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

She saw her father's ghost the next day, when she took Anther to the
"It's-A-Dollar" store in the mall. She found It's-A-Dollar a great place to shop
whenever depression overwhelmed her and she needed retail therapy, but didn't
have much cash.

She gave Anther a five and kept thirty dollars to spend on herself. That was
enough to buy twenty-nine items, which the salesclerk packed into the large pink
plastic tub Katya had picked to hold her purchases. Anther chose four plastic
hockey sticks and a blue flowered tissue holder for his mom.

She led him toward the exit. They debated over whether to stop and buy a
half-pound of bridge mix or spend the money on an Orange Julius, Anther's
choice. Then she saw her father standing in front of Hickory Farms with his back
to her, barely two hundred feet away. Her father had once told her how much he
liked their beef-stick, which reminded him of the salami his family had cured
back home in Russia. She remembered little of that conversation. "If I'd had a
son," he had said, or something like it, "I'd have taught him the butcher
trade."

"Hurry," Katya said, gripping Anther's arm. She pulled him roughly toward the
tan coat, toward the 'U' of hair. She waited her turn behind shoppers clogging
up space at the sampling counter. When she finally stood at the front, her
father had vanished.

"You forgot to get a fish," Anther said as she led him toward the parking lot.

Anther spent Friday night. He and Katya had changed into their two-piece pajamas
and were playing their third game of crazy eights when Katya asked, "Do you ever
think about what your father was like?"

Anther laid his cards face-down on the coffee table and reached toward the plate
of brownies they had baked right after dinner. 'I don't have a father," he said.

He stuffed a whole brownie into his mouth and the crumbs dribbled down his shirt
and onto her carpeting. As Katya watched the boy eat, she felt something gnaw at
her stomach.

"Everyone has a father," she said, her voice tight and high.

"You don't," he said. He grabbed at the plate.

"But I do," Katya said. "I do have a father. I've seen him," she said.

Anther shrugged. "I believe you," he said. "Can I have some milk, please?"

"Yes," she said. "I'll get it."

She walked into the kitchen and looked at an old picture of her father which she
had taped to the refrigerator. Katya touched the glossy paper and felt a chill