Mango Seasons

by Michelle Cruz Skinner

  “It looks delicious,” I tell her.

  “I’ve been making and selling these for a year now,” she explains.

  We fill two bags with mangoes and a few of the small, hard guavas which persist in growing on the dry tree. Picking mangoes has become a game and my children are eager to help. Emil and Dolores’s oldest son climb into one of the mango trees and drop the fruit down to us.

  When we are finished we eat pastries and drink soft drinks in the living room. The children are thirsty and hot. They hold the cold bottles to their foreheads and necks. Gemma spills RC Cola on her t-shirt.

  Emil turns on the television and he and the younger children crowd around it to watch a cartoon. I remember that I did not turn on the fountain. It will not make any difference, I realize.

  Dolores’s eldest does not like me. I think it is not me he dislikes so much as who I am in this town. He does not approve, probably thinks my status an injustice. He stares around the room, scowling. Dolores watches him closely. She tells me again that he is due to graduate from high school soon.

  He is taller than any of us and very slender. His hair and skin are dark. Dolores’s husband must be a very dark man. But the build, tall and skinny, is like his mother’s and like Danny’s. And his eyes are also his mother’s and Danny’s. He picks up the two magazines on the coffee table and looks at the covers. He chooses one and sets the other back down. His mother appears relieved. But I am still afraid. I am afraid he will tell his uncle unpleasant stories about me.

  “How is Danny?” I finally ask.

  “Oh,” she says. “I don’t hear from him often.” She sips from her bottle of Pepsi. “He’s in Baguio now.”

  “Really.” I lean back in the chair and lay my hands in my lap. My fingers are sticky. I’m afraid to move, to ask any more questions.

  Dolores nods. “Yes,” she says. “His first job, after he left here, didn’t work out. But he got another job with a newspaper. Driving a delivery truck.” Dolores examines the powdered sugar on her fingers then carefully wipes them clean. “He went to school eventually. He’s a doctor now.” She smiles proudly.

  “So he’s living in Baguio?” I say, almost automatically, politely.

  “Yes. But I haven’t seen him for three years or so.” She picks up another pastry. “These are very delicious.”

  “Thank you,” I say. “They’re from the White Flower Bakery.”

  Three years, I think. Dolores chews carefully. She wipes the edges of her mouth with a pink napkin. I see her look at my skirt, so bright and crisp, and I realize I’m overdressed compared to her. I wait for her to continue, but she doesn’t.

  “So Danny is a doctor now,” I say carefully.

  “Yes.” Dolores wipes her fingers on the napkin in her lap. “And he has one son. He married only five years ago. I haven’t seen the boy yet although he has promised to bring him here to see us.” The noise from the television distracts us for a moment. The picture on the screen is flickering. “Well,” she grips the armrests and rises from her chair. “We should be going.” She calls the children.

  “Come back again,” I say to her at the gate. “We’ll pick some more fruits. And please, feel free to come by when we are gone and pick fruit.”

  “All right,” Dolores says gently. And I feel like I am in that moment again, when she gave me the letter. “He left,” she said. He has left me.

  That night as I lie in bed I think about our conversation. I could see that Danny and I had faded from Dolores’s memory. She no longer remembered us as I do. I did not mean for us to be distanced by years. It has become more difficult to renew that empty, aching feeling.

  Suddenly, I realize this is why he left. I was more absence than presence, and I was weak in the face of my family. I could not reclaim him through my husband and I cannot reclaim him through Rueben or this house. Lying alone in the bed, I am filled more with sadness, and only sadness. I go to the window and look at the moon. My hands, on the sill, are pale.

  The next morning as I pass by my bedroom window I see there is someone standing by the river, under the mango tree. It is still gray outside, but I’m not mistaken. Someone is there—a tall, slender man—and my breath catches, slowly releases. I feel a tightness inside. If I move he might leave so I stand and watch, breathing as softly as the early morning. Finally, as more light colors the day, I realize the man is Dolores’s son, the eldest. Under the shadows of the leaves he is waiting for someone. I don’t want to watch or to know. I dress quickly and go downstairs to the kitchen.

