"What-UncleGorby" - читать интересную книгу автора (What Leslie)

The boy, named Anther, had visited Katya in the morning of the day when she left
for vacation. He had asked to play with the smallest Matryeshka in her
collection.

She gave him the set of five nesting dolls.

"Wish I had my own one of these," he said, several times.

Katya, hearing the hint in his question, raised her voice, "Is that so," she
said, annoyed. She really needed to pack, and did not want to pay him any more
attention.

Anther, a small boy who had yet to grow into his adult ears and teeth, wore his
dark hair short in front, with a rat's tail braided down the middle of his back.
"We learned about Russia in school," he said.

The wooden dolls snuggled in his lap as he took them apart. The largest, about
ten inches tall, was painted with a red peasant dress and a yellow and red
flowered shawl. Inside that -- a doll wearing painted purple and green. He
worked the dolls apart quite gently until he found the baby, swathed in a
painted yellow wrapper and no bigger than his little finger. With the baby
nestled in his palm, Anther rocked his hand back and forth.

Katya heard a knock at the door: Anther's mother, Noni, who poked her head
inside. "Hello," she called to Katya. To Anther she said, "It's time to go
home." Noni wore her black hair spiked high, a section shaved out around the
middle. Anther called the style "The Stature of Liberty."

Katya tried to help put away the dolls, but Anther shook his head and pushed her
hand away. "No," he said, quite deliberately. "I'll do it myself."

So Katya invited Noni inside. Noni sat on the couch beside her sons Katya took
the wooden rocker. Noni's confession began innocently enough. "Those are very
nice," Noni said about the Matryeshkas.

"They remind me of my father. He was born in Russia."

"That's one thing about a turkey baster," Noni said with a quick glance toward
Anther. "They don't remind you of anything, except maybe Thanksgiving." She
laughed. "Course the good thing is, you don't need to remember your baster on
Father's Day."

"What do you mean -- turkey baster?"

"I like to joke it was medical grade," Noni said, and laughed. "Five donors
contributed sperm. My partner at the time helped me mix their semen in a plastic
bag. We sucked the semen into a turkey baster and my partner inseminated me.
That's how I got Anther."

Katya stared at Anther, preoccupied as he worried the outer top-half of the doll