“A basket of kisses”

“A basket of kisses” is Rhoda Penmark’s recurring invitation to exchange affection, a small family game whose repeated answer changes meaning as it passes between her parents. First spoken to Christine Penmark in a moment of apparent tenderness, it returns when mother and daughter are estranged by unspoken knowledge and finally reaches Kenneth Penmark. The words stay playful; the silences and embraces around them make the refrain increasingly painful.

The Game and Its First Answer

The exchange has a history within the family before Rhoda offers it to Christine. The narration identifies it as a game Rhoda had sometimes played with her father, and Christine knows its rules. When Rhoda approaches her mother, makes an eager sound, and kisses her on the lips—a gesture she has not voluntarily made for a long time—she asks, “What will you give me, if I give you a basket of kisses?” Christine answers with the expected return, “I’ll give you a basket of hugs.” She takes Rhoda into her arms, meeting the game’s offered affection with physical closeness.

That first exchange is tender, but the surrounding narration complicates its sweetness. Christine suspects Rhoda has done something naughty and interprets the girl’s effort to please her as a way of concealing a difference from other people. In that reading, Rhoda studies and imitates the values around her rather than responding spontaneously from the heart. The game therefore introduces a tension the phrase will continue to carry: affection is genuinely enacted between mother and child, yet Christine’s tenderness is already shadowed by suspicion and pity.

A Refrain Under Strain

When Rhoda repeats the game at home later, the phrase enters a changed emotional setting. Christine has returned with the medal still in her bag and a disturbed, unhappy expression. Rhoda reads her mother’s unspoken censure and hurt disapproval, wonders what Christine said to Mrs. Daigle and what Mrs. Daigle said in return, then stands, smiles, tilts her head, and claps her hands in a charming gesture. She asks, “If I give you a basket of kisses, what will you give me?”

This time Christine does not supply the familiar answer. Rhoda’s practiced invitation gives way to panic: she dances eagerly to her mother, puts her arms around Christine’s waist, and repeats, “What will you give me, Mother? What will you give me?” Christine suddenly sits as though too weak to remain standing, takes Rhoda into her arms, presses cheek to cheek, and exclaims, “Oh, my darling! Oh, my darling!” Yet she still does not answer the question. The exchange retains its embrace but loses its expected verbal reciprocity: Christine offers love without restoring the game’s reassuring pattern. Her silence makes the ritual a sign of the distance between the child’s bid for connection and the mother’s private distress.

The Game Returns to Kenneth

The refrain appears again when Mrs. Forsythe brings Rhoda to Kenneth. He has pressed his palms against his forehead as if trying to quiet unbearable pain. Rhoda goes directly to him and embraces him; then she pulls away, dances across the carpet, raises her chin, shows her shallow dimple, and claps her hands. The gestures accompany the now-familiar question: “What will you give me, if I give you a basket of kisses?”

Mrs. Forsythe tries to redirect her, saying Rhoda is not yet strong and should not tire herself. She tells Kenneth that the child is too young to understand what happened and is innocent in many ways. Rhoda persists, pirouetting and curtseying before asking, “What will you give me, Father? What will you give me if I give you a basket of kisses?” The persistence makes the scene an echo of the earlier family game, but not a simple return to its first warmth: Kenneth is in pain, and Mrs. Forsythe frames Rhoda’s innocence as a reason she cannot understand the loss surrounding her.

The Answer and Its Cost

After a moment of silence, Kenneth gives the answer Christine once gave: “I’ll give you a basket of hugs.” The repetition restores the game’s verbal symmetry, but the scene immediately turns away from play. As though his remaining reserve has broken, Kenneth covers his face and weeps with a harsh, tearing sound. Mrs. Forsythe takes Rhoda by the hand and leads her out, explaining that her father is tired from his long plane trip and that they will return later. She then urges Kenneth not to despair, reminding him that Rhoda was spared.

Across the three exchanges, the formula connects Rhoda to both parents while exposing how differently each receives her offer. Christine answers the first time, but cannot answer when she returns burdened by distress; Kenneth answers after a silence that ends in grief. The phrase thus works as more than a charming family catchphrase. Its repetition preserves the recognizable shape of affection even as the circumstances around it change, placing the child’s apparently innocent performance beside the adults’ knowledge and pain. The final answer completes the call-and-response, but Kenneth’s weeping denies it a consoling ending: the game can be repeated, while the loss that fills the scene cannot be undone.