Mangoes
A short story
My deepest memories are accompanied by the presence of a mango tree. Not one, but two of them.
They were majestic trees.
Overwhelming.
Like dark storm clouds ready to pull you in. These mango trees summoned up feelings I couldn’t quite understand when I was a kid. After all, it’s hard to fathom trees that large when you’re only three feet off the ground.
They were the embodiment of enormity. The very definition of the word “enormous.” All I could do was lay down on the ground and look up.
I’d stare at the little yellow-burgundy ovals, dripping with sugary gold, all the way up on the highest branch at the center of the foliage and wonder if I could climb all the way up there. Their branches reached around me in both directions, encircling me like a magnificent circus tent. It felt like a second bedroom in a way. A world of privacy. Like a second space entirely my own.
Under these trees there was never too much sunlight,
or too much wind,
or too much rain,
or too much noise.
The space under these mango trees was safe
for digging large holes to China,
for swinging from old rope swings,
for climbing up branches,
for throwing slimy mangoes at brothers trying to bully you,
for throwing slimy mangoes at brothers whom you are trying to bully.
for everything I wanted to do.
These trees lived at my parent’s house and my grandparents’ house. I was never away from either tree for long.
We were raised on the small island of Maui. Costs were high. In my early years, my parents worked late, busy trying to afford rent and pay bills. They would drop us at grandma and grandpa’s house in Kahului, and we would play under the mango tree until they came back.
Section
When I got older, I lost these trees. Life got busier. I became distracted by the preoccupations of high school. Instead of spending long afternoon hours playing under the mango trees like I used to, I spent my afternoons
out with friends,
or at basketball practice,
or trying to impress girls at the beach.
I stopped eating the ripened fruit pulled directly off their branches. Soon, I forgot what they tasted like.
Then, one day, we moved to a different part of the island. We didn’t have a mango tree there. The house was newer and larger, a sign that my parents had moved up in the world. They worked less now. But, like all of the houses in that new neighborhood, the backyard was a tiny rectangle surrounded by eggshell white plastic fencing. Every yard was the same sea of pale green crab grass; every house looked the same. I hated it there.
A few years later, my grandparents passed away. When they passed, we sold their house. On the day before the house closed, our family spent one last day cleaning out the place. At the end, the place was empty and lifeless, devoid of any vestige of the memories there.
As I stepped out of the house one final time, I peered into the backyard and caught a glimpse of the mango tree still standing there. It looked smaller than I remembered.
and sadder.
Though its leaves still reached into the sky, there were no mangoes on its branches, as if it knew that no one was there to pick them.
Suddenly, I felt a flood of guilt. Why hadn’t I visited her more?
Section
A decade later, a memory returned to me in a dream.
I was laying with my back on the sand, staring straight up through the canopy of the mango tree.
I peered into the ocean blue sky, cloudless and perfect. The warm, wet breeze hugged my skin like a damp towel. Salt kicked through the air.
I reached my hands out as far out as I could, squinting through my fingers to see the sun creeping in between the leaves.
I looked as long as I could, waiting to see if you could, in fact, go blind. I looked and looked and looked, then just as white began to seep into the corners of my eyes, a droplet fell through my fingers and landed on my nose.
I wiped it off and tasted it. It was a jolt of sweetness. Pure sugar — tangy and golden. The sides of my mouth curled up and a smile beamed from ear to ear.
I hadn’t forgotten.