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Samira doesn’t know what led her to that little bench in the park no one sits on.
It’s under a tree, a mulberry tree to be exact.
She sits there not directly after a shift. It’s just a random Thursday evening in August. The blanket of humidity enveloping Pittsburgh has let loose, allowing the heavens to open and rain down.
The drops of rain make the Earth seem technicolour, washing the leaves and flowers in a shade never seen before. Those kinds of colours you only see in your dreams about a childhood you don’t remember ever happening.
The bench is covered with broken mulberries, torn off from the branches of the tree with the coming of the wind.
They smell like the first room she ever had.
She doesn’t care about the vibrant purple stains that will cover her pants when she sits. They’ll get out. Or maybe they won’t.
Maybe they’ll stay as a reminder to today.
Maybe one day, when she’s moving out of her apartment, she’ll dig into her closet, trying to find the things that don’t fit. Then she’ll find these grey sweatpants.
The Walmart tag will be worn out, and she’ll turn them around to see the remnants of the purple berry, mixed with an undertone of dirt.
Maybe they’ll still smell of the heady scent of mulberries, something detergent wouldn’t clean out.
She won’t even remember why that happened, she will just ask herself why she had sat down in mulberries, ruining her pants for no reason.
She puts her legs up and hugs her knees, dropping her head down. There are a million thoughts racing through her head, but simultaneously none that she can recall.
She sits there, her head buried in her knees, a scent of everything she can see around her penetrating her nose.
The sharp, almost acidic smell of dirt gives her a painful outburst of nostalgia. It’s oh so reminiscent of the mehendi she would put on her hands for the numerous weddings she went to as a child.
A gentle drizzle of rain has begun again, but along with it she can hear a heavier pitter-patter approaching her. She looks up, and it's a tall man with a dark jacket on, hair mussed up and eyes not unlike sunlight. In other words, it's Jack.
He sits down silently beside her, knowing better than to talk.
He smells like the bar of Irish Springs soap he uses and the pine oil shampoo he lathers on his hair.
There's nothing new about that, about him.
She breaks the silence, "I'm so overwhelmed."
He doesn't look at her, choosing to continue looking forward, "Yeah?"
"But I don't know why."
"You don't need to know everything."
"I would like to know what's making me feel like I'm 13 again."
13 was when her father died.
"Maybe that's okay.”
She continues, "I think I feel too much."
"Why's that a problem?"
"I hate it."
She feels softness along with an edge of defensiveness seep into his voice, “Why?"
She sighs, "Because- because I don't know, Jack. It’s- It’s like when I see things, random things, like these stupid mulberries, I remember when I used to be better.
He looks at her, a slight furrow between his brows, “Tell me how they make you feel.”
She laughs, “God, what’s my life? Talking to my husband about how some stupid fruit triggers my daddy issues.”
He gives her a disdained look, “Mira-“
“They make me feel like I’m back in my house at Kanyakumari. There was a tree in front of my room window. Sometimes my dad would get me a few that weren’t rotten, and we’d eat them together. I don’t like mulberries, but they were always sweet when I was with him.”
They fall quiet again, a comfortable silence washing over them. The rain has also picked up a bit, but not so hard that they have to seek shelter.
Thud.
They both look at the space between them. It’s a mulberry that fell.
It’s purple. Almost too purple.
Jack picks it up in his hand, and examins it quickly before tearing it in half. Before she can say anything, he gives her half of the berry.
She puts it in her mouth, letting the sweet grittiness flood her senses. It tastes like when she was thirteen and would laugh at her father’s stupid jokes.
It tastes like when she was fifteen and she would yell at her mother before sobbing into a pillow.
It tastes like when she was seventeen and writing Marauders fan fiction with the lights off and rain pouring down on the sparse lawn.
It tastes like when she was twenty one and had her first legal beer with her friends on the pier.
It tastes like when she was twenty three and chugging red bulls to pull all-nighters to study for med school.
It tastes like when she was twenty five and cried the day she got placed at the PTMC.
It tastes like when she was twenty seven and first worked a night shift.
It tastes like when she was thirty two and got proposed to by Jack.
She gets up, and turns around to face him, “Jack?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Can we go home?”
He gets up too and takes off his coat, draping it over the shoulders. He kisses her temple, “I wouldn't want anything else”