances between herself and his first wife.

“While the world races on without me, I’m tucked up here, invisible, waiting until it’s safe to emerge.”

This reassurance, which Claire offers herself as she hunkers down in Eva’s place, evidences her false sense of security. She is in a stranger’s home, wearing her clothes, with her hair dyed blonde, but she tells herself that she is safe. Her reassurance underscores how fragile her escape is and makes her decision to head to the CNN studios that much more heroic.

“Beneath it all, she hated herself for the fleeting whisper of jealousy that this little girl still got to know her mother while Eva had not.”

The encounter with her prospective new drug client is a complete bust and nearly gets Eva nabbed by the feds. However, what most troubles Eva is not the drug business or the risks she is taking. She has never entirely gotten over her abandonment by her mother, and the fact that her client at least has a mother to talk to hurts Eva.

“But if only is a useless question, a bright spotlight shining on an empty stage, illuminating what never was, and never will be.”

Claire cannot shrug off Eva’s death. As she wanders about the dead woman’s apartment and notices how few personal effects are there, Claire asks the question she has long been afraid to ask: what it is like to die with so much still left undone. The fear reflects her awareness of the 10 long years she has spent being the model wife of the despicable Rory Cook.

“She eyed the emergency exit, imagining the sound of the alarm […] But she bypassed it, knowing now was not the time for anything so desperate. Not yet.”

The key words here are “not yet.” As Eva scouts out ways to get out of a campus get-together where she has been sent to move product, Eva reveals that she is already weighing the possibility of escape. The symbolic alarm here should warn Eva that such escape is futile; it is a warning not to do what she ends up doing at JFK.

“But now there was a hunger rumbling deep inside of her, a desire for more time with Liz and her friends. But not as a visitor passing through. She wanted to be part of it, to live inside of it.”

For all her resourcefulness and cool savvy, Eva is coming apart under the pressure of her life, which men who use her and dismiss her as anything but a commodity have maneuvered her into. Liz—with her generous heart, her compassion, and her refusal to judge—provides Eva with something like the mother-daughter dynamic she has always wanted, underscoring The Power of Female Solidarity. 

“But as she stared at her dim reflection in the dark train window, Eva was struck with a thought so clear, so pure, it sent a shiver through her. I’m not going to do this anymore.”

Eva’s epiphany alters the dynamics of the rest of the novel. This is her declaration of intent. With the guidance of Liz, she pursues freedom from a life she finds sordid and unfulfilling. 

“I understand better than most how secrets can live on your skin and how hard they are to hide, because the truth is always visible somehow.”

Claire’s life journey testifies to The Corrosive Effects of Secrets. Her long and unhappy marriage evidences this idea that secrets can never stay secret: Every element of Rory’s mistreatment of her is evidenced on her, in her mental state, her emotional state, and her psychological health.

“Trying to figure out Eva’s life is like trying to fill one of those cartons. Some spaces are filled with things that don’t make sense—a prepaid cell phone left behind, a lack of any personal items, a house paid for in cash.”

Most of Claire’s narrative present is engaged in piecing together the life of the woman who sacrificed her life for her at JFK. Claire’s actions mimic the novel’s structure, which backtracks to flesh out the details of Eva’s life.

“Eva had never been anything to anyone—not daughter. Not friend. Certainly never girlfriend. She had felt foolish that the betrayal struck her so deeply, that she’d allowed herself to believe Wade might be different.”

Nothing more defines the trajectory of Eva’s spiral than her boyfriend’s betrayal; it was Wade who got her into the drug making business to begin with and was responsible for their being nabbed by campus security. To protect his status as campus jock, Wade blames the entire drug operation on Eva, getting her expelled and setting her on a path of second-guesses and missed opportunities.

“I want to tell them that the tangle of their crowded life should be a comfort, not a burden. I’d been in such a hurry to redefine myself, not knowing I’d be carving away a piece of my heart.”

Claire wistfully watches Kelly’s family life and thinks how that life has never been hers; being the dutiful wife of a prominent New York philanthropist has denied her a family. Her escape has only made the ordinary life she longs for that much less likely.

“Liz pulled her tight, embracing Eva in a way she’d always imagined her mother might, and she nearly broke, so strong was her desire to be known. To be seen, instead of constantly protecting herself.”

Even as Eva discovers that her biological mother is dead, Liz emerges as a surrogate mother—supportive, loving, and engaged. Eva is tempted to let down her guard and share the entire truth about her life. She has been too long invisible, pretending not to be who she is, and she longs at last to be seen.

“I think you were a good person who was forced to make an impossible choice. Help me help you.”

FBI agent Castro’s assessment of Eva’s predicament is perceptive; though he is, like the other male characters in the novel, trying to manipulate a woman for his own ends, he accurately pinpoints Eva’s dilemma. Eva’s highest ambitions foundered because of the men she allowed into her life, but it is another woman—Liz—who provides the selfless help Eva needs.

“I’m living an upside down and backward version of the life I wanted. I’m here in Berkeley. I have money and a home. I have everything I thought I wanted, and yet it’s all wrong.”

Eva’s growing disgust with her life makes that much more ironic her decision to run rather than face the difficult responsibilities of being the person she is. In her life as a drug dealer in a university town, she is at once everything she wanted to be and everything she does not want to be.

“The only way out is through.”

In talking to Castro, Eva realizes that running from her involvement with the drug syndicate is not a true solution; however, she ultimately chooses to do just this. By contrast, Claire embraces this wisdom on her way to the CNN studio to conduct the interview she deeply fears.

“Hate can eat you up inside. I could hours a day to despising [my ex]. But it wouldn’t matter. He’s out there, somewhere, living his life […] I decided a long time ago to forgive him, which is a lot easier than hating him.”

Liz emerges as the novel’s voice of reason. As Eva’s surrogate mother, she offers what Eva dreams a mother should offer: unconditional love, unflagging support, and practical (and unstinting) assistance. In sharing with Eva how she came to terms with her own predatory and disappointing man (her philandering husband) Liz counsels Eva on how to get past self-destructive resentment. The advice applies to Claire’s situation as well.  

“First Eva, then Danielle, and finally Charlie. If we don’t tell our own stories, we’ll never take control of the narrative.”

Claire’s declaration on live TV speaks for all abused women. In this she summarizes the moral of the novel. Written specifically to and for the #MeToo culture, the novel addresses women who have endured discrimination, sexual assault, and humiliation because of the toxic perception that women are commodities. Only by coming forward together can women challenge that perception.