The idea was to go get ice cream. It was a warm after­noon, and Dodo was leav­ing in the morn­ing. What bet­ter way to say ​“Good-bye, see you nev­er” than walk­ing over togeth­er to the ice cream shop that we’d loved since we were lit­tle kids?

Mom, still hold­ing on to the act that noth­ing extra­or­di­nary was hap­pen­ing, asked us to move the garbage bins out­side, from the garage to the curb. I rolled the trash bin out, and then returned for the com­post, because Dodo got stuck on the recy­cling: appar­ent­ly, in hon­or of his depar­ture, Mom had placed a stack of his old clothes on top of the bin, and, now, he wouldn’t be sat­is­fied until he looked through all of it. Final­ly, he res­cued an old cap, put it on, and applied him­self to the recy­cling bin that clanked with glass bot­tles and alu­minum cans as Dodo dragged it up the dri­ve­way. Stand­ing on the side­walk, he took off the cap and showed it to me.

“See? Good­will Games, 1994. Dedush­ka must’ve brought it from Moscow.”

“And the clothes?”

“Oh yeah.”

He fixed the filthy blue cap on his head, returned to the dark shad­ows of the garage, emerged hold­ing a card­board box he had packed with the clothes, and took stock. ​“Too much trash. So wasteful.”

“I’m going to scream,” I said, and I did scream, fill­ing the love­ly res­i­den­tial street where we’d grown up with all the pieces of our shared past that he was break­ing. I hadn’t had a scream so sat­is­fy­ing in a decade, when I was sev­en and he was eleven and he and I screamed sim­ply for fun. 

“I agree,” Dodo said, smil­ing at me. I could tell that he was smil­ing even though half of his face was obscured by a COVID-19 mask. 

Two doors down, a neighbor’s baby start­ed cry­ing. Mom’s neme­sis from across the street came out onto the porch to see what was going on, but, see­ing me unmasked, wrin­kled her brow and went back in. I pulled my N95 up to cov­er my nose and mouth. We were a year into the pan­dem­ic. When, I won­dered, was San Fran­cis­co going to catch up with the rest of the coun­try, and start let­ting peo­ple walk around unmasked, outside?

Dodo and I start­ed down the street, tak­ing large steps to avoid step­ping on the lines sep­a­rat­ing blocks of con­crete side­walk. We passed our neighbor’s bot­tle­brush tree with a minia­ture fairy house arranged at its base, the house with pink and red ros­es bloom­ing in the front yard, and then turned the cor­ner to the street where all the cafes and dim sum shops had thrived before the pandemic.

On the way to the ice cream shop, there was a new hum­mus place that had popped up just as the lock­down was end­ing the pre­vi­ous sum­mer. The own­er, Gilad, had start­ed up in the Rich­mond Dis­trict as oth­ers were shut­ting down, some­how earn­ing the rep­u­ta­tion of the best Israeli hum­mus to be had any­where in San Fran­cis­co. He made enough mon­ey dur­ing the lock­down mak­ing home deliv­er­ies of pints of his home­made hum­mus to jus­ti­fy open­ing a store­front on Clement Street in the heart of this for­mer­ly bustling neigh­bor­hood stretch­ing along the north­west cor­ner of San Fran­cis­co, just north of the Gold­en Gate Park. As Dodo and I walked by, the line to Gilad’s was around the cor­ner. Nev­er­the­less, Gilad, work­ing the cash reg­is­ter on a counter set up to block the door­way, spot­ted Dodo and gave him a wave. 

“Thanks for defend­ing our home­land,” Gilad yelled over the masked and still social­ly-dis­tanced crowd — each patron was stand­ing on foot­prints paint­ed six feet apart along the side­walk — and then I heard him explain to the cus­tomers at the very front about how Dodo had vol­un­teered for the IDF and was going to Israel. Even though he him­self had left Israel years ago, appar­ent­ly, he thought Dodo was doing a good deed. I felt anoth­er scream build­ing up inside my ribcage.

Dodo, proud of him­self, start­ed whistling. After a few beats, I real­ized it was the Inter­na­tion­al that Mom sang for many years to wake us up. ​“Arise, the wretched pro­le­tari­at,” the march began with a heavy-hand­ed solem­ni­ty, some­how inten­si­fied in the Russ­ian that Mom always used when singing it for us. Vstavai, prokliat’em zak­leimen­nyi …  But blam­ing Mom for Dodo’s stu­pid­i­ty was too easy.

“You’ll whis­tle away all your mon­ey,” I told Dodo, chan­nel­ing Babushka’s superstition.

He smiled, but didn’t stop mak­ing the noise until we crossed the street and passed sev­er­al closed dim sum par­lors before reach­ing the doors of the ice cream shop. 

The extend­ed lock­down had played a cru­el game on peo­ple. Now that things were final­ly open­ing back up, every­one want­ed nov­el­ty. The old ice cream shop, once a crowd­ed neigh­bor­hood draw, was emp­ty at 2 pm. Step­ping up to the reg­is­ter that blocked the door­way, Dodo asked for his usu­al scoop of vanil­la on a sug­ar cone, and I got a scoop of choco­late caramel on top of the grasshop­per pie. It was going to be a long sum­mer, alone in our old house with Mom, before I would be off to col­lege in New York, and I need­ed fat to sur­vive this. 

