Mask Off

As he joined the indoors wake, Fred assured himself that his black mask was all right. It shouldn’t be any different from every other time he wore one in public spaces, he thought, as he clicked the nose clip shut. And if anyone wants to make a scene, that’s on them. His father would be proud of him, sticking to his guns.

Mother called him from the coffin’s side. “Fred!” She covered her mouth with a black gloved hand.

He held his bouquet of white roses tight. On his way he shook Uncle Tim’s hand, and nodded to Aunt Emma, and some cousin whose name he’d forgotten. Uncle Tim mumbled something to Aunt Emma after Fred passed, but he couldn’t quite catch what they were on about, only that they dropped his name.

“Mother,” Fred said.

“Didn’t we talk about this?” mother whispered as they embraced.

“About what?”

“The mask of course.”

They let go.

“I won’t betray Dad like the rest of you,” Fred said. “We should all wear one, instead of getting sick like him.”

Uncle Tim joined them, and put his hand on Fred’s shoulder. “We’re not betraying anyone, Fred.”

“What’s he on about? We’re all vaccinated,” Aunt Emma muttered to herself as she joined as well.

“It’s so sad to see you isolate yourself like this,” Uncle Tim said.

Fred picked at the straps searing his neck and looked around. The small groups scattered in the hall mumbled among themselves. No one else had bothered wearing one.

Uncle Tim continued. “I think it’d do you good, if you’d remove your mask.”

“But we shouldn’t just-”

“And if I’m honest, it feels a little disrespectful to draw attention like this at your dad’s funeral.”

“I’m not asking for it.”

Uncle Tim shook his head.

“And I’m even wearing a black one,” Fred said, “because that actually is respectful for the occasion.”

Mother put her hand on Fred’s shoulder too. “But Fred-”

“No, I won’t take it off.”

Fred shook them loose. Mother walked to a seat, buried her head in her hands, and sobbed.

The small groups stopped mumbling.

“Don’t you see what you’re doing?” Uncle Tim said. “You’re making a scene.”

Fred almost squashed his white roses. “I’m not. It’s everyone else.”

“Really?” Uncle Tim said. “This is how you want to honor your father?”

Aunt Emma tried to hug Fred. Besides Uncle Tim and mother, she was the only one from whom he could tolerate that. This time he froze.

“Oh Fred, I know it’s hard. But maybe you can remove it just this once?” she said, quickly letting go of him.

“Just take it off man, nothing’s gonna happen,” a cousin in the back shouted.

Uncle Tim turned around. “You’re not helping!”

He patted Fred’s back. “Fred, don’t listen to him. I feel your pain too. The pandemic was an awful time.”

Fred sniffled.

“But we have to move on,” Uncle Tim said. “Your father would’ve liked to see that too.”

Fred let Uncle Tim guide him to his father’s coffin, where he laid down the white roses. There Dad lay, his wrinkled hands neatly folded on his belly, dressed in his favorite suit he always wore on Christmas Eve, gray curled hairs that once shone brightly blonde in the sunlight.

How could it be over when someone just died?

“Son,” his father once said to him, “to err is to grow.”

It took a while before Fred finally got his first miniature painted within the lines. But Dad thought that it was perfectly fine to try things out and not get it right at first. That his classmates couldn’t understand such a simple truth made them even bigger suckers than just hating the fun of creation.

To err is to grow.

Was wearing a mask a mistake too?

Fred learned to laugh back at the class whenever they made fun of his quirks, his Dad and his friends in the back of his mind, who always cheered him on in the basement.

“We all goof up sometimes!” he told the suckers, holding his yellow elf up high.

At the game store – at least three years ago – they didn’t mind mistakes, as long as it’d lead to some good discussion on strategy. Which it inevitably did.

A mask wouldn’t. Fred choked and pulled at the straps of his. He hadn’t had fun in a long time. Was he a sucker now? Maybe he should take off his mask? And laugh off the mistake, like he used to do. But was it even a mistake?

“Son, to err is to grow,” his father’s voice rang.

Fred thought of Daisy. It would’ve hurt Dad, to see Fred rage like that against someone. Maybe it was time to move on? But all those hospital cases? All those other fathers who would continue to die? All those other people who would become chronically ill after an infection? Children even.

To err is to grow.

Fred shook. He embraced Uncle Tim and cried.

“It’s all right, everything’s going to be all right,” Uncle Tim said.

To err is to grow.

Fred turned to see his father again. Dad’s hands. Dad’s closed eyes. The serene look on his face.

Fred stepped up to him.

“Goodbye, Dad,” he said. “Goodbye.”

“Son, to err is to grow,” he could hear Dad say.

People will continue to die in spades, Fred thought. But there’s nothing he could do about that.

Fred cried again. He sighed deeply, blubbered, and removed his mask. He stared at the piece of cloth in his hands, breathing freely. The mask whirled down to land near Dad’s hands in the coffin. It, too, would rest forever in peace.

“Goodbye,” Fred said.

It was the right thing to do. He couldn’t wait to put his new army to the test next week.