Beneath the Mango Tree

By[Hubaib Ullah]

In the heart of a dusty village in Sindh, Pakistan, where summers hung heavy like secrets and children ran barefoot through sugarcane fields, there stood an old mango tree. Its trunk was thick with time, its roots tangled deep into the earth, and its branches arched like open arms over the narrow path between two homes.

That mango tree knew everything.

It had seen twelve monsoons and as many heartbreaks. And beneath its shade, two children—Zoya and Rafi—had grown up like twin stars circling the same sun.

They met at five. She was loud, curious, and a whirlwind of stubborn energy. He was quiet, thoughtful, always with a slingshot in his pocket and poetry in his eyes. Their families were neighbors and friends, bound by years of tradition and stories shared over clay cups of chai.

Every summer, they claimed the mango tree as theirs. They climbed it, fought over the ripest fruit, carved initials into its bark, and told each other secrets no one else knew.

One evening, when the sun had painted the sky in soft gold and the call to prayer echoed in the distance, Zoya turned to Rafi and said, “When we grow up, promise me you won’t leave the village.”

He looked at her with those stormy eyes and said nothing. Just offered her the last mango he had climbed up to fetch.

He left five years later.

Rafi had always been smarter than the rest. He won every school prize, could recite Allama Iqbal by heart, and dreamed bigger than the village walls allowed. A scholarship carried him to Karachi, then Lahore, and then beyond—away from the mango tree, away from home, and away from Zoya.

Zoya stayed. Not because she lacked dreams, but because she carried different ones. She took over her father’s veterinary practice, learned to drive a motorcycle, and stitched her name into every field and farmhouse in the district. The girl who once chased butterflies now saved calves and lectured landowners.

But every summer, she still visited the mango tree.

And every year, she’d whisper, “He’ll come back.”

Ten years passed. Ten years of silence, postcards that never came, and phone numbers that stopped working. Zoya never married. She said she was too busy. But the mango tree knew better.

Then one afternoon, during the festival of Eid, a black car rolled into the village. Dust followed it like a trail of memories. The driver stepped out in a crisp white kurta, holding a leather bag, eyes shaded by sunglasses.

Zoya was at the clinic, elbow-deep in treating a goat with a broken leg.

He walked in, paused, and said her name.

"Zoya."

She looked up, heart skipping before it slammed against her ribs.

“Rafi?” she breathed.

He smiled. Older now. Tired. But still him.

They sat under the mango tree that evening, just like they used to. It hadn’t changed much. Neither had they.

“I thought you forgot this place,” she said, refusing to meet his eyes.

“I never forgot,” he replied. “I just… didn’t know how to come back.”

“Ten years is a long silence.”

“I read your name in an article,” he said. “About how you saved that farmer’s livestock from the floods last year. And I realized… you stayed. You became the kind of person I wanted to be.”

She smiled bitterly. “You left to chase the world.”

“And found it empty.”

There was a silence that only old love can hold.

“I’m not asking for anything,” Rafi said finally. “Not forgiveness, not a second chance. I just wanted to see you. To say thank you. And sorry.”

Zoya looked up at the tree, then back at him.

“You always gave me the best mangoes,” she said. “Maybe that was your way of loving me.”

He laughed softly. “It was.”

She stood, brushed the dust from her hands, and reached up to pluck a ripe mango.

“Then maybe,” she said, handing it to him, “this is mine now.”

That night, the mango tree swayed gently in the breeze, as if exhaling a breath it had been holding for years. The stars blinked above, and two hearts, once divided by distance and time, found rhythm again beneath its branches.

Some loves don’t need grand promises.

Sometimes, they just need to come home.