We didn’t even make it back to the hum­mus shop before Dodo fin­ished his ice cream and was beg­ging me for a lick of mine. 

Not even beg­ging, but grab­bing my wrist, shov­ing his face in and tak­ing a bite off the top. 

I wrenched my ice cream away and stepped behind a tree.

“Come on, Lana. Just one lick! I’ll be your pup­py,” he said, fol­low­ing me, mask hang­ing down his chin, splotch­es of vanil­la atop the scraps of blonde facial hair. He was near­ly a foot taller than me and though he was usu­al­ly gen­tle enough, he wasn’t going to leave me alone. I turned my back, but his stick arms eas­i­ly reached around my tor­so to grab at the cone.

I con­sid­ered smush­ing the ice cream into his face, or throw­ing it against the pave­ment. Either way, he wasn’t going to let me enjoy it at my own pace. I took a pre­tend ball out of my pock­et and threw it down the street. ​“Fetch!” 

He chased after it, stooped, pre­tend­ing to pick it up, then came run­ning back.

“Here you go! May I have a lick now?”

I angled the cone in his direc­tion. He bit a big chunk off the top, and then decid­ed to dance. This was a famil­iar shtick. Dodo called it his ​“dance,” but it was more like a mime show. For as long as I knew him, he’d been per­fect­ing this act he called ​“Run­ning for Pres­i­dent.” It involved a lot of jump­ing around, run­ning in place, and wav­ing his hands, randomly. 

Now, as I stood beside the tree, peo­ple walk­ing by start­ed slow­ing down and star­ing at him, to see what was wrong. Dodo, per­haps sens­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty, imme­di­ate­ly took off his Good­will Games 1994 cap and turned it over, ​“Give me some change?” 

He tried one passer­by. Then anoth­er. A moment lat­er, he returned his emp­ty cap to his head and sidled up to me mak­ing pup­py dog eyes. I didn’t have a choice but to let him fin­ish my treat. 

He popped the last bite of my cone in his mouth and imme­di­ate­ly pulled on his mask. Dodo, so dis­or­ga­nized when left to his own devices, fol­lowed all of the COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions to the let­ter – always wear a mask out­side, stand pre­cise­ly six feet apart in any line, wash hands for the length of time it takes to sing Hap­py Birth­day twice over – and I secret­ly believed he was actu­al­ly join­ing IDF because he was more scared of dying a hor­ri­ble death on a ven­ti­la­tor than going to war. He loved that Israel forced all of its cit­i­zens to vac­ci­nate. My broth­er had nev­er adjust­ed to the life out­side of his pub­lic school. Col­lege had felt too per­mis­sive to him. He had reli­gious­ly adopt­ed COVID-19 guide­lines from the CDC, as fast as they’d been issued. Dodo had always done bet­ter when there were rules from an estab­lished author­i­ty that he could follow.

My mask back on, I trailed after him the rest of the way home. I didn’t want this walk to end, but I couldn’t think of any­thing to say that would hold him back. I wished that I still believed in ask­ing the lit­tle fairy from under the neighbor’s tree for help. 

“Did you have fun?” he asked me, earnest­ly, as we were steps away from our door. 

I didn’t respond, and he tried again: ​“I want you to have this hat and think of me.”

He tried to hand me the stu­pid cap, but I shirked away from it. 

“No, thank you.”

“You should have it.” 

He jumped up to me and plopped the cap on top of my head with force, then ran up the stairs, yelling, ​“Mom, Mom!” I didn’t know what he pos­si­bly could’ve need­ed from her that urgent­ly, and I wor­ried about Mom who was about to tear the house apart from the stress of try­ing to pre­tend today was a day like any oth­er. I didn’t fol­low him inside, but sat on the stone stair. My mask off, I could smell the ros­es from down the street and the asphalt dust hang­ing in the air. I won­dered what ice cream fla­vor I would’ve picked had I not expect­ed Dodo to eat half of it, and I couldn’t decide. 

I stared at the cap in my lap, notic­ing its frayed edges, and imag­ined tak­ing it to col­lege with me, a con­stant reminder of Dodo in dan­ger half a world away. For him, it was a moment’s inspi­ra­tion to hand it to me that meant noth­ing, but I’d be stuck trea­sur­ing it for years to come, like Mom had before me. I glanced up at the recy­cling bin on the curb, then back again at the hat held on my lap. I shift­ed on the step, as if to stand.

“Hey, have you seen my old sneak­ers?” Dodo was back at the door, yelling, as always when he need­ed some­thing sim­ple. ​“I decid­ed to take them instead of the new ones. And, come, Mom’s freak­ing out again about the sui­cide I’m com­mit­ting and all that.”

“Stay,” I told him. ​“Don’t go. This is stu­pid and wrong.”

“Fine, I won’t go, but come. Mom’s tak­ing stuff out from my backpack.” 

“I’m on her side.”

“Go tell her that.”

He grabbed me by the hand and tried to pull me inside the house, but I was ready for him. I flung the hat aside and hooked my arm around the iron rail­ing, let­ting the met­al tear into my flesh as I held on. Dodo was strong, but I was per­sis­tent, and I was in the right. Soon, very soon, he had to fig­ure out how to solve his prob­lems with­out my help.