50 pages • 1 hour read
Harlan CobenHome
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 28-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 28 Summary
Later, Myron is set to meet Terese, but he is surprised to see Esperanza show up instead. She explains that the Park Avenue townhouse is owned by a wealthy family with a 16-year-old daughter named Tamryn. She should be on her way to her internship soon, so Esperanza and Myron go to meet her in front of the building. Esperanza asks Myron what he did to make Tom change his mind about the custody battle.
Myron tells Tamryn that he saw her and Patrick, but she says she does not know who they are talking about and refuses to cooperate. Esperanza notes that Tamryn acted surprised by the name Patrick. When Myron returns to Terese’s apartment, Win is there, returned from the Netherlands.
Chapter 29 Summary
Win and Myron discuss the conversation with Fat Gandhi. Win sent Zorra to Finland to find Vada Linna. Myron says that they should confront Patrick with their information and then tell Brooke what they know. Myron and Win go to Hunter’s house in Pennsylvania. They find Hunter sitting outside drinking, with a rifle on his lap. Hunter says that Nancy wants to move Patrick to the lake house. They ask him about the texts between Nancy and Chick, and he appears not to know about them. Win tells Hunter that Fat Gandhi said Rhys was dead, and Hunter does not seem surprised to hear this.
Chapter 30 Summary
As Myron and Win drive back to New Jersey, they discuss how to tell Brooke. Myron is confused as to why someone would email Win about Patrick’s whereabouts. They head to a coffee shop where they meet Zorra. Zorra explains that he found Vada, who now lives under the name Sofia. She is now back in Newark. They all head to Brooke’s house. Nancy and Patrick also arrive.
Chapter 31 Summary
Patrick tells Brooke that Rhys is dead. He says that they were kidnapped and taken to a farmhouse. After a few weeks, Rhys was killed. The kidnappers made Patrick watch them dump Rhys into a ravine. Win insists that Patrick tell more, but Nancy refuses. Myron asks why Patrick met up with Tamryn, and Nancy is furious that he followed them. Myron asks if he’s really Patrick Moore, and the boy punches Myron.
Mickey calls Myron and tells him that they found out something about Tamryn. Myron heads to Ema’s house, where he is pleased to see her famous mother. The teenagers explain what they found: Tamryn’s family keeps a low profile online, but by using facial recognition software, they located a class photo from a Swiss boarding school of Tamryn on Facebook. In the same photo, someone identified as Paul looks a lot like the person they believe to be Patrick Moore.
Esperanza calls to tell Myron that she located Mr. Dixon, Clark and Francesca’s fifth-grade teacher. Myron goes to the Moores’ house and lets himself inside. Nancy is tearing apart Patrick’s room. Myron tells her that the boy is Paul, not Patrick. He shows her the photos of the Swiss boarding school class. Nancy tells Myron to never come back. Winn, Brooke, and Myron discuss the forensic anthropologist’s notes. She thinks that the boy in the photograph is the one who came back. The DNA from the hair that Ema collected belonged to Patrick Moore.
Zorra arrives and tells them that Vada Linna is at Hunter’s lake house.
Chapter 32 Summary
Myron goes to the elementary school to meet Mr. Dixon, the fifth-grade teacher of Clark and Francesca. Brook and Win decided to drive to Hunter’s lake house. Mr. Dixon is excited to meet Myron because he watched the ESPN documentary. Myron asks Mr. Dixon if Clark and Francesca were at school that day, and he recalls that Brooke called to tell him that a police officer would pick up Clark and Francesca. Mr. Dixon confides that Francesca was going through a rough patch because her dad discovered texts on her mom’s phone.
Myron calls Clark and tells him not to let Francesca leave campus. When Myron arrives, he asks Francesca about her parents’ problems. She tells him that she came home early one day and saw Hunter, drunk, yelling at and hitting her mom, and waving a gun. When Hunter put down the gun, Francesca took it and hid it in her room, where Patrick found it.
Chapter 33 Summary
Win and Brooke drive to the lake house. Win thinks back to a night spent with his cousins at his grandfather’s estate on Fisher Island. He and Brooke went canoeing while drunk and high and were almost run over by a ferry. Brooke saved his life. Brooke thinks that Rhys is dead, but Win isn’t sure. When they arrive, Hunter is waiting outside with his rifle. Win shoots him in the leg. Vada Linna steps outside.
Chapter 34 Summary
Myron finds Nancy Moore in her backyard and tells her that Francesca told him the truth. He says that he knows that Nancy and Patrick lied. All those years ago, after Patrick found Hunter’s gun in Francesca’s room, he brought it to the playdate with Rhys. They were playing with it and Rhys was shot.
The gun went off just as Nancy arrived. She told Vada that she’d be held responsible because she should have been watching the boys, so Vada agreed to cooperate with Nancy. Nancy called Brooke and said no one was answering, then she hid Rhys’s body at her house. Hunter kept Patrick at the lake house. They got a fake ID for him under the name Paul Simpson and snuck him out of the country. Recently, when Patrick wanted to come home, they crafted an anonymous email to Win. Win ruined their plan by killing the men threatening Patrick, which led Fat Gandhi to Patrick.
