My grandmother’s mango tree is so big it’s like the size of an oak tree. It takes up so much space in her backyard that the next tree is more than six feet away. I’ve only known it to be big and powerful, sometimes daunting when the hurricane winds pass through its branches. How long has it been there? Nobody knows, but it creaks and sways as if it is ancient. I wonder how many seasons it’s seen. It’s much too big for me to climb so I always just say hello, play, eat, and read at its roots so it’s not lonely when it loses its leaves.
Every mango season, for as long as I can remember, me, Mama, and Nan gather under the tree to have the first fruits before we harvest. We gather under the mango tree when the fruit hangs so heavy the branches look like they may give way. We gather under the mango tree to share in its abundance. We open the sweet sticky fruit with only our teeth and peel the skin away. I’m old enough now to eat the fruit myself, so Nan just hands it to me whole. The women who live near Nan join us under the mango tree to share the fruits of their labor. They talk about where they’ve been, but not physically. They speak of their dreams, knowing they can see the past and the future. What they see depends on the season. It may be death, a new life, or confirmation that we will have a bountiful season. They gather after service on Sunday to talk of the reverend’s message and pray for the unseen battles they fight. This sweet yellow-orange fruit, the color of the sunset, nourishes and replenishes their faith.
We gather because we believe angels are watching over us in the tree. Maybe God is in the tree.
Nan
Nan was great grandaddy’s favorite. He loved her more than any of his other children with his other wife. Always came by to see her, take care and give her anything she wanted in this world. He never did right by Nan’s mom though. Married off to another woman while she was still pregnant. Left to raise Nan mostly alone with his occasional gifts of guilt. It didn’t make any difference anyhow because the women around tended to her every need. Nan’s mom passed when she was only fourteen and she remembers the tree did not bear fruit that season. It pruned its leaves as if it were mourning the loss too. There were always three of us around. One to bridge, one to guide, and one to see. Nan lost her guide too young, but prayed under her mango tree every day until she could hear her mother’s voice again.
She was late to bloom into a woman after that, but finally left home when she was nineteen to go to Junior college. She came home almost at the end of that mango season to catch the mangoes that had been on the tree the longest. The sweetest ones most yearned for. Her Nan was sitting in her wicker chair underneath the tree with enough shade so she didn’t have to fan herself and could enjoy it in peace. Nan just found out she was pregnant with Mama at that point, but wasn’t speaking. She heard her mother’s voice tell her she would be alone to raise the child like she was, and Nan couldn’t bear to say it out loud. The women from the neighborhood, just a few doors down, heard the silence so loud that they all seemed to appear at the same time. They gathered under the tree, having dreamed about new life coming, so they knew Nan’s silence as confirmation. They prayed until the last mango dropped from the tree and peace was restored.
Why would Nan let a man interrupt her youth the same that Grandaddy did to her mama? I think it was because she was too far from the tree. She was vulnerable and the angels couldn’t watch over her. She was too young to know God and we’ve been paying for it ever since.
Mama
Mama’s first memories were of the ladies under the tree. Gathering around every summer in anticipation for the tree to bear. Will we have a good season? Who is pregnant? Is there gloom? Mama refused to see. I just don’t think she could without Nan’s mama. No bridge to bring us to the altar to speak to the angels. How are we supposed to know? The women in the neighborhood would share their stories. Telling us tales of the desires of their hearts. Touching the tree as they asked, hoping the angels would talk to God on their behalf every summer until the tree didn’t bear. It decided to skip a season on Mama’s twentieth year, a sign to us that there may be something to fear. Most likely a man to come around and strip us of our joy. Mama knew it was her because she saw it in her premonitions that she’s always had since she was young. Mama moved so far away from Nan and our tree that the angels couldn’t see. Hopping from home to home searching for something inside of herself that she was missing.
So, when Mama returned, one of Nan’s friends knew from seeing that a man hurt Mama, but she never told her in front of her. Just gave her a very long hug when she saw her and touched her stomach. She was early with me. Mama stopped seeing after that. Figured she’d seen enough. It took her a lifetime to recover what broke in her that day. I don’t know if she ever did. It’s a strange thing to watch your older selves in real-time. If we paid more attention, maybe we wouldn’t relive it again and again. Maybe it’s destined to be that way. Maybe if we pay attention closely enough and prune—like the mango tree—skip a season to bear, just so we can take in what we see. Refusing to give anything out of protest, but bearing tenfold in the next. When they gathered this time it wasn’t to pray, but to grieve the loss of Mama’s innocence.
Mama told me she took refuge in a neighbor’s house until I was born. Returned to the tree while Nan wasn’t home and prayed until her knees hurt. Two weeks until she was due, she prayed, “Lord let this child be the cycle breaker. I have prayed and lamented over her. Covered my belly in holy oils to make her arrival pure and clear. I tell her every night that she was the one to liberate us all and I feel it, Lord. Sunny is the one whom these visions of the future belong to. One of abundant pleasures and freedoms beyond our wildest dreams. One that is not bonded to man, but has him for our protection. Thank you for this gift. Amen.”
Sunni
They told me I came on a beautiful day when all the trees were in bloom. They knew I was going to be different. My birth came easy and during the morning after the folks had their coffees and were in delightful moods. My name, “Sunni our sun,” is a bright spot from a dark time in Mama’s life. Nan and everyone came to see me. The innocence of a baby relieves folks of the judgment they felt towards Mama. “She came to me happy, perfect, and at peace. I’ll do anything to make sure she stays that way forever.” After Mama left the hospital Nan welcomed her back home, but Mama walked straight to the backyard under the blooming mango tree and laid me down at its base, returning me back from where I came.
Mama and Nan were so careful when I was little, like I was made of porcelain. I was never alone. They caught every fall and comforted me before I could even cry. The only thing they would let me do was walk outside to the tree alone. I spent every day visiting the tree asking every question Mama and Nan didn’t have the answer to. How come you only grow mangoes? Why do we have seasons? How long have you been around watching over Mama and them? Why do the women have to pray here? How do I pray too? Why won’t you just speak to me clearly?
I could see everything in my dreams. Sometimes, I would dream of being under the tree and I could finally see the angels. I swear! Like small doves cooing their songs at me. I could feel the angels all around me even when I was not near the tree. Walking to church for Sunday service, they brushed my shoulders waiting for me to return. When the women came to gather after service, the tree would drop a leaf to me to say hello. They stayed for hours, laughing and joyous at the beautiful seasons they were experiencing. Nobody was hurt, hungry, or sick, and so they sang of the sparrow with gladness for being watched over.
Things were always easy with Mama, Nan and me in the house. No one argued or yelled, and anytime there was tension in the room, Mama would look at me and settle her heart. I had her face, but my eyes were a little bigger and my smile a little brighter. I think she saw joy in herself when she looked at me.
We lost Nan a year before my twentieth birthday. I knew it was coming because the angels showed me. I was alone under the tree, as usual, and a cold wind came in as I was cleaning up the split mangoes on the ground that the branches couldn’t bear. I looked up and saw Nan in the kitchen here, but not. Moving slower than usual and almost frozen in time. I told Mama, and two days later she left us. Things were never the same after that. It was like that cold wind stayed in Mama’s bones, and she couldn’t shake the grief. I tried to get her to come under the tree, knowing the shade would bring her comfort, but she refused. I prayed every day for the Angels to take the cold away, but they didn’t answer. In her grief, Mama sent me away, for I was too much of a reminder of a wholeness she would never feel again. I knew being far from the tree would put me closer to man and closer to being hurt like Mama or Nan. I took the last mango off the tree and left a note asking for the tree to send me Nan in my dreams and not to bear fruit until I returned.
I moved so far from Mama that I stopped dreaming for a while. I would just sleep and wake up feeling like I was underwater, but nothing more. It had been seven months since I’d seen the tree and talked to the angels while I enjoyed the calm of the breeze. I had so many questions since we last talked and I had no one to go to for answers. A week before my birthday I started dreaming again. It was Nan and the angels telling me that a man was coming to see me. I knew he was coming to break me. They showed me before he arrived, but I didn’t want to accept that fate. I prayed and cried to the ancestors for my deliverance. Had I not been prayed over? Blessed and covered in holy oils? Why must I now be broken as the women before me? Leaving the tree was a mistake and now I can’t get back.
The man came, just as they said, sly and smooth, but sinister in his intent. Calmly, I let him in knowing that I was still in control of what was happening to me. I was young, but I had seen the lives of those before me. I knew that man comes around looking for ones that are alone, to try and take back what was taken from them. The world is full of people losing innocence and trying to steal it back. But mine wasn’t up for taking, it was back at the tree waiting for me.
The man left as quickly as he arrived, but I was not hurt and I did not bear a child. Having survived, I stayed away for a while, hoping that it was just this one, but the hurt of this world does not keep score. More men tried and were more sly than the one before that and before that; I never let them in. And when I turned thirty, almost ten years after the man came to break me, I packed my things and returned to my tree to get what was left of me.
As I walked through the valley to return home, I felt no fear because I knew what was waiting. It was a Sunday morning and I passed my church, knowing that the women were gathered under the tree. It was the first day of mango season and the tree had bore fruit for the first time since I left. The women were quiet when I arrived, as if they knew the journey I had taken to get back. They said nothing, not even Mama, holding close to the suffering they endured during my departure. I walked straight to my tree which was as tall as an oak, plucked the sweet sticky fruit and ate from my own harvest. Enjoying its shade, telling my secrets, and loving it. That mango season was the sweetest of all.
We are all sisters, aunts, cousins, and friends but we remember being a daughter above all else. We feel daughter every day.
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