CHAPTER
forty

Nestled in the Detroit River—right between the shores of Michigan and Canada—was an island of wonders. Some of my very earliest memories were of Belle Isle, taking the trolley there with my mother and sister when I was very small to spend the day.

I thought that if I tried, I could think of a memory in every inch of that place. All of them happy. Every single one.

I drove around the island the long way around so Hugo could see the luxurious fountain and the statues and the wide-open waters. I pointed across the river to Windsor and slowed when we drove past the old ships.

Hugo was turned in the passenger seat to look out the window, saying “wow” more than I thought any human had ever done in the history of the world.

“We’ll see all of it,” I told him. “We’ve got the whole day.”

When I saw the glass dome of the conservatory, I knew we were nearly where I wanted to stop first. Not too far off, we found a parking spot that was just wide enough for the Bel Air. I made sure to have Hugo lock his door when he got out.

“What’s that?” he asked, waiting for me to get the camera from the trunk of the car. “That big glass building? Is that where Ella’s friends live?”

“That’s where they have all sorts of plants,” I said, nodding at the smaller building beside it. “That’s where we’re going first.”

“Is that it?”

“Yes,” I answered. “Take my hand while we cross the parking lot.”

He did, looking both ways for traffic like I’d taught him.

“Are you excited?” I pointed at the small, box-like building of brown brick with ivy climbing up the sides.

He nodded.

I squeezed his hand.

“What does that word spell?” Hugo asked, pointing at the letters engraved above the doorway.

“It says ‘Aquarium,’” I answered. “Do you know what that is?”

He shook his head.

“It’s a place for underwater critters to live.”

“And who’s that man?” he asked.

I knew he meant the bearded face that peeked out from the very top of the archway over the doors.

“That’s Neptune,” I answered.

“Is he the old man from the story?”

“Huh. Might be.”

Hugo nodded as if satisfied with the answer.

We reached the steps up into the aquarium and I hesitated, worried for a moment that he wouldn’t think it as spectacular as I had when I was a girl. Scared that it wouldn’t live up to his expectations.

But after we stepped inside, I realized that it had been silly for me to worry. I watched Hugo’s eyes widen to the size of quarters and his mouth drop open.

“This is Ella’s home,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear him. He pointed up and around him and at everything he saw. “Her blanket, her lantern, her friends.”

The arched ceiling was made of jade-colored tile. Yellow light flickered on the polished green, making it look like the surface of a lake on a sunny day. Lining the walls were glass fish tanks housing gar and sturgeon and trout. I lifted Hugo at each glass square so he could see inside. Eels and pike and fish of many colors zipped and floated and dove in the water, and Hugo’s eyes kept track of every movement.

At each tank, Hugo spoke to them, not seeming bothered when they didn’t answer him. He asked if they’d seen Ella, if she was doing all right, he asked them to tell her hello for us.

I refused to hurry him. I let him take his sweet time. When he asked to go back to the puffer fish, citing the need to tell him just one more thing, I gladly obliged.

There was no telling how long he might go on believing in the workings of magic. I wanted to help him hold on to it as long as he could.

When he finished with the fish, he stood close to the middle of the aquarium, other visitors passing us by. He tipped his head back and gazed up at the green sky above us for so long, I wondered for half a minute if he’d fallen asleep.

But then he whispered up at me, moving his eyes from the jade-colored tile to my eyes.

“Thank you, Aunt Betty,” he said.

I put my hands on his shoulders and tipped my head up, enjoying Ella’s green sky.

We wandered around the conservatory next, letting the palm trees shield our faces from the sun that shone through the domed glass ceiling. We had our picnic lunch in the gardens, soft grass beneath the checkered blanket I’d brought to sit on. We strolled through the children’s zoo and dipped our fingers in the cool water of the fountain.

I made sure to take pictures of Hugo standing by the clock tower and in front of the yacht club and beside the ancient cannon at the Great Lakes Museum. I planned to take the nearly full roll of film to be developed right away.

Clara would want to see them when next I visited.

We got home late. Hugo was already asleep in the seat beside me, and I had to struggle to carry him inside and up to his bed.

Completely worn out, I decided I would climb into my covers too, leaving the day’s chores for another time. But while I crept down the stairs, a long-forgotten memory triggered in my mind.