  The grass is very tall out there by the river and the bushes cling tenaciously to skin and clothing. I know that the river leads down by the rice paddies and the moon shining on the water is a fluid silver. Last night the moon was very close and bright. It reminded me of those moons from my girlhood. This morning I see it has faded considerably.

  In the afternoon, while I am sitting on the porch, the rains begin. This first rain is only a sprinkle and the ground quickly drinks it up. My children, who are playing in the yard, look to the sky, wanting more. Their hair glistens. The smell of wet heat is in the air. A few hours ago we were sweating over lunch and now, rain.

  I know soon the rains will fall harder. This is how the season begins, innocently at first, then a sheet stretching into September. The rains will wash away all this dust and sweat. Shanty homes will be destroyed and people will die during the months of intense storms and floods. The yard again will become overgrown with grass and weeds. Bananas will grow heavy on the trees, pulling them toward the ground.

  A breeze, cooled by the rain, passes across the house. I hold my hands to my face and smell on them the mango flowers I sliced. I must have a little sweetness in my life, I think, not damp hands and indifferent kisses. Last night I looked out at the moon and thought “Love.” My child, Gemma, looks to me and I see myself, my hands which place mangoes on her plate.

  Gemma climbs onto my lap, buries her hands between my breasts. I rub her legs, the mosquito bites on her child’s skin. This is how we begin, I want to tell her, innocently at first, then a sheet stretching into years.

  Smoke

  Trees

  “I wouldn’t want to live there,” Ric says.

  We’re sitting together on the porch railing at Lolo’s. Inside is too hot and outside all the chairs are taken. The whole family’s here for Lolo’s birthday. I’m not even sure how old he is.

  Ric’s father, Tito Gil, organized this party. Ric’s only a few months older than me, so we always stay together at parties. The older boys don’t want us around.

  “How would you know?” I say. “You’ve never been to Olongapo.”

  “I’ve heard about it,” he says.

  I look down, between my shoes, to the fishpond below. But I don’t see any fish. I wonder if they all died like last time.

  “Are you coming back for Kuya Gabby’s wedding?”

  “I guess so. When is it?”

  “April, I think. I don’t know. After school’s over because Pia still has to finish at Ateneo.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure we’ll be back.”

  “You have to,” Ric says. “Gemma’s going to be flower girl.”

  “Oh.”

  “So when are you going?”

  “Next week.” I’m getting tired of talking about this. “I’m thirsty.” I slide off the porch railing. Ric and I go inside. The dining room is crowded, so it’s hot and smells like food and sweat. I take two more lumpia from the tray and offer one to Ric. But he doesn’t want one, so I eat them both myself.

  Tatay’s standing by the drinks, which are in cases on the floor. He’s talking to a lady I don’t know. “This is my son,” Tatay says to her. “Emil. Emil, this is Malou.”

  I nod to her and she smiles back. She’s kind of pretty except for the dark makeup lines around her eyes.

  “Who is she?” I whisper to Ric. We’re on the other side of the table so I don’t think she can hear us.

  “Somebody’s girlfriend,
” he says. “Jaime’s, I think. I don’t know her name.”

  “Malou,” I tell him.

  We get the caps off our soft drink bottles and peel the rubber off the inside of each cap. “What’s on your tansan?” I ask.

  “Nothing,” Ric says. “Just a star.” He holds it toward me so I can see.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know. What did you get?”

  “A ‘T.’ I already have lots of ‘Ts.’” I have to spell “Drink Tru-Orange Every Day” and find the crown to win a prize. “I don’t think they printed any ‘Ks’ or ‘Vs,’” I tell Ric.

  “Emil.” Mama’s come into the kitchen. “Emil, Lolo wants a picture with all the grandchildren. You too, Ric.” She turns to Tatay. “Nick,” she says. “Could you get your camera and take a few pictures?”

  Lolo’s sitting in the big chair near the front door with Gemma on his lap. Gemma’s the youngest grandchild. “Where are you going?” Lolo’s asking her when we walk up.

  “Olongapo,” she says.

  “And where is that?” asks Lolo. He asks questions to test us.

  Gemma shrugs.

  “Is Olongapo on the island of Luzon?”

