Make into 2-inch rolls and roll in coarse sugar and chill a couple of hours (or freeze for a few days if you want). Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut the rolls into 1/8 slices and sprinkle with more coarse sugar.

Bake for 12 minutes. Makes about 6 1/2 dozen cookies

AUTOMATICALLY I REACH DOWN to pat Disney’s soft ears. Excited by my attention, he puts his paws on the edge of my bed, his tail circling rapidly. I lean down to hug him and then rise.

I remember a conversation I had with Allie when I learned of Sky’s first pregnancy four years ago. We were at the Zingerman’s Roadhouse restaurant. Summer was just beginning and we were on the patio, sharing a salad.

“Jeez. A grandmother. Here I just realized I was an all-grown-up adult.” I shook my head in wonderment. “How did this happen so quickly, so soon?”

Allie laughed. “Hey, I was just reading that we, postmenopausal women, are crucial for evolution.” She raised her Diet Coke as if to toast us. “We have a decade or two of life when we can’t reproduce. Yet we can work our butts off and consume less calories than other workers.”

“Well, we’re supposed to, anyway.” I took more bread and we both laughed.

Allie continued. “Turns out for the millions of years when we were hunters and gatherers, we kept our grandchildren fed until adulthood, especially when their moms were nursing new babies. We had to have grandmas in order for there to be childhoods, all those decades when kids learn from adults.”

“Still. I’m excited for Sky and can’t wait to hold my new baby, but I’m not old enough to be a grandma.”

“I know. Me and my promiscuous reading.”

She said it before me, but I love learning secondhand from her.

When I enter the living room, Charlene raises her eyebrows.

“Good news.” My smile is huge. “Sky’s going to have a girl, a healthy girl! Guess I’ll be a grandmother twice.” I laugh. “In a few weeks. And in the spring. A bounty of babies.”

Charlene hugs me.

Sissy had moved to the chair next to Charlene, and they had been talking when I entered. “Great! I heard about Sky’s pregnancy from Tara,” Sissy says.

I shut my eyes to make all my former worry vanish. “I am so relieved.”

“Hey. You hear from Sky?” Allie enters from the kitchen, rum cake on a plate and a cup of coffee.

“Yep.”

“You don’t need to tell me. You’re glowing. Beaming.”

“It’s been a great day. Full of good news.”

I pour a cup of decaf. Passing the table, I smell the rum sugar of Vera’s cake and take a small slice. Laurie, Juliet, and Rosie are laughing in front of the sink. “Only two more people to go. You and Taylor.” Rosie pouts to show how sad she is that the party’s ending.