To assemble: The frosting-cheese is the glue. Place the frosting on a facing-down cookie. Add a grasshopper cookie. Repeat for all wafers. Then put frosting on top of the grasshopper cookie and dip into the green coconut. Repeat for the entire tray. Then dip frosting on the flat side of the cookies you’ve sprinkled with seeds and place on top of coconut-lettuce. You’ve made a miniature cookie cheeseburger. Isn’t it cute!

SISSY INVITED ME TO a family barbecue last Labor Day. I suspected it was her way to get to know me on her own territory. By that point, Tara and Aaron were living down the block from her and our grandchild was visible in Tara’s rounded abdomen. Not huge like she is now, but unmistakable. Across the street a boarded-up house was almost smothered by a trumpet vine. Bags of garbage waited for pickup. People Rollerbladed down the street. Special Intent, Aaron’s stage name, Red Dog, and Tara were working hard on their demo CD. That day, Sissy, her neck wreathed with colorful beads, greeted me with a welcoming smile. Brown-skinned with voluptuous breasts, she opened her arms and gave me a hug and kiss. I smelled a perfume of roses and lemon. She wanted to show me Aaron’s world, or maybe she just wanted a grandmother alliance. But she was the one confident enough and bold enough to reach out to me.

I like to think of myself as comfortable in circumstances without established custom, but, in truth, Tara was never easily compliant and always pushed at boundaries wanting to do things according to her own idea of how they should be. I didn’t know whether her choice of Aaron—and he was certainly a choice and not a result of that shit-happens attitude that so many kids assume—was rebellion or a positive love. Now I know. But I didn’t in the beginning.

I remember the exact day that Tara met Aaron. Tara had dyed her hair black the previous week.

“Makes you look old, takes away your innocence.”

Tara rolled her eyes. “That’s the point, Mom.”

Two Saturdays a month Tara worked for the Youth Volunteer Corps at the Y and that day they were sent to Habitat for Humanity. She was fifteen. That night, at dinner, Tara announced that she had spent the day painting and had made a new friend.

“Good.” A friend who volunteers for Habitat for Humanity must be a conscientious person, I thought.

“Yep. He’s from Detroit. He’s black. He’s in training school.”

“What?” Training school is a euphemism for prison for juveniles. “How could he be a volunteer?” I sensed bravado in the rush of her words as I served the salad.