In the late nineties in Northern Perth suburbs

Specifically, 12B Perilya Road Craigie

At the very top of a maroon cement sloped driveway

outside a garage with a beige roller door

that closed off a huge backyard to a tiny duplex that overlooked the plaza

you’d probably see a six-year-old me

picking calamansi

One of my favourite after school games was to find the perfect fruit

I’d hold it for a moment, examining clinically

the smooth, slightly gnarly, porous skin

how much of its scalp was lost from the pluck

giving it a sharp squeeze to see the amount of citrus mist that escaped

Then after much deliberation I’d place the small fruit to the ground,

and let it roll down

Down the drive away

along the bitumen

usually making it past the white lines of Perilya Road

sometimes run over by a passing car

but if the fruit was lucky enough

it would make it over the curb

get to the other side

and nestle itself in a length of grass shadowed by the Craigie Dewsons

If the calamansi was squished by a car that was a tragedy

If the calamansi survived the roll down but did not reach the curb that was a failure

If the calamansi managed to jump the curb and land safely in the grass that was a success

If the calamansi managed to jump the curb without being squashed by a passing car

the game would end and I would stop playing entirely because I mean,

how could you top that?

When you’re little there’s never external details.

Only ever “I wonder how fast you can roll... I wonder how far you can go... I wonder if a car will come...

I wonder if you will get squished... I wonder if you will reach the other side”

There’s no thinking that this calamansi could be cut and squeezed and mixed into patis

or be the perfect seasoning for a lugaw alleviating any flu

No thought to the fact that this tree was possibly one of the only things

tying my mum to her roots and that every time she plucked the fruit

she might possibly have a small escape

from White Australian life

Maybe scent would have an opposite effect

Instead of remembering the citrus mist would allow her to momentarily forget

Forget that she arrived in Northern Perth suburbs as a twenty-four-year-old

with no friends or family

except the FIFO (Fly-in-Fly-out) husband

and her weird over-sensitive child

 Momentarily forget she was in a place

where everything looks the same

away from everyone who knew and loved her

who would have helped cook the sitaw and ampalaya growing in her huge backyard

who thought owning a calamansi tree outside the front door was a very normal thing

maybe she would look at her hands as they reached for the perfect fruit and think

“They look like my Lola’s hands when she was young”

But me being silly and little and adorable and thoughtless

I’d continue to pluck ‘em and roll ‘em down the driveway

without keeping a body count of the calamansi I had wasted

Just a child leaving flattened, dehydrated citrus corpses on the bitumen

or in the grass, bloated and rotting in the shadows of the Craigie Dewsons

Because that’s what kids do I guess; stay present, play games

It’s the early 2020s I’m now in my late twenties

I drive along Perilya Road

and pass the 12B Duplex

The Dewsons is now an IGA

The sloped driveway isn’t as steep as I remembered

The image of my mum’s hands plucking calamansi enters my mind

They shake uncontrollably now

My Tita worries its early Parkinson’s

Mum and I laughed it off

but we try not to think too much on it

about how her hands never used to shake, how her sense of taste is all over the place and everything is too salty now because that’s what I’m trying to do these days; make jokes, stay light-hearted, avoid anxious spirals “I wonder how long she will live for... I wonder if I can live without her... I wonder if she’ll ever understand how grateful I am for what she has given and given up... I wonder if she’ll ever understand how lonely I feel all the time”

I drive slow enough to see

At the top of a maroon cement sloped driveway

outside a garage now with a clinically white roller door

the duplex I grew up in that overlooked the plaza

someone had pulled out the calamansi tree

and replaced it with beige limestone brick

her tree was gone.