Free Gravity by Leanne Lieberman

shop. The front window allowed passersby a glimpse of Bubba Rosa eating a plate of cabbage salad or Zeyda sewing on his ancient Singer. Neshama once asked if he had brought the machine from Poland. Zeyda laughed. “I came with a pincushion, I should be so lucky.” He always had a yellow pack of Chiclets for us in his breast pocket.Zeyda once asked, “Who does Neshama look like?” He stroked her fine blond hair. Goldilocks, he called her.
    “My sister,” Bubba Rosa replied. “My sister who was.”
    WHEN BUBBA ROSA died, less than a year after Zeyda, Ima handed Neshama and me each a garbage bag when we went to clear out their apartment. They left behind broken china, cheap chachkas , endless pairs of pantyhose. I watched as their privacy was invaded. Ima cleared out drawers of faded saggy underwear, cabinets of medicines long out of date. As she packed shapeless dresses and worn shoes with broken laces, I heard Bubba Rosa’s heavy accent, saw her old hands pressing a worn change purse full of silver dollars into my palms. I held a scarf Bubba had once woven through my hair with her old gnarled fingers, felt it thin and worn, heard it swish into the bag.
    In the bedroom, Neshama and I found a suitcase under the bed. Inside were pairs and pairs of new underwear, socks, pantyhose all still in their cardboard packages. Bars of soap, a shaving kit, sweaters, cans of tuna and a bag of peanuts.
    Neshama and I never mentioned the suitcase. We never played the packing game again.
    Leaving was always Neshama’s game, not mine. Now when I close my eyes, I see Lindsay beckoning to me as she glides by in her cherry-red canoe.
    FRIDAY MORNING OF the Labor Day long weekend I wake to the churn of the washing machine, clothes flapping on the line, the dishwasher humming.
    Time at the cottage was a blur. Here at home we mark the days, cutting the line sharp between regular and sacred time. We order our weeks, months, into neat segments: work and rest, holiday and ritual. We sit heavier in our chairs on Friday nights, let the wood take the weight of our spines.
    “Two weeks until yontif ,” Abba says, rolling out dough for cookies he will freeze.
    “Eight hours until Shabbos ,” Ima says, running the vacuum in the living room.
    Eight hours. Enough time to move slowly in the humid heat, the windows open to birds and traffic. Shabbos doesn’t start until sundown: seven forty. Time stretches out hot and slow.
    I polish the Shabbos candles, set the table with wine-glasses and the good china. When I’m finished, I fold laundry on the kitchen table: T-shirt sleeves in first, then bodies neatly tucked up. Underwear crotches up, sides in. I refold the tea towels Ima has shoved in the drawer.
    Our kitchen is all yellow: both the sunshiny cupboards with their old metal handles and the lemony walls. The nicest thing about our kitchen is the hardwood floor, although it needs to be refinished. Everything else is awkward and old. The drawers either stick or come flying out, whisks, spatulas and soup ladles spilling to the floor. The tap drips or gushes, and the kitchen window sticks open or dangerously smashes down unless propped with a brick. The gold-fleckedFormica counters are knife-marked, rippled with age and crowded with porcelain containers: sugar, flour, coffee, tea. Abba couldn’t bring himself to part with Bubba Rosa’s old jars. The heavy meat grinder she used for making chopped liver takes up counter space beside the oven.
    The window over the sink looks out on the narrow strip of our yard. Next to it, our yellowed fridge hums loudly. Neshama has clipped out pictures of new kitchens and taped them to the refrigerator, hoping Abba will take the obvious hint. He never does, although he did buy an extra freezer to hoard his baking.
    Our rickety kitchen table sits between the pantry and the door to the hallway. Above the table is a black and white photo my Uncle Isaac took of Ima. In it she sits in our kitchen, her arms crossed over her