Bubby didn’t mind that Kate wasn’t Jewish, but when I explained dating apps to her she rolled her eyes.

“I just don’t understand,” she said, reaching for another slice of pizza, “why anyone would trust someone from the internet. I would lie and say I was rich.”

“People do that,” I replied with my mouth full. When she asked me out to lunch, I insisted that we go to Pete’s. My mom said that Bubby would take me somewhere expensive if I asked, but I was only home for a few days and always made it a point to come here at least once.

“And it’s not just a sex thing? Not Kate of course, the app. You can just click on someone and take them out to dinner?”

“Again, yes. I mean, people hook up a lot. But yeah, you’re pretty much right.”

“Your generation, I swear.”

We ate in silence after that, taking turns grabbing slices, fingers slick with grease. Pete’s overdid it with everything: grease, cheese, TV volume, tables crowded into the dinky parlor. There was a couple next to us with a child in a stroller, two guys decked out in Eagles gear leaning against the vending machine, and a woman taking a phone call in the doorway, all within twenty feet of each other. Two different games were on, and the sound coming from everywhere was making my head pound. Someone in the kitchen was yelling.

“Kate’s dad is a pastor,” I said.

“You told me that already, sweetie.”

“Right. Sorry.”

The woman on the phone was pacing around the doorway with one hand covering her ear. Multiple times in the span of a few minutes someone attempted to enter the restaurant and had to weave past her as she walked back and forth, back and forth. I watched her apologize each time, a mouthed sorry that didn’t reach her eyes, while I thought about what to say. Bubby didn’t care that Kate wasn’t Jewish when I told her over the phone, she said she could hear it in my voice that I was happy. I was hesitant, still, and made small talk about books and family and college drama until there was only one pizza slice left. I offered it to Bubby, and then took it when she declined.

She looked up at me while I was chewing, during a stretch of silence. “You know, your uncle’s ex-wife wasn’t Jewish.”

“Sarah? I thought she was?” Sarah was a fading memory of jigsaw puzzles on family vacation. I’d seen her only once in the past few years, at my cousin’s baseball game, but we barely spoke.

“Not Sarah. His first wife.”

“His first wife?” I spoke a bit too loud, but was drowned out. “He was married before Sarah?”

“What was her name? Talia. Jewish name, not Jewish. They were married for seven years.”

“Seven years!?”

“They lived in Long Island together for a long time. Right by where we used to live, actually, when him and your mother were growing up. But then they moved here, things fell apart, and they got divorced.” She looked away for a moment with a glaze over her eyes. “I’m trying to think if I know anyone else who’s, any couples who are different religions.”

I bit into the crust of the pizza while she thought, her head turned like all the memory was going to flow out of her ear. I love my cousin, he’s the closest thing I have to a sibling, but his dad is not my favorite. Or my grandmother’s for that matter. On the way to the restaurant Bubby was telling me about a book she got my cousin. It was called A History of Money, and a morning show host in a “not so flattering jumpsuit” said that it was perfect for the ten to twelve age range. Plus, Bubby had said, maybe it’ll give him better financial instincts than his father. I snorted, but my cousin is the baby of the family, the youngest by seven years, and everyone looks out for him.

I went to the bathroom, and when I got back Bubby perked up. “I remember something,” she said, “about one of my friend’s daughters.”

Bubby had a way a pausing when she was about to tell a story with a moral at the end. She spoke in phrases: “So this girl Christine, she’s raised Protestant, not super religious, and she ends up with an Orthodox rabbi! I was at the wedding, lovely wedding, small but well put-together, and after the wedding in New York they move back to Haifa to be with his family. There’s no work for rabbis in the US anymore.”

I found myself nodding along as she continued. “And being an Orthodox rabbi’s wife in Israel has a lot of work. You have to dress a certain way, talk a certain way, follow a certain lifestyle, it’s a lot. And Christine’s mother, who she barely sees anymore, is over it. It’s too much for her, her daughter is halfway across the world, she doesn’t know her grandkids, there’s four of them now, all boys. But Christine’s still there. They’re happy, and her mother knows that no matter how much she complains.”

My grandmother and I are the only members of our family who have been to Israel: her with my grandfather almost two decades ago, me on birthright with my college synagouge. It was an amazing trip, incredibly tiring— going from kibbutz to city to desert, touring an entire country in ten days— but worth it. Listening to Bubby’s story reminded me of dress codes in Jerusalem. Of the Western Wall and Yad Vashem. Of American students falling in love with Israeli soldiers. The door chime rung as the woman on the phone left.

 “So my question to you, then, is do you want to hold on to, to your Judaism?”

“Yes, and I want my kids to have it too.” Realizing what I said, I backpedaled. “Not that I’m thinking about...” A breath, and a sip of water. “We’ve only been dating for two months. And I’m in college.”

“Say you have a kid. Someday, not necessarily with her. Do you want kids?”

I blushed. “Yeah.”

“Okay. And what do you want for them?”

I brought my glass, now only ice, to my mouth and bit off one of the cubes. For a moment I let the cold overtake my senses, and then I bit down.

“I guess what my mom did for us. I want them to go to Hebrew school, and to have a Bar Mitzvah. Or Bat Mitzvah. After that, you know, you can do whatever.”

“Plus, if you celebrate different holidays, you never have to fight over who’s family to see.”

“True.” We both laughed, and I looked around. It was late afternoon now, and only us and the Eagles fans were left in the restaurant. A waiter came by to refill our drinks, and Bubby asked for the check. After he left, she asked, “I’m curious, why the Bar Mitzvah as the cutoff?”

“What do you mean?” I replied.

“Is thirteen the age where you choose your own religion?”

I thought for a second. Bar Mitzvahs are symbols of reaching adulthood, but they felt so far from eighteen. I certainly didn’t feel like an adult at twenty-one, either. And who am I to decide what my kid believes? I sat in a spiral of thought. The check came, and as I put on my coat Bubby looked at me.

“That’s what I did for your mother, by the way. Stopped at the Bat Mitzvah.” She looked at the check, left a twenty-dollar bill on the the table, and then slipped her purse over her arm. “There’s no way to tell. Either they hate you every Sunday morning till their teens, or they spend their twenties regretting not being more involved. Or both.” She snorted. “The only thing you can be as a parent is happy with what you’re doing at the moment. Thinking ten years down the line doesn’t work, because they’re so different by then. Nothing you know now is gonna work.”

We walked out together, towards her car at the end of the block. Bubby kissed me on the cheek, and then got in.

“I want to meet Kate. Let me know when you bring her home, I’ll make kugel.”