In the Month of May

Story and Photos by Desiré Aguirre

When my son Nik was nine, he and his friend Jackson trekked to the back ten of our old place, which we called the Samuels’ house, to Aguirre Island, in search of adventure. “Don’t go along the back fence,” I yelled, “it’s mired in muck.” No surprise that when Jackson found me in the garden pulling weeds thirty minutes later, the lower half of his body, coated in mud, made him look like some type of mutant cannibal.

“Nik’s stuck in the mud,” he shouted. “You have to come help.”

“Sounds like I’ll need my camera,” I said, getting up from my knees, my hands as dirty as Jackson was.

My brother Rex, who lived on the property with us, walked on the strip of dry land beside the bog and reached Nik’s outstretched hands, pulling him out of the mud before I got my photo. I still have the after photo of Jackson and Nik, mud buddies, grinning, Nik with only one shoe, the mud having consumed the other.