My son has a face in through the looking glass.

Every Monday we bike to the grocery store and lock our bike to a rack nearby. I carry him in my arms on the way to the coffee shop and order a cappuccino at the takeout window. There’s always a bit of a wait, so I let him down and we pass the time by stepping on all the little red duct-tape Xs they’ve placed on the bricks to encourage people to keep their distance from one another. Then the little bell dings, we grab our cappuccino, wish the homeless man at the corner a good day, and find our place in the line to enter the grocery store.

It always takes awhile to get in. The first time we were all together and I was so outwardly angry, so inwardly sad. There seemed to be no pattern to when they would let anyone in. It felt like a bread line, like history. How was this my life? It sent me spiraling, to depths of depression I haven’t felt since before he was born. Later that day he stared at me, scrunched his little face in concern as I laid my head on the dining table, exhausted. “Mama’s just sad. It’s OK.”

But now it’s different. It’s just life. We wait in the line to enter the grocery store and watch the buses and emergency vehicles pass. We run our hands over the various patterns and textures of bricks that line the building, we smell the flowers and pat the dirt in the garden beds, we sing songs and spin in circles. I hand him my empty cappuccino cup and he mouths at the lid. Almost inevitably, some of the dregs will spill onto the ground.

When it’s our turn to go in, I don my mask and carry him down the escalator to the carts. I name each item and hand it to him, and he either tosses it into the basket behind him or nestles it next to him like a prized possession.

Everyone is always so happy to see him. They smile in line, wave, strike up a conversation, offer a helping hand. He turns in the cart to watch as the cashiers scan and load our groceries into bags. “Look at all this yummy food you got. Are you going to take it home on your bike?” They recognize us, remember us. Because my son still has a face.

(The CDC guidelines say that no one under two should wear a mask because it’s a suffocation risk. I don’t really think he’d suffocate now, but I also don’t think I would have any luck keeping a mask on a person who frequently won’t even keep on his own shoes. Still, the mayor’s order made no explicit exceptions for small children, and I’m always nervous we’ll be barred entry or service.)

I, and everyone else, are just eyes behind a mask. Brown hair, glasses, red cloth mask. But he still has a face, a little nose and a little mouth wrinkled into a grin.

I load him onto the bike and then place the paper grocery bags onto the handlebars, one per side. Sometimes eggs or glass bottles go into the backpack. And we make our way home. The start is always slow, a precarious, almost farcical balancing act. But then we get going, and the breeze is at our faces and we glide into the turns and it just is.