Every good village must have its strange, old woman. Or so my mother told me when I asked her why people rarely questioned the doings of Auntie. It was a pity, but we knew so little about her that no one could seem to recall her name. You could simply refer to her as “Auntie”, and everyone in the village would know who you were talking about.
Auntie seems to me like she has been an old woman for eternity. She was old when I was young, and she was still old when I was grown. She smiled at everyone on the streets and asked them how they were doing, looking at us as if we were her own children or grandchildren.
Auntie, for all her gentleness, was quite hard-headed. She insisted on doing all her own groceries instead of allowing her neighbors to get them for her. She came to all the functions at the schoolhouse to support the children, walking all the way there from her home on the outskirts of the town.
She made the best cookies. They smelled comfortingly of warm butter and vanilla, their aroma so powerful that it would reach the furthest homes. All the children knew the smell. They would all run to her house, bickering over who had gotten there first, so they could get the first one. But Auntie had no favorites.
She would close her eyes and wave her finger around until she stopped it on some random child. They would get the first cookie. She would keep doing this until she got to the last child. That child would be given the last cookie and a piece of chocolate.
Auntie knew everyone in the village by first and last name (hence why it was a pity that no one knew hers). She also had the most interesting connections outside the village. Whenever one of the young people wanted to build a career outside the village, she would make some calls, and they would have an interview. Bankers, producers, scientists, engineers, writers- anyone in any field you could think of. One way or another, Auntie found them, and she was determined to get her neighbors what they needed.
When Auntie wasn’t about town, baking, or leveraging her connections, she was in her yard. Her yard was the biggest in the village, with no other homes near it. Every evening, when my older sisters and I were young and we walked home from the park, we would see her on the ground, digging holes, planting seeds, and filling the holes back up with soil.
Whenever we asked what she was doing, Auntie simply replied, “They will reach the sky.” Then, she’d continue humming to herself and working.
Over time, we found her yard to have more and more trees in it. There were so many that the roots and branches were bleeding into her house, the kitchen being the only unaffected part.
“Auntie,” my mother once said. “Maybe you should cut some of those trees down, they’re ruining your house.”
“I can cut them for you, no charge,” my friend’s uncle, who was a lumberjack, offered.
But Auntie clicked her tongue in disapproval. “Nonsense. They make my home more beautiful. As long as they don’t try to get in the kitchen,” she said, a twinkle in her eyes. “But I must go and plant more now. They will reach the sky.”
And so Auntie left, humming to herself, to plant more trees. From that day on, not a single person tried to convince her to cut down the trees. It would only prompt her to plant more.
Although concerned, none of us ever thought to ask Auntie why she planted the trees. We simply pretended it didn’t happen. When people came to visit the village, the first thing they saw was not the shops or the square. The first thing to catch their eye would be Auntie’s grove. We would warn them not to mention the grove to her, and, out of confusion, they listened.
I spent most of my time as a child sitting outside Auntie’s window, talking her ear off while she baked cookies or prepared food for someone who was sick. She would listen to all my stories about my school days, and then, while the cookies cooled, she would tell me tales from hers. I always found it difficult to imagine Auntie as a child, and so I would nod along.
Sometimes, she would take me outside, and we would sit in the shade underneath her trees. She would thank me for keeping her company and tell me that she planned to plant another tree. I loved Auntie’s trees. It felt like I was surrounded by… good. There was no other way to describe it.
It wasn’t until I grew up that I understood the adults’ concerns about the trees taking over Auntie’s home. I continued to visit her but, like the others, avoided the trees.
Once, my eldest sister sent one of her children to bother Auntie about the trees, in the hopes that the innocent concern of my nephew would convince her to listen to the rest of us and let us cut down the trees.
Instead, she said, “They will reach the sky,” and baked cookies the next day and told all the children that they could play in the trees in her yard whenever they wanted. The children cheered and turned Auntie’s trees into the ultimate treehouse.
The years continued to pass, and Auntie continued to plant more trees. She had run out of space near her home and had started having to go further out to plant, which meant she would need more time. She started by planting only once a week, dedicating a whole day to it.
On the days that she was not planting, she was running about town on errands and entertaining the children with her treats and her trees. Now, though, she carried a notepad around with her and would stop periodically to scribble things down on it.
One year, our festival landed on the day that Auntie went to plant her trees. So, she baked her beloved cookies, delivered them on foot to the square, and went back to plant more trees. Though everyone enjoyed the cookies and festivities, Auntie’s absence felt like a hole at the front of a shirt- one that couldn’t be overlooked.
The children blabbered to each other about the trees and how much they loved going to visit Auntie. The adults recalled fond memories of Auntie stubbornly refusing the offer for someone to do her shopping for her or chauffeur her around the village.
I decided to take some of the leftover food to Auntie’s house, so that she could at least enjoy the tastes of the festival, which was her favorite part.
“I love tasting everyone’s cooking,” she once said to me. She chuckled and added, “I get to marvel at how much it improves every year!”
When I got to her house, the light in the kitchen was on, and I could hear Auntie singing as pots clanged lightly and warmth escaped her window. I knocked on the door, and she opened it with the most contagious smile, insisting that I come in.
“Thank you so much for the food, dear,” Auntie said, motioning for me to sit down and taking out her notepad. “I’m so sorry I had to miss it this year, but I’m sure it was wonderful.”
“It wasn’t the same without you,” I replied as she scribbled something on her notepad.
She smiled warmly at me before clicking her pen shut. “So, how has the cafe been? And how is the family?”
