The leaves of the tree are glossy and dark at the top, but yellowing and a different shape altogether at the base, and they smell. The tree stinks so that it is an act of faith to eat anything that comes from it. The first time she ate one of the fruits it was Son who brought it to her, pushing his thumb into a soft end where it had begun to rot, and pulling it apart. The flesh of the fruit tears away like that of fish, and it has a bitter taste so that she grimaced the first time she ate it. But she needed no encouragement. She ate the entire thing, working her way around the dozens of pearly black seeds, the musky smell notwithstanding, the act of chewing itself a mercy. The fruit appears on any part of the tree. At the top where they cannot reach are always the best choices, but the thin stalks at the head of the fruit can appear at the tree’s base, too, growing right out of the trunk. It is a difficult thing to extract the fruit without being speared by the unfriendly outer layer, though Minh always manages to do so easily enough.
