“Abby’s not giving the baby a bris — Heidi told me” 

“Abby had a baby boy,” my mother mentioned over the phone a few weeks ago.

“Mazel tov!” I replied. I hadn’t seen my second cousin in years and was happy to hear the news.

Had I tuned into the uneasiness in my mother’s voice, maybe I wouldn’t have been so shaken by the bombshell she dropped next: “Abby’s not giving the baby a bris — Heidi told me.”

I was standing there in my kitchen, midway through making dinner, but I felt like I’d suddenly been flung back in time.

My father and Heidi, who is Abby’s mother, are first cousins. They grew up together, but as adults, their paths diverged — my father stayed in the Five Towns and married my mother; Heidi moved up to the country with her husband, Howie.

Growing up, our family would visit Heidy, Howie, and their kids once or twice a year, sometimes on the way home from visiting day at camp. Before we walked into their house, my mother would pull us aside and whisper, “Don’t eat anything unless you ask me first.”