“The cafe has been good. We just introduced a new dish, and it seems to be a hit,” I said. Auntie placed two cups of tea on the table and sat down across from me. “I’m still the favorite aunt who gets the best gifts and lets everyone do fun stuff.”
Auntie started to say something, but I caught a glimpse of the ginormous branch coming in through her roof in the adjacent living room. As she spoke, my mind wandered, thinking about the trees and Auntie’s insistence that she keep planting them and that they remain standing. I cleared my throat.
“Auntie,” I said apologetically, interrupting whatever she was saying. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask, why do you plant so many trees?”
“They will reach the sky,” she said simply, turning to look at the trees. I thought she would leave it at that, but she continued. “You know, I love this village. The people who live here are good. So good that I was afraid we would forget just how many kind things they’ve done. So, for every time that I see someone do something good, I plant a tree.”
“That’s beautiful, Auntie,” I said, watching her as she looked at the trees with fondness. “But don’t the trees bother you, interfering with your home so much?”
“No, not at all,” she replied. “As the small seeds of good deeds grow into tall, strong trees, they help me even more. They provide cool shade against the harsh sun that used to burn the grass in my yard. It’s a place where the children can play, so I can enjoy their company more often before they grow too old to swing from the branches. Planting them and tending to them keeps me fit and healthy. Some of them give me fruit that I can use to make pies and cakes for my friends. And I meant what I said to your mother all those years ago- they really do make my home more beautiful. I wake up every morning to sunlight shining softly through a blanket of leaves and branches. Those small deeds reach the sky.”
The entire time she was speaking, Auntie was looking at her trees. She’d watched us all grow up, watched how we treated each other, and had never forgotten a single one of us. Every little thing we did, to her at least, became more good things that went further and further, higher and higher every time.
And so the next time I saw her sitting on a bench with her notepad, I knew she was writing down the good deeds she had seen people doing that day.
The next time my nieces and nephews ran out of the house while still trying to put on their jackets, I knew they were going to play at Auntie’s house and fill her day with laughter.
The next time I saw Auntie in her kitchen, on her phone while stirring a pot of soup, I knew that she treasured everyone else’s deeds outside while hers remained separate near her oven.
The next time I saw her walking out into her grove, I knew that she was planting seeds on behalf of us. I knew that the trees that came hence would first grow strong roots and then grow until their branches reached the sky. That’s what she always said.
Some years later, the rest of my family left the village to pursue other things, though I remained behind. Not long after, Auntie, for all her good health and the fact that she has always been old, passed away after a few weeks of illness.
The news of her illness spread far and wide, reaching villages that none of us had ever interacted with. Upon Auntie’s death, four young men in finely tailored suits appeared at our gates.
They turned out to be her grandsons, and they took care of everything for the funeral. They seemed to grieve less than us, for they hardly knew their grandmother. At the funeral, they acted less like the family of the deceased than we did.
“Our Nani left this note on her kitchen counter: ‘My neighbors. My friends. The children who come to eat my cookies and play in my trees. I have asked my grandchildren to come and take care of all my loose ends so that you all may rest easy,”” one of the grandsons read from a piece of paper that Auntie had left in her kitchen. “‘I trust that only the best baker in town will ever make my cookies.’ That is the end of her note.”
Upon hearing the last part of Auntie’s message, everyone chuckled a bit and turned to look at me, knowing that being the owner of the town’s only bakery made me the one she was referring to.
After a few days, I walked to the outskirts of town to Auntie’s house. There was a note taped on her door. Her grandsons had slipped away quietly in the night, with their last action being leaving Auntie’s home to someone, per her orders, apparently. She had left it to me.
I glanced around and found the key left in the door. I turned it until it clicked and went inside the house.
The kitchen still smelled of warm vanilla and butter. Next to her telephone, there was a phonebook with a list of all her contacts. There was a shelf of books next to her fridge, including a recipe book and a photo album of pictures we had taken with her over the years. The cupboard next to the back door was slightly ajar, revealing her planting supplies.
One recipe card was left on the counter. It was her cookie recipe, the one that everyone in the village had grown up fighting over. I looked in her pantry. All the ingredients were there. Why not make some to cheer up the children?
And so I spent the morning baking in Auntie’s kitchen. After some time, the children came to see, and they spent the evening eating cookies and sharing their favorite memories of playing at Auntie’s house.
After a few weeks, I decided to move my cafe to her old house. My neighbors helped me build a cafe right next to the house, so that Auntie’s back door opened up into it. This way, I could continue baking her cookies for the children while also running my business.
One day, a small girl I had never seen before was walking past when she noticed one of my planters had fallen over. She rushed over and, with all the strength in her tiny body, lifted the planter and started using her hands to put the dirt back in.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to do that,” I said, walking out with a towel for her to clean her hands on. She accepted and stood up. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Samina,” she said shyly, looking down at her hands.
I smiled kindly at her and reached for the tray on the windowsill. “Here, Samina. Have a cookie.”
She gently picked one up and smiled back at me. “Thank you, Auntie.” She skipped away into the sunset, humming a sweet song.
The next morning, I woke up to the sunlight filtering through the tree branches and leaves. All of a sudden, I had a strong desire to plant more trees, for all the good things people had done for Auntie in her last days when she couldn’t get to her yard.
I hauled soil and seeds out to the outskirts of the tree grove and started to dig holes the way Auntie used to.
People grow up. People leave this village. People move on. But Auntie’s trees will reach the sky.
