The elephant broke.

Just like that. As she was dusting the top shelf, the cloth snagged it, and it sort of … slipped.

There was, of course, a shattering sound. As her mind wavered between the last few seconds and now, she did not hear it.

“What did you break this time?” he called from the other room. He was reading a newspaper. He was the sort of person who was permanently reading a newspaper.

It wasn’t so much that she was clumsy or often broke things. She didn’t. There were plenty of knickknacks that had survived. It was just that she had that aura about her that caused people to instinctively replace their precious china and reach, instead, for the 90-cent plates with cute little pictures on them.

And now the elephant had broken.

It had been very beautiful. It had been a glass elephant, delicately spun, crystal clear.

For a moment she raged inwardly, and then she snapped, “The elephant, all right? It was the elephant.”

A pause. He emerged from the other room, salt-and-pepper hair tousled, glasses askew. He put the newspaper down and glanced at the remains dolefully. They were sparkling in the fluorescent light. He sighed. “That’s a pity.”

“My mother gave it to me.”

“I know.”

“Before she died.”

“… Yes.”

“She said it was one-of-a-kind.”

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?”

She stared at him for a moment. “Nothing.”

He picked up the artistically crumpled newspaper and went back to reading. Maybelline whimpered from her crib.

The next day he came upon her trying to glue the shards back together. “Oh, come now, dear. You have plenty of other trinkets. And it’s the memory that counts, right?”

She glanced disconsolately at the shelf. It’d had a place of honor, lit by one of those little lamps. Now that special spot was empty, and the light seemed to be joking, or perhaps playing a trick on her, showing her that there was nothing there.

She put the Superglue down. The sight of the glue seeping through the cracks almost nauseated her. Their daughter, perplexed, looked on.

Ignoring Maybelline, she dumped the shards in the trash. There were other chores to do.

In the evening, he came home half an hour later than usual, looking supremely pleased with himself. With much fussing with the zippers and pockets, he pulled a small box from his briefcase and placed it in the middle of the dinner table, surrounded by slowly cooling mashed potatoes and green peas.

“Could you put that somewhere else?”

“Why?”

“It’s in the middle of dinner. Put it on the shelf, would you?”

As if noticing the food for the first time, he put it on the shelf, looking at her apologetically. She sighed.

“Aren’t you going to–” he started.

“After dinner. I thought you would be here earlier. Can you at least give me a call next time?”

Once the plates were cleared and Maybelline had been fed her puree, he handed her the box and watched her expectantly. She undid the silky blue ribbon  and lifted the lid. It took her a minute to open up the tissue paper.

It was a little porcelain elephant. It was dancing on its hind legs, trunk held up in jubilation. A delicate tracery of patterns and flowers was etched onto it, and a beatific smile graced its face.

“Oh.”

This was not an excited “oh.” It was an “oh” that crumbled at the edges.

“Don’t you like it?” he asked.

She looked at him askance, and he added, “Come on, put it on the shelf. It’ll fill up that empty space.”

She stood, put it in the light, and sat back down, considering it. “Of course I like it,” she said. When he left the room, she continued to stare at the elephant. Eventually she turned the light off.

The next day there was another round of chores. Vacuum, wash the windows, sweep, mop, clean the kitchen table, dust everything. At the end of the day she told him, “I think I should go on a vacation.”

“Who’ll take care of Maybelline while we’re gone?”

She gazed at him until he finally stammered out, “I … uh … of course. I’ll stay with her. You deserve a break.”

When she left the house to catch her flight, the little glowing door looked forlorn in the fast-fading light. She glanced back as her taxi pulled away. He looked at her, Maybelline in his arms, and then slowly went back in. The house was quickly lost in the dark, and she turned to the front.

“Where are you flying to?” the driver asked.

“Somewhere with elephants,” she answered, and that was that.