Forgetting to walk quietly, I rushed down the second half of the steps and to the living room, clicking on the light and grabbing the photo album. Flipping through the pages, I eventually found the exact picture I’d hoped was there.

“Oh, it is true,” I whispered. “I didn’t make it up.”

The year I was born, the schoolchildren of Detroit brought their pennies from home—milk money from their mothers and dads—and donated them to buy an elephant. When I was a little girl, I believed that elephants came from Germany because that was where Sheba had come from.

It wasn’t until much later in school that I learned otherwise, with quite a bit of embarrassment.

When Mother was well enough to take Clara and me to Belle Isle, she’d let us spend all the time we wanted at the elephant’s area of the zoo.

I never grew tired of watching her roll around in the mud or catch peanuts from the crowd. Clara, on the other hand, lost patience quickly—too quickly, in my opinion. She’d whine at me to move along, tugging on my arm until I relented.

Which I always did.

The last thing I had ever wanted to do was make a fuss and upset Mother. Nothing had upset Mother quite like seeing her girls argue. As the older and more mature sister, it was up to me to cave to Clara’s wishes.

My, but did I resent her for it.

Even though I didn’t think she noticed, my mother had.

For weeks before my eighth birthday my mother had made promises of the best birthday present a girl could want. She’d made hints that I’d be amazed, surprised, and otherwise shocked.

Dad just shook his head and warned me not to get my hopes up, that we didn’t have money for gifts or even the amount of sugar that a birthday cake would require.

“Don’t expect anything,” he’d said more than a handful of times.

But it was too late.

When my birthday came, Mother kept me—just me, not Clara—home from school and took me on the streetcar in the direction of Belle Isle.

The zoo had been all but empty; most people were either at school or work. But Mother marched us in as if we owned the place, her chin held high and her smile unfading. And when we walked right up to the zookeeper, she put out her hand and looked him right in the eye.

“I’m Etta Johnson,” she said. “May I have a word with you? In private?”

He lowered his brows and turned his mouth down into a frown, but followed my mother several feet from me. She spoke to him behind her hand, and they both looked at me a few times.

When the keeper nodded, my mother smiled.

Oh, what a beautiful smile it was.

“I hear you like elephants,” the man said, walking toward me. “Would you like to meet Sheba?”

“Yes, please,” I’d answered.

“Well, come on, then.”

When he offered me his arm, I’d reached up to take it, letting him lead me inside the elephant enclosure, Mother following behind us.

He’d given me a handful of peanuts to feed her, which the elephant took happily. Then he told me I could touch her, and I put the palm of my hand on her trunk, feeling the dry roughness of skin.

She had the most tender eyes, gentle and kind. I could see that even though she towered over me.

Mother stayed on the other side of the room, hands to her mouth and crying quietly. A smiling kind of cry.

“Don’t you want to pet her?” I’d asked. “She won’t hurt you.”

Mother shook her head. “This is just for you, Betty,” she’d said.

The man helped me use a ladder to climb up on the elephant’s back, and I sat with my legs on either side of her, my feet dangling several feet above the ground. I touched her back, surprised by the little line of fur that grew up, darker than her skin, along her spine.

The keeper led Sheba in a circuit around the pen, and the elephant stepped carefully, jostling me with her movement.

Every once in a while, I’d turn my head to see Mother standing with her hands still drawn up to her mouth, a look of absolute delight on her face.

The zookeeper asked Mother if she wanted him to take a picture of me. When she told him she didn’t have a camera, he offered the use of his.

“I’ll send it to you if you give me your address,” he’d said. “I’ll need you to hold the lead rope, though.”

The photo he sent was of me, sitting astride the elephant, my hands on her back and the happiest kind of smile spread on my face.

But what caught my eye more than anything was the image of my mother, tall and lean. She hadn’t faced the camera, and I wondered if she’d expected to be in the photo at all. Her face was turned up toward me, her smile lighting up everything.

“She loved me,” I said out loud, holding the album in my hands. My voice crackled over the words and my eyes stung with tears.

I was forty years old and finally realizing the love of my mother.

This is just for you, Betty.

This story is just for you.

“She really loved me,” I said one last time. “Thank you.”