We take pictures on the porch before we load up into the car. Tan jumper, blue uniform shirt, all smiles. She can barely contain herself. I can’t believe how tall she is this morning. After missing half her Pre-K and all of her Kindergarten in virtual school, I could tell that she desperately wanted to be among other kids her age. She has friends her age: weekend friends, friends with a pool, but only a handful.
She mentions Sophia, the little girl she met last Friday at Meet the Teacher Night. I can’t help but think back. My wife and I stood together in her tiny classroom, everyone pushed out to the edges. Most everyone in masks except for one man, heavily bearded with two arms full of haphazard ink. I spent a lot of time studying the ink, looking for red flags — various symbols and writing, but nothing that would indicate clear membership in any white supremacist groups. A symbol that might indicate he’s a Satanist. Maybe he just thought it looked cool. Honestly, if he was a Satanist, it might weigh a little easier on my mind — most of them are a lot more rational than their distant Christian cousins in this part of the country. Then again, there’s the libertarian streak, the freedom-is-all streak that drives a lot of people towards Satanic ideology. It was a ridiculous mental path for my brain to walk down — the fact that neither he nor his son had a mask on was enough of a red flag for me, ink be damned — but that’s the mental rabbit hole I dove down, maybe to ward off the anxiety that threatened to make me look the fool in front of all these people.
There were so many people in there, in this tiny classroom. My wife didn’t hesitate to ask the teacher and assistant if they were vaccinated. They said yes. Assured us of it. But who knows? They weren’t masked. Probably to be full faces for the kids they were meeting. They were kind. I hoped they were careful. I hoped they were responsible. I hoped they would do everything they could to keep her safe. A woman hurried in, unmasked, with half a dozen kids in tow (also unmasked). That was too much. I felt my heart rate rise, and leaned over to tell my wife it was time for us to go. My daughter didn’t want to go. She had just met Sophia and wanted to tell her everything about everything. We bribed her with Whataburger and hit the pavement.
This morning, though, we’re on the porch. She’s got her big smile and her pink not-made-of-Kevlar backpack over one shoulder and her little water bottle tucked into the side pocket. It doesn’t fit right, but it should be fine. I put the mask over her face. It’s a kid’s KN95, but there’s no way to get it to seal correctly. It’s all absurd, of course. There’s no universe in which this thing stays on all day. She has to take it off to eat with the other children. Delta spreads in seconds, they say. Twitter posts from epidemiologists sounding alarm bells about children flash in front of my eyes. 3000 kids sick in Louisiana. 200 hospitalized in Florida. Cases on the rise in Texas. Hospital beds getting more and more scarce in San Antonio. Average age of new patients somewhere is 5, but who knows if that’s true or not. She’s 6. She’s only six. I bury my anxiety as deep as I can manage and I hope she doesn’t notice the spreading cracks in my performative faith.
“This is how you wear your mask” I say to her, gently re-pinching the thin metal over her little nose. “Only take it off to eat, and put it right back on when you’re done.”
”Outside, too?” She asked.
”Outside too. There’s so much that’s important today, sweetheart. It’s important to make friends. It’s important to listen to your teachers and make good choices. It’s important to have fun” I say with a smile. And then I adjust the mask again to make sure it fits perfect. It doesn’t, but I do it anyway. “But the most important thing you can do today is wear this mask and make sure you only take it off when you absolutely have to”.
”Ok, Dad”.