February 2025
Since we’re all living through surreal times, I just want you to know that I will keep bringing you the happenings of the people I love to give you a bit of a reprieve each month.
In this month’s installment I begin with Valentine’s Day and what I observed, starting with… the removal of the light fixture.
I gasped, “Hannah.”
My husband yelled, “Hannah!”
And my sister-in-law, Aja Harcourt, asked drolly, “What in the name of Cirque de Soleil is happening right now?”
“Stop that,” Hannah ordered her aunt. “Don’t make me laugh.”
The concerned reactions were pulled from each of us because Wick, who was the biggest—not tallest, but with the heaviest muscle and massive shoulders and thighs—was the base.
Literally, Wick was the lowest man on the totem pole, holding Jake on his shoulders, and Jake, in turn, had both hands gripped around Hannