The Mango Seedling

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Clothes, shoes, books, twenty years’ worth of memories… a small pile for two decades of life. I throw everything onto the bed.

I grab the two sacks I had brought with me and fling my possessions inside. The taxi is waiting outside the gate.

The mango tree outside the window creaks as if with sympathy and immature fruit play a drunken beat as they fall onto the tin roof.

All the time my father’s wife stands at the bedroom door, arms crossed. A sentinel to make sure I don’t take anything which doesn’t belong to me. I ignore her and the tears searing channels down my face.

I haul the sacks outside the house. The fierce wind threatens to snatch them from my hands.

My father is still seated with the dog on the verandah where I passed him on my way in.

I pass him again.

“Simba, back”. My father speaks for the first time.

I suddenly notice a brown patch of soil on the right side of the driveway. I stop. The sacks fall down.

“Simba. Come back.” My father calls again.

A damp nose nuzzles into my hand. Simba always knew when I was upset. This hasn’t changed in the three months I have been away.

I turn and look back at my father. He is walking towards me, leash in hand. He stops when I turn. He is unable to return my gaze and looks at the dog, instead.

I walk over to the right, Simba staying close, offering comfort. There’s no trace of the mango seedling my father and I planted six months ago at my mother’s funeral to mark her grave. Mother loved mangoes.

I use my fingers to loosen some soil in the patch of earth. I shake open my handkerchief, tie the soil in it and put it in my pocket.

I pick up my sacks and carry them to the gate.

I close the gate. It opens again immediately.

My father’s hand comes out and he silently puts Simba’s leash into my hand.