What "The Mango Tree" author has to say about mango etiquette

Each summer, as branches across southwest Florida begin to sag with mangos , Annabelle Tometich feels her nerves kick in.

Why it matters: As mango season gets underway, the Fort Myers author has some valuable rules of engagement, drawing from her experience with just how chaotic a fruit dispute can get.

Flashback: Not quite a decade ago, Tometich got a phone call from the Lee County jail, her then-64-year-old mother on the other end of the line.

• Someone had stolen mangos from her yard, mother told daughter, despite her warnings to leave.
• So she grabbed a BB gun and shot at their car, aiming for the tires but shattering the back window instead.

The big picture: Tometich's new memoir, "The Mango Tree: A Memoir of Fruit, Florida, and Felony," opens with her mother's arrest and launches into "a family saga that navigates the tangled branches of Annabelle's life," per the publisher .

• It's a hot pick on summer reading lists and scored an admiring review in the New York Times.

Catch up quick: Tometich grew up in suburban Fort Myers amid a jungle of fruit trees painstakingly cared for by her Filipino mother, Josefina.

• Along with mangos and citrus, Josefina planted tropical fruits from her home country including tamarind, jackfruit and sapote.

With the fruit came the bandits.

• Tometich remembers some mornings, waking up to find someone in the yard picking oranges like it was a tree in the wild.

Her golden rule: If a mango ends up on a public right-of-way like a sidewalk, that's fair game. But walking into someone's yard without permission is many steps too far.

• "Always take the time to ask," Tometich says — especially if the trees don't have rotting mangos beneath them, a sign the owner is picking the fruit.
• "If someone cares enough to take good care of the trees," she says, "it's for a reason."

Zoom out: Josefina, who has vascular dementia, isn't in her yard as much these days, Tometich tells Axios.

• She served five years' probation over the mango incident.

Less than a year in, her probation officer offered to apply for early termination of the sentence. But she'd have to apologize before a judge, Tometich said.

• Her mother's response? "Hell no!"

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