Christine’s Attempt to Return Claude’s Medal

Christine’s Attempt to Return Claude’s Medal is a failed act of restitution that brings Christine Penmark face to face with the grief surrounding Claude Daigle’s death. She intends to return the medal Rhoda Penmark has kept and apologize for her daughter’s theft, but the visit does not resolve the object’s disputed ownership or ease the Daigles’ sorrow. Instead, Hortense Daigle’s insistence that the medal may explain what happened to her son gives Christine’s attempt a darker significance, and her return home with the medal still in her bag carries the conflict back into the mother-daughter relationship.

The decision to return the medal

After an earlier conversation with Monica Breedlove, Christine again feels unhappy about the medal. That evening, she tells Rhoda she plans to return it to Hortense and ask forgiveness for Rhoda having stolen it. Rhoda denies stealing it and repeats that Claude sold it to her. Christine says she does not know how Rhoda obtained it, but rejects the account Rhoda has given; even if Claude had rented or sold it to her, Christine argues, keeping it was dishonest. Her resolve is therefore not based on certainty about the transaction. She distinguishes what she cannot prove about how Rhoda got the medal from what she believes is wrong about retaining it.

Rhoda answers not with apology but with a claim of entitlement. She says Hortense did not win the medal and that it belongs to her more than it belongs to Claude’s mother. As she speaks, Christine sees a cold, calculating look that Rhoda no longer tries to hide from her, since Christine already knows so much. The exchange makes the disagreement more than a question of returning a lost possession: Rhoda contests Christine’s moral judgment and treats possession as a justification in itself. Christine does not answer the argument. She tells Rhoda to stay in the apartment while she goes out.

A visit shaped by grief

Christine briefly considers bringing Rhoda along, hoping the visit might show her the sorrow of others. She decides that doing so would be embarrassing and useless, puts the medal in her purse, and goes alone without telling anyone her intention. At the Daigles’ door, Dwight Daigle receives her hesitantly. Before he admits her, he pauses long enough for Christine to notice his uncertainty, then goes to tell Hortense that she has arrived.

Hortense initially resents the visit. Christine hears her accuse her of coming to display her own child’s well-being in the face of the Daigles’ loss, and ask Dwight to send her away. Dwight explains that Hortense has not been herself since Claude’s death, is under a doctor’s care, and has been unreasonable in her grief; he also admits that the family is worried about her. Christine presses his hand in understanding and starts toward the door. The exchange establishes the painful imbalance Christine has walked into: her purpose is to make amends, but her presence is first received as an unwelcome reminder of what one family has lost and the other has not.

Hortense then reverses course, bursting into the room to embrace Christine and insist that she stay. Her welcome is accompanied by tears and a sudden intimacy. She asks to call Christine by her first name and dwells on the contrast between Christine’s social ease and her own past as a beauty-parlor operator. Her manner shifts again as she recalls Claude as a loving child, recounting his childhood assurance that he would marry her when he grew up. The abrupt movement from rejection to welcome, and from self-consciousness to maternal recollection, makes the visit unstable rather than reconciliatory. Dwight repeatedly tries to explain or manage his wife’s behavior by reminding Christine that she is under a doctor’s care.

The missing medal and Claude’s death

Hortense’s memories turn toward the circumstances of Claude’s death. She refers to physical signs noticed on him afterward and recalls that a doctor believed he had bled before the water washed the evidence away. Without establishing who caused Claude’s death, her account gives the medal a new weight: for Hortense, it is not merely the award her son won but a possible clue to what happened to him.

She demands to know where the penmanship medal is, reasoning that learning what became of it would give her a better idea of what became of Claude. That question directly confronts Christine with the connection she came to address, but Christine does not give Hortense the medal. Hortense soon tells her that she should leave. Her grief has briefly drawn Christine close, then turned the encounter back into rejection; the visit has exposed the mother’s suspicion without supplying the answer she seeks. Christine’s intended apology and return are both left uncompleted.

The return home

When Christine comes back, the medal is still in her bag. Rhoda is sitting quietly in lamplight, reading. She notices her mother’s disturbed expression and senses unspoken disapproval, then studies Christine, trying to understand what she said to Hortense and what Hortense said in return. Rhoda’s attention to her mother’s face makes the failed visit consequential even though Christine does not report its details: the strain between them has become visible, and Rhoda recognizes that Christine has returned changed by the encounter.

Rhoda responds with an affectionate gesture and asks what Christine will give her in exchange for a basket of kisses. When Christine does not answer, Rhoda’s performance of playfulness gives way to panic; she dances over, puts her arms around Christine’s waist, and repeats her question. Christine suddenly sits as if too weak to remain standing, draws Rhoda into her arms, and presses her cheek against her daughter’s. She calls her darling, but still does not answer. The medal’s return to the apartment, rather than to the Daigles, leaves the practical dispute unresolved. Christine’s embrace offers closeness without reassurance, while her silence registers the gulf between the affection Rhoda asks for and the judgment Christine can no longer put aside.