Patrick calls Nancy and says that he wants to die by suicide to be with Rhys. Myron realizes that Patrick must be in the ravine where Rhys’s body was dumped.
Chapter 35 Summary
Myron calls the police and tells them to go to the ravine. When Myron and Nancy arrive, Patrick is there, holding a gun to his head.
Nancy tells Myron that Vada returned to the US once she saw the reports about Patrick’s return, but she and Hunter held the girl at their lake house. Patrick is about to shoot himself when Brooke arrives and yells at him to stop. She tells him that she does not blame him. Patrick hands her the gun and she hugs him, crying.
Chapter 36 Summary
Hunter is treated for his bullet wounds. Vada is fine. Nancy will not be charged. Brooke tells Win that she needs time alone. Myron goes home to Terese and sleeps deeply. He wakes up wondering where the gun Patrick had is now.
Epilogue Summary
On Myron’s wedding day, Win is his best man and Esperanza officiates. Win explains that Brooke buried Rhys in the family plot. Clark and Francesca remain friends. Nancy disappeared.
The morning after Rhys’s body was found, Myron called Win to ask where Patrick’s gun was. Win told him that the police confiscated it. He reveals to the reader that Brooke killed Nancy, and he helped dispose of the body. He will anonymously report her whereabouts around the world to make it seem like Nancy fled the country.
Win watches Myron dance with his family. Ema approaches him and says that Angelica told her to say hello. Win reveals to the reader that he is Ema’s father.
Chapter 28-Epilogue Analysis
In the final section of the novel, Coben develops the theme of The Impact of Trauma on Individuals and Families, emphasizing the extent to which guilt, trauma, and secrecy inform each other. Patrick’s suicidal ideation demonstrates the extent to which the guilt of the charade has consumed him. Though he was a small child at the time of the accident, his role in his friend’s death still haunts him. He has a complicated relationship with his mother, who went to considerable lengths to “protect him,” including forcing him to leave the country and exist under a new identity. The years of trauma simmer into a boil that would have ended in his death had Brooke not arrived and made him feel safe. Brooke’s forgiveness ultimately saves Patrick’s life. With this connection between Brooke and Patrick, Coben achieves an unconventional resolution in the reunion of mother and child: Patrick needs a loving mother, and Brooke needs her younger son.
As Nancy’s culpability begins to be revealed, her character is more deeply developed in these chapters. Nancy is the key character in the final section of the book; the reader learns the extent of her misdirection, manipulation, and ability to lie. When confronted with an unimaginably tragic situation, she chose to protect herself and her family. The dynamic between Hunter and Nancy is inconsistent; shortly before Rhys’s murder, Hunter was out-of-control and violent, terrorizing his submissive wife. However, after the murder, Nancy completely controls him, demanding a level of secrecy and cooperation that suggests that she is the dominant spouse in their dynamic. Hunter is now more meek and submissive: His half-hearted kidnapping of Vada suggests that he was forced to do so but did not believe it was the right thing to do.
Nancy, on the other hand, continues to justify her considerable crime and the pain she caused two families with the reminder that “[a] mother protects her child” (336). However, she was really protecting herself. A six-year-old accidentally discharging a gun would not receive as much punishment as the neglectful parents who allowed this gun into his possession. Nancy’s character doesn’t transform throughout the novel; she continues to be deeply manipulative and flawed, unable to face the repercussions of her actions, pretending that her self-serving nature is altruistic.
Coben again highlights The Moral Dilemma Faced by Those Seeking Justice through the contrast between Myron and Win. Once again, Win shows the difference between himself and Myron, this time by helping Brooke murder Nancy. He does not explicitly describe it, nor does he describe his role in making sure that Nancy’s body will never be found, but Coben implies these things, as well as the sense that Win enjoyed this chance to have revenge on Brooke’s behalf. He is also eager to create the charade that Nancy is traveling around the world, viewing it almost as a game. Win views this revenge as an act of loyalty to Brooke; however, Coben indicates that he recognizes this vigilante justice as morally questionable because he does not confide in Myron. Win seems to face few qualms about his penchant for violence, while Myron is a much better example of someone struggling with the moral dilemma faced by those seeking justice. After a few hours of processing the truth, Myron is awoken by the startling realization that he does not know what happened to the gun.
Several theories of the boys’ disappearance have been debunked, and the red herrings have revealed themselves; now, Myron and Win must confront the truth. The combination of Myron’s investigative skills and Patrick’s crumbling guilt leads to Patrick’s confession. Once Myron learned from Mr. Dixon about the realities of the Moores’ family dynamic, he realized he needed to speak to Francesca. She has frequently been described as emotional, and Myron finally understands that this is justified given what she’s been through, highlighting once again the impact of trauma on individuals and families.
Myron’s wedding day offers an optimistic close to the novel, as well as a thoughtful contemplation of parenthood. Nancy’s version of parenthood is defined by manipulation and Brooke’s by protectiveness. Myron has a new appreciation for his role as a surrogate father to Mickey. In a final plot twist, Win learns that he has a biological daughter, Ema, and the final scene of them dancing together suggests that Win will explore this relationship further. As with his strategy to employ humor and a casual tone, by ending on a positive note for both Myron and Win, Coben lightens the dark nature of the story and ends it on a positive note.
Related Titles
By Harlan Coben
