Mrs. Bevins and the Mango Tree

I somewhat regret the many times I embarrassed my parents over the years. I just sensed they cared about “looking” like a perfect family, and I notoriously flipped their apple cart every chance I got. My parents were not strict, just super conservative - which I viewed as a more permanent punishment. Stiffer than any scolding or privilege they could ever take away. They were incredibly routine, meaning you could predict everything they did and said.

We had the same thing on Mondays - Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks and Kraft macaroni and cheese. Ate at Wags every Friday night, and the Golden Inn, every Sunday morning. We even sat at the same tables. It was hell! No, that sounds harsh. I am profoundly grateful for everything my parents did and continue to do for me. They really are outstanding parents.

Unable to conceive naturally, my parents underwent IVF therapy in the mid-1970s, and soon I became the only child they doted on and spoiled endlessly. I am not much like them in any way though. I even joke, “Please tell me you adopted me. It’s OK, I will love you just the same. It will just clear so much up!” To which my mother always quips, “You’re mine, and you almost killed me getting here. I used to want a houseful of kids, but you’re all I can take!”

My dad was much more cunning with his approach. I freely admit I was a brat, but remember folks, “It’s not where you come from that matters, it’s where you end up!”

I remember one time stomping around demanding I be given a little brother, and being told by my mother, bluntly, “That’s never going to happen!” I had a habit of going to my mom, first, and when she said, “no”, I would run to my daddy and tell him what the “mean old witch” said to me. And he often overturned her wishes to her immense displeasure.

“You are going to ruin her,” she would yell out as I slammed the door - given permission to do the very thing she told me I could not do.

My dad knew me well though. Instead of telling me, “no”, about the little brother, he told me to come sit and think things through. He asked, “So, you want us to get you a little brother, eh?” He then put a hand on his chin and looked off, as if deep in thought, before saying, “No. I don’t think you would really like that.”

“What. Why?”, I asked. “Well”, he said, “Let’s think about it. Picture it, we go on a car trip. Now instead of stretching out and having the whole back seat to yourself, you’ll have to share it with him. And every Christmas morning, when you wake up and see all your gifts everywhere, you’ll have to give him half. Is that what you want to happen?”

I had not considered any of that. After running through the various scenarios, and giving the future repercussions of my request some additional thought, I got up and left the room. Without looking back, I said, “Never mind about the brother. I cancel the order.”

I grew up in Miami, Florida, in the '70s, with ridiculously logical parents - ones who wouldn’t let me decorate my room with hot pink walls and purple shag carpet, saying, “You’ll soon outgrow this phase and we’ll have to repaint. Just get white walls and brown carpet. It will go with everything.” This is just too “safe” for my tastes. I am an artist after all, born to two parents who talked to each other through their respective newspapers in the morning!

My parents had me on a tight leash well before Adam Walsh was killed. However, after he was abducted, near where we lived, my parents didn’t much let me out of their sights again. I was especially told to stay away from the lady who lived next door, Mrs. Bevins. They thought she was odd before, but in the life AAW (After Adam Walsh), they looked at her with great suspicion.

I recall them chatting in the kitchen as they surveilled the petite, ninety-year-old looking woman in her back yard. I am sure she wasn’t, but she looked that old. She had a crone’s face and slicked back, salt and pepper grey hair. She was nice enough, but kept to herself mostly. She only drew attention when she climbed to the top of her thirty-plus-foot-tall mango tree to pick the highest ones.

The sight of a little, old lady scaling a mango tree as fast and nimbly as a squirrel was quite shocking. My dad was concerned and disturbed all at the same time. He would say, “I feel like I should go help her, but hell, she climbs better than I do!” What freaked them out most about Mrs. Bevins, besides her daily climbs to the top of her mango tree, was how she introduced herself to them.

One stormy night I was sick in my crib, running a fever, when they heard a knock on the door. It was rainy and late, and a dripping Mrs. Bevins stood on the doorstep; soaking wet with no coat. She said, “I heard your baby crying. She is sick. May I say a healing prayer over her?” Asking, as she looked past my mom, inside the house, glancing left and right. My father came around the corner when he heard my mom ask, “I’m sorry, but who are you?” She replied, “I am Delores Bevins. I live next door. I heard your baby. She is sick.”

My parents just stood there dumbfounded, thinking, “Who is this woman, and how does she know our baby is sick?” This was definitely not something my conservative parents were used to, but I give them credit. My mom is a nurse, and she couldn’t do anything to keep my temperature down. I would not call her a prayerful woman, but she is a good mom. All she knew was no medicine was helping, and this woman shows up in the middle of the night, during a storm, to say a prayer for me. This was no coincidence. So, instead of sending her away, she invited the sopping wet stranger inside. “Go grab a towel”, she called out to my dad.

Upon entering, Mrs. Bevins closed her eyes and started sniffing at the air. Without being told, she walked to the right, saying, “The heat is coming from this way.” Directly to my nursery she walked. My mom caught up just as she reached the door and draped the towel my dad gave her over her shoulders. “The child is in here. May I?”, she asked before turning the knob. “Yes, of course,” my mother replied.

The women entered the dark room, save the light from a mobile projecting dolphins on the wall. There in my crib I lay, clad in just a cloth diaper. I was awake, sweating a bit and red faced, but calm. Mrs. Bevins hurried to my crib side and looked down into my eyes. She was reading me. She somehow gained information about my condition and something communicated to her what prayers would be the most efficacious to say. She then lifted both her arms out over me, fingers stretched out in a V, but not touching.

She started at my feet, chanting soft words that sounded like an ancient language that steadily got louder and more authoritative. She then hovered her hands over my abdomen. Her eyes were tightly closed now, and she started to shake her hips and sway from side to side. Then she started stamping her feet in steady rhythm to the chanting of the ancient prayer. By the time her hands reached my head she was yelling the prayer and stomping about erratically. She was casting out entities that did not belong there.

My mother was getting nervous by Mrs. Bevins' shouting, but I never took my eyes off her nor made a sound. By the time Mrs. Bevins had reached my head she was using a loud, commanding voice that crescendoed into a frenzy of animal-like noises at the end. She suddenly stopped, the echo of her voice fading before there was complete silence. She kept her hands over my head, then slowly lowered them until they were mere millimeters above my face. She was pulling the infection out.

Finally, she lowered her arms and said to my mother, “Her fever will break soon, and she will sleep halfway through tomorrow. She will expel a lot of fluid. Suction it. She will be weak. Feed her well when she starts crying.” With that, she let the towel slip from her shoulders and drop to the floor. She turned on the heels of her tiny, sloshing loafers, and left without a word. All happened as she said.

Much of my childhood entertainment was spent watching Mrs. Bevins, as the window in my room had a direct view of her yard. One day, I started climbing the grapefruit trees that grew along the border of our yards - for they offered the best view of Mrs. Bevins’ outdoor activities.

No matter the weather, even Miami in the summertime, she always wore a long sleeve, button-down shirt, baggy khaki pants, her worn out loafers, and a wide brimmed hat. I can’t tell you how long I had spied on her before the day she sat beneath the tree I was perched in, and started talking to me - obviously knowing I had been there the entire time. She asked, “You look like you’re a decent climber there yourself. Do you want to climb my tree and help me pick mangoes?” Without a reply, I swung my legs down and hopped down into her yard.

 “Hello little one," she said. "How have you been?” Stunned a bit, I replied, “Do you know me?” “Of course, I do”, she snickered. “We are old friends, you and me. In fact, I moved into this house long before you were born so I’d be here when you needed me the most.” This made no sense. “But I don’t know you?”, I said. “Sure, you do!", she teased. "Let’s just climb and I’ll explain."

We both stood at the base of her tree when she hopped first, grabbed a branch several feet over her head, swung up, and crouched on it before I could even blink. She moved more like a cat, and even I, as a child, couldn’t keep up with her ascent. Where I cautiously looked over my branch choices; deciding which line I was going to take, she whimsically went from branch to branch, giving little to no thought about her strategy, or safety, for that matter.

At some point, I stopped climbing because the branches were too thin. She, however, climbed straight to the top. Then proceeded to pick the mangoes she deemed at the peak of perfection. She then dropped them down the front of her shirt giving the impression she had a potbelly as she climbed back down. Despite her shirt full of bouncing mangoes, she still climbed down faster than me! It made no sense how agile she was for an old lady. Once I made it down, she asked, “Would you like to come inside. I think I have some cookies.”

I was too intrigued to go back home just yet. Plus, I wanted to see the inside of her house, so I said, “Sure.” We entered the side door into a light green kitchen with a silver sided table along the wall. She motioned for me to sit while she carefully untucked the bottom of her shirt and unloaded the mangoes on the counter. She returned with lemonade and cookies, setting them on the table in front of me before sitting down herself. After finishing a bite, I said, “How are we old friends?” “Oh that,” she said. “Did your parents tell you about when I came over?” They had not. So, she told me the story.

She then leaned forward, her voice a bit lower now, “I moved into this house nearly twenty years now and planted these mango trees. It was your fate to survive the fever you had as a child, and I came early to set things up so I could provide healing when you needed it most. We are of the same vampire clan. People know myths, they do not understand our abilities. I know this makes no sense, but everything I know about healing, you also know, and more."

She continued, "Where we come from, you are a wise matriarch of our tribe. You are blessed with light that can heal and dissipate the heaviest darkness in the universe. This is why you are on Earth. She is succumbing to very dark forces that constantly attack her - who have their treacherous sights set on destroying the very fabric of the societies residing on her. You are here to elevate these societies as you have done ours. And I am here to activate you…

After a pause, she elaborated further, “Our healing ability requires we ingest the enzymes and very specific cells found in mangoes, and the best energy comes from those freshly picked from the top of the tree. The ones that receive the most rain, wind, moon, and sunshine. I need to show you more, if you are up to it? Or, I can stop and you can go home, and pretend this conversation never happened.”

I quietly replied, “I want to know more.” “Excellent,” she said, with a little clap of her hands. “First, I should show you what we really look like. Let me get a mango, and we’ll proceed with our lesson.”

Plate in hand, she stood in the doorway; motioning for me to follow. “Are you ready?”, she asked. I was, but my stomach churned, my skin tightened, my ears buzzed, and the hairs stood up on my arms. I wasn’t scared, I just sensed something very significant was about to happen...

Meandering around old, dusty boxes and furniture, we crossed the living room and met a shut door. My eyes squinted as she opened it. The room was a stark contrast to the dark parlor we just left. This room was light, airy, and painted canary yellow. Powder blue curtains hung on the windows and on the canopy over the grand, four-poster bed. There were dozens of pictures of women all over the walls. Tall, blond, lovely women who all seemed to resemble one another. She said, “Go take a look.” “Who are all these women?”, I asked. “This is your family,” she announced proudly. “This one is of you and me”, she said - pointing at a picture of two tall, beautiful, smiling women with arms around each other. “What do you mean that is us?”, I said. “I am young, and you are…”

I stopped just shy of saying “old" when I noticed, Mrs. Bevins, who had her back towards me, turn around and was the same youthful woman she claimed to be in the photograph. She was over six-feet-tall now, and no longer wore her frumpy gardening clothes - rather, a luminous white gown and robes. She was utterly breathtaking. She glowed. Her beauty made you want to weep. “What is this? What is happening?”, is all I could muster. “Relax. Breathe. This is what I really look like. The old body helps me blend in better", she said with a wink. "Now I want to show you what the mangoes are for.”

With that, she left the room and proceeded down the hallway into another dark room. It was a workshop of some kind, lined with cabinets and long tables, where little corked bottles stood guard on shelves along the walls. On display was a rectangular glass vivarium under a red light. I followed her as she walked toward it with the plate of mangoes. Inside was a large, black, hairy spider. I gasped audibly when I saw it. She said, “Do not be scared, she is our friend too.”

She then put the plate down and reached in the vivarium. The spider walked into her open hand, and she lovingly rubbed its head as if it was a purring kitten. Then she lowered it back down and offered it the plate of mangoes. As we watched the spider enjoy the meal, Mrs. Bevins prepared me for the final installment of my lesson. She said, “You still have the choice to say ‘no’. Go home, and pretend this never happened. Or, you can trust me.”

Then she lowered her hand into the vivarium, and said, “This spider is a healer named Mochia. She looks much like I do now, but plays her role as a spider at this time. She is also here to help you realize your potential as a great healer - for the Earth is sick much like you were as a child.”

Just then the spider crawled on Mrs. Bevins’ hand and bit her. Right before my eyes Mrs. Bevins shortened, and her hair turned back grey. Her luminous clothing was back drab, and she again had a crone's face.

“Let her have your hand “, she said. “You will not change on the outside, only the inside. The mangoes amplify our power. Mochia will inject you with the enzymes that will change your cells into the healer you were meant to be." She whispered, “What is your choice?”

I lowered my hand into the vivarium and received Mochia’s bite. Warm electric fire rushed throughout my body and my sight went blinding white. When my vision returned, Mrs. Bevins looked me in the eyes and hugged me tight, sobbing, “I have missed you so much, old friend.”