in front of her.
“But you love Firecracker Popsicles.”
Mom looks taken aback. “But not now.”
Somebody has to want ice cream so that Dad’s not right. Somebody. “Layth?”
“Okay, get me an ice-cream sandwich?” He puts his hand in the pocket of the jacket on the bench beside him and pulls out a ten. “And get Dania and Lamya snow cones. They’re just being polite, but they love ice cream in the morning.”
He glances at Dad before holding out the bill to me.
I take Layth’s money, grateful.
* * *
The window slides open, and the ice-cream-truck driver is… a woman. A woman with a huge smile on her face, under a baseball cap.
“Hi, friends! What treat may I bestow to brighten your day?” she asks.
I trade glances with Haytham. “Two snow cones and one ice-cream sandwich, please.”
Haytham gives his order, which is another ice-cream sandwich, and then adds, “We didn’t see you yesterday. New to this route?”
“Yeah, just filling in for Alex. He’s taking a rest. Poor guy’s sick.” She adds syrup on the crushed ice in the paper cone and then holds it out to me. “I’m his sister, Katarina.”
“Oh, sorry to hear. Is he okay?” I take the cone. “We thought he hadn’t been feeling his best.”
“It was his migraines. They’ve gotten worse in the last few days. Yesterday was terrible, so I told him I’d do his run today.” She hands me the second slushy cone and tilts her head. “He’d been extra grumpy, huh?”
“Which wasn’t like him,” I say, and look at Haytham pointedly. “He’s usually so jolly.”
“Really? Alex, jolly?” Katarina laughs and opens the freezer to take out two ice-cream sandwiches. “That would be news to me. I always say what a perfect job this ice-cream truck is for him, in an ironic way, mind you.”
Haytham lets out a laugh, shoots me an aha! glance, and accepts the sandwiches.
I ignore him and decide to get this settled once and for all. “Do you think he’ll be well enough to come out tomorrow? My brother’s having an informal weddingish gathering here, and it would so cool for the kids to get ice cream after.”
“You know what, I think that can be arranged.” Katarina leans against the window and smiles at us. “Did you guys know this is Alex’s favorite route? He calls it the Golden Peninsula, this bit of road that goes out into the water. He says you guys on this street are always buying ice cream. I’ll come with him to help out for your event.”
“Perfect, then we’ll see you tomorrow. Preferably around seven, if it’s not too late?” I say. She nods, and I spy the soft-serve machine inside the van. “Wait, one more ice cream, please. A vanilla cone dipped in chocolate. Actually, also a Firecracker Popsicle.”
I’m going to add coconut flakes on the cone in the kitchen and give it to Dad. I hope he gets the ice-cream commentary on his prejudice: that he’s a coconut. Brown on the outside, white on the inside.
Sometimes when Muhammad and Dad used to fight before, Muhammad would mutter “coconut,” and once Dad heard him. My brother stopped saying it that day, but I know it hurt Dad.
And I want to hurt him now.
And then I’m going to give the Popsicle to Mom and say, Because you’re the best, Mom!
When I return from the kitchen detour to dress his ice cream, Dad receives his customized coconut cone with a confused look on his face. Mom does the same when I gift her with a Popsicle, but because I follow hers up with a hug, she pauses from her assembly-line work to unwrap her treat.
I’m so glad no one asks about the whereabouts of my ten a.m. ice-cream cone.
I don’t want to admit I agree with Dad that it’s a weird time to eat it.
I don’t want to admit to having anything in common with him.
* * *
After we finish boxing three hundred favors, Mom announces that she needs to leave to get ready for Jumah. That opens up a whole discussion of how everyone will get to the mosque, the one Muhammad and I go to for Jumahs when we’re with Dad, twenty minutes from Mystic Lake. In the end, we decide on a caravan of cars with a combination of people in each car.
Dad watched all this organization to go to Friday prayers from over the top of his reading glasses, over the top of his laptop, ice cream completely melted into his coffee cup, and I couldn’t