My father had first right of refusal to everything from the Bombay tree. I realize in retrospect the symmetry -- it's a firm, neat mango, with a subtle and refined taste.

The tree is gone now, for practical reasons. Back then we could pick its fruit standing on the roof, and take it downstairs. A careful slice around its equator, a deft twist and the seed popped out, leaving you with two mango cups, lacking only ice cream.

He's a pragmatic man, only lately come to sentimentality. I wonder if he can miss the tree as much as I do.

ita, you're on fire with this drabble topic!

t not here. really not here

ita, you're very good.

(one more) (thanks guys)

The best tree to climb was the Julie. It arched out more than it reached upwards, with branches more than wide enough for a diminutive child to sit and read, or pretend she was a lurking assassin.

I didn't climb for the mangoes - I climbed for the climb - to pretend I was somewhere else, born to a life wilder, of the jungle, or more refined, of English countryside.

And when I got distracted (because I always did) I became me again - slightly lazy, slightly disrespectful, definitely larcenous. They weren't mine to eat, but my mother wasn't watching, and I did.

Have you read Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl"? For some reason I keep thinking of it while reading your drabbles.

ita has a habit of making me wonder whether I colour my memories of the Caribbean too highly.

She also has the habit of answering the question for me. No. I don't.

Brava, love. Those are wonderful.

Ah, those are amazing, ita.

I'm going to have to think about this one. Nothing's happening yet. Maybe tomorrow.

ita. I can smell the salt in the air and feel the sweet juice drying sticky on my skin. Lovely.

God knows they'd tried. The best preschools, the best schools. Enrollment in an ivy league university as soon as the ultrasound confirmed the sex.

Her own room, shell pink with icing-white woodwork, an antique crib and matching low chest. They'd had a custom pad made to turn the chest into a changing table, the crib bars reset to conform to modern standards. Later, there was an antique tester with a canopy, an Aubusson, couturier clothes, tasteful jewelry.

The product of their love, their plans, their hopes faced them now, hair dyed blue, nose pierced, belly bulging round as a melon.

We were never sure what they were. Blackberries? Black raspberries? Daddy remembered the bush from when he was a boy in the 1920s, growing next to the old barn's wagon door. Linda, being taller, got the top of the bush. I, being littlest, got the middle. It was her idea to get berries for baking. Or for dinner. Something. Maybe she knew as well as I that the berries would never reach the house.

Purple tasted sweet and wonderful, until you found a perfect black one. Flavors hiding behind the sweet. When I first tasted wine a decade later, I remembered.

(fruit. I could go on forever)

My mother mastered a delicious apple pie during my childhood in Jamaica. Always critical of her talents, she tried to downplay the pastry. But it flaked, and was buttery, all the things I demand of a crust to this day. The juicy, tender filling was why you came to the table, though. Tart, sweet, with just enough resistance to your bite.

It took me years to find an apple pie made with real apples that could compete with her juice soaked chayote concoction.

So often the fables we spin of the first world grow harsh and thin in direct light.