  Gemma just looks at him. She’s playing with the ribbons on her dress.

  “Olongapo is on Luzon,” Lolo says. He’s waiting for Gemma to repeat after him, but she’s wrapping her dress ribbons around her fingers. I wipe the sweat from my forehead and straighten my polo shirt for the picture. Tatay rests his camera on his shoulder while he arranges everyone. The way he holds it he looks like he’s going to take a picture without looking through the camera first.

  “Oy, Baby,” says Tito Gil. “You get in the picture too, with the new grandchild.”

  Tita Baby waves at him to go away, but she’s smiling. Tito Gil is teasing her because she’s pregnant. I can hardly tell she’s going to have a baby, but Mama says that’s because she’s just one month. She and Mama are sitting next to each other watching us. Tita Baby lays her hands across her stomach.

  “I’ve got spots in my eyes,” Gemma says after the pictures.

  “Me too,” says Marisa.

  I know I do. I have a hard time seeing my way up the stairs.

  Ric and I lie on the bed in Mama’s old room, looking at some photo albums. We were looking for comics or magazines or games or something, but the albums were all we could find. They’re kind of funny, actually. The pictures are brownish and Mama is a little girl in some of them. Ric found one with his Tatay dressed up as Principe Constantino for a Santacruzan procession.

  “Emil,” says Mama. She’s sticking just her head in the door. “Hi, Ric,” she says.

  “Hello, Tita Clara.”

  “It’s hot in here,” she says and fans herself with her hand. She looks at the albums on the bed. “What are you two looking at?”

  I slide one of the albums toward her and she bends down to look at it. She tucks her hair behind her ears to keep it out of her eyes. “Oh,” she says. “I’d forgotten about these.” She sits on the bed and holds the album in her lap.

  She turns the pages slowly, like she’s afraid she’ll forget the page before. Her fingernails are kind of long, but not sharp like some women’s. Mama stops on a page and looks at the pictures for a long time. I can’t see the whole page too well, because her body’s blocking my view. But the pictures look like they were taken at Lola Ofelia’s house, where we stayed this summer.

  “Danny,” Mama called me then, instead of “Emil.” We were standing at the doorway to the kitchen. Mama’s mouth stayed open in surprise and she looked at me as if she was going to cry.

  I almost told her “Emil,” but I stopped when I noticed her eyes and her hand tight on my shoulder. Then she let go. I thought she would come back so I stood there waiting. But a door closed upstairs and I knew Mama was in her room again. She wouldn’t come out for a while.

  All summer was like that, long and full of waiting. The town had many trees, but it was hot and we didn’t know anyone. I’m afraid Olongapo will be the same.

  “We have to go now,” Mama says. Her voice is soft. She closes the album and places it back on the shelf where Ric and I found it. Her hand rests on the album, as if she doesn’t want to let it go. “Come on, Emil. They’re waiting for us downstairs.” Mama looks as if she’s not ready to leave either.

  * * *

  “You have to watch out for your sisters now,” Mama says. “Especially Gemma.”

  Tatay adds, “Don’t go too far away until you know your way around.”

  It’s the same type of thing they’ve always told me, but this time it’s early morning, we’re in Olongapo, and we’re the only ones awake. I’ve never been up so late before, just me and Mama and Tatay. The curfew siren rang about an hour ago, so I know it must be almost one o’clock. I pull the front of my shirt away because it’s sticking to me. The fan is on, but I’m still sweating. I move the shirt back and forth to fan myself. I wish Mama and Tatay wouldn’t tell me the same things over and over.

  “We should have started earlier,” I say.

  “Oh, we made pretty good time,” says Tatay. He drinks from his glass of water.

  “We could have gotten caught by the curfew.”

  Mama presses her lips together and looks at me sadly. I know I’m upsetting her. “Emil, iho, we did all right. We got here by ten-thirty.”

  But we really should have left earlier. I drink some more of my water. Our glasses are making water stains on the dining table that’s still wrapped in cardboard and tied with raffia.

  This house is too new. “It’s five years old,” said Tatay when I asked him earlier. But the house doesn’t feel that old. It doesn’t seem that we can live here.

