Monica Breedlove

Monica Breedlove is the Penmarks’ neighbor upstairs, Emory Breedlove’s sister, and one of Rhoda Penmark’s most devoted admirers. Her expansive affection and elaborate theories about people make her a vivid social presence, but they do not make her merely a comic eccentric: she is also a successful investor and civic worker, and her attentiveness to Christine Penmark ultimately brings help to the family at a moment of crisis.

Identity and Background

Monica lives with her younger brother, Emory, in the apartment above the Penmarks. Her story of an earlier marriage and a search for psychological help is one she often revisits. In the middle 1920s, at her own request, her husband agreed that she should travel to Vienna to be analyzed by Professor Freud. After an initial session, she says, Freud recommended that she seek help from his pupil, Dr. Aaron Kettlebaum, in London. Monica describes Kettlebaum as a better fit for her temperament and praises his emphasis on the individual soul. She returned to her husband three years later, began divorce proceedings, and received no opposition from him.

After the divorce, Monica decided to make a home for Emory. She took pleasure in interpreting his character, while he generally endured her analyses in silence. Her certainty could exceed her evidence: she formed a theory about his sexuality and aired it freely at a dinner party, leaving the other guests embarrassed. This habit of turning private impressions into confident explanations also appears in her reflections on why she loves Rhoda.

Public Persona and Work

The narrative distinguishes Monica’s talkativeness and unusual theories from her practical accomplishments. She invested the settlement from her divorce in real estate, using a method that joined sexual symbolism to a straightforward forecast about the direction in which the growing town would expand. The investment succeeded from the beginning. She also wrote a successful cookbook, helped establish the city’s psychiatric clinic, and became known as a tireless civic worker and an efficient chair of a charitable fundraising drive.

Her sociability is visible in the lunches and gatherings she hosts. On the day of the school picnic, she invites Christine to lunch, explaining that Emory has received a seven-pound redfish and wants her to prepare redfish Gelpi. She also expects Reginald Tasker, a crime writer whom Christine and Kenneth Penmark have met before, to join them. Monica moves the meal from the dining room to an alcove containing her ferns and African violets. The domestic setting and the talk of a murder being reported in the local papers place her at the intersection of hospitable routine and the story’s growing criminal unease.

Affection for Rhoda and Friendship with Christine

Monica’s affection for Rhoda is open, demonstrative, and attentive to small details. She admires the gap between the child’s front teeth and compares her to a self-possessed little girl in a colored print of a skater that Monica remembers from her grandmother’s home. She concludes that the old image may have begun her attachment to Rhoda, then puzzles over the fact that Emory loves the child too, although he could not have known the print. Her explanation-making falters when the affection cannot be accounted for by her own remembered association.

On Rhoda’s school-picnic morning, Monica comes downstairs to make sure Christine and the child have not overslept. Emory has offered his car, and Monica proposes driving them to Fern Grammar School. She brings two gifts for Rhoda: dark glasses from Emory and, from herself, a gold heart-shaped locket with a chain. The locket was given to Monica when she was eight and has remained in her jewelry case for more than fifty years. It still holds Monica’s garnet birthstone; she plans to have it replaced with Rhoda’s turquoise and to have the clasp repaired. The gift expresses an almost familial fondness, while Rhoda’s question about keeping both stones shows that the child’s attention is fixed on what she can acquire.

Monica’s loyalty also shapes how she responds when Fern Grammar School refuses to make a place for Rhoda in the coming term. She dismisses the school’s judgment as narrow-minded and argues that Rhoda is unusually clever and independent. Christine privately recognizes the partiality behind this defense: Monica loves both mother and daughter and cannot readily see fault in them. That partiality makes her a comforting friend, but it also limits her ability to assess Rhoda impartially.

Concern and Response to Christine’s Crisis

Monica’s concern for Christine becomes especially visible when Christine stops answering her telephone. During a card game, Monica says repeatedly that something is wrong. Emory suggests that Christine may simply want privacy or have gone to the movies, but Monica points out that Christine normally answers and no longer goes out alone at night. She asks Jessie Forsythe, who lives across the hall from Christine, to ring the Penmark apartment; when Jessie reports that repeated ringing and knocking have brought no response, Monica decides to go there herself.

Emory accompanies her, and Johnnie Kunkel joins them outside the apartment house. Monica asks Johnnie to reach the back balcony, enter through the kitchen if necessary, and unlock the door. Once inside, she calls for Christine. The group discovers that Christine is unresponsive in her bedroom and that Rhoda is still alive but needs urgent medical help. Monica’s actions do not resolve the mystery of what has happened, but her refusal to dismiss an unusual silence helps turn private worry into an immediate search for assistance.

Aftermath and Narrative Role

After Christine’s funeral, Kenneth asks Monica why his wife took her own life and whether she had said anything that might explain it. Monica cannot supply an answer. She has retraced what Christine did and consulted Reginald Tasker and Octavia Fern, but neither has an explanation. She recalls that, during a hotel stay, she urged Christine to cable Kenneth and ask him to come home. Christine refused, saying that the matter did not concern him. Monica had thought Christine seemed better in the last few days and regrets leaving her alone.

Monica’s place in the story is therefore defined by both affection and the limits of interpretation. She is quick to construct theories about people, from the origins of her attachment to Rhoda to her brother’s character, yet in the aftermath of Christine’s death she openly admits that she does not know why it happened. Her vigilance is more reliable than her explanations: she notices a break in Christine’s ordinary habits, acts on that concern, and helps bring others to the apartment. The contrast makes her devotion consequential without granting her knowledge the story has not given her.