  So I complained. “My bedroom walls are blue.” But Tatay didn’t want to hear any more. “Later,” he said. “Later.” He was busy telling the movers where to put the furniture, and moving pieces around himself.

  In bed, I try to remember the roads we took to Olongapo. But we took a lot of roads and of course they didn’t have any signs. I can’t even recall the towns except that most of them were small. We left our house late in the morning and didn’t get to Olongapo until a long time after dark. Mama and Tatay didn’t want to stop, so we just drove and drove.

  “We have to get there before curfew,” Mama had told us before we left. We were all standing outside our house in Manila, in front of the truck and our car.

  “Come on,” said Tatay. He had his car door open. “We’re already running late.”

  Mama sighed and bit her lip. “We’re only going to stop for the bathroom, OK?” Mama looked at Gemma when she said this.

  Ma packed lots of food—bananas, chicken adobo, Spam sandwiches, guavas from our tree—but we didn’t eat much. I didn’t like the food all wrapped up and cold.

  Marisa and I got to ride in the big truck with the driver and all our furniture. “Make sure your door is locked,” the truck driver said. He was fat and the underneath of his fingernails were stained with oil and dirt. I wondered if he fixed his truck a lot. I hoped it wouldn’t break down while we were in it.

  The truck was hot even with the windows rolled all the way down. Marisa whispered to me, “He smells.” It was true. The Manila traffic was heavy and the sun was right in front of us almost the whole time. I kept fanning my shirt. By the time we got out of Manila, I could smell the driver’s hair pomade and his sweat. And I could smell the food lying in a bag on the floor of the truck. I leaned my head as far out of the window as I could.

  When we got into the mountains the day had been dark for a long time already. Marisa was leaning against me as she slept. The first curve we went around, she fell hard against me and the driver asked “Is your door locked?”

  “Yes,” I said. I pushed Marisa back up with my shoulder so she wasn’t leaning on me so heavily.

  “This is the Zigzag,” the driver told me.

  I could barely see the Saint Christopher statue that was
glued to his dashboard. He drove around the curves as if he had been driving through that road every day of his life. The dark didn’t seem to matter. The headlights showed leaves and limbs of trees, rocks from the mountain in front of us, nothing. Everytime, the driver turned at the last moment. I could feel the truck sway.

  Looking out my window, I saw the mountain grass rolling down into darkness. I could see the outline of trees against the moonlight. We passed a house with a light on inside, a small nipa house. But I didn’t see anyone.

  When we finally left the mountain, we drove through narrow streets to get to our house. It was hard for the truck to fit and sometimes cars or jeepneys would back up and let us through. Some men met us at the gate to our house. They looked like they’d been sitting there for awhile on their heels, smoking. Tatay said they were from the moving company. Mama heated up the leftover adobo and made rice for our dinner. Then Marisa and Gemma fell asleep on their beds before the movers could unwrap the cardboard from them.

  * * *

  We don’t even get to go anywhere until today, the second real day. Our first morning, the first real day we spent in Olongapo, we had to get up early so we’d be dressed by the time the movers came back to finish. “Keep your sisters out of the way,” Mama told me. Mila and Naty also came that day. ’Tay picked them up at the bus station early in the morning. After the movers finished, Mila and Naty and Mama spent the rest of the day cleaning the house and organizing all our things.

  Finally, today we get to go out. Tatay drops us off because he has to stop at the bank where he’ll be working. It’s on the U.S. Navy base, so we can’t go with him.

  “Wave to your daddy,” Mama says. So we do and Tatay waves back before he pulls into traffic. There’s really not much traffic.

  After we can’t see Tatay anymore, we look around. Next to us, a man pats his forehead dry with a handkerchief as he reads a newspaper. Ma’s holding onto Gemma’s hand and pressing her lips together. She frowns.

  “Ow,” says Gemma. She pulls on the hand that Mama is holding.

  Mama realizes she’s holding on too tight. “I’m sorry, iha,” she says and bends down to kiss Gemma’s hand. Ma looks at Marisa then me. She nods toward the street in front of us. “This is Magsaysay,” she says. “After the president. Do you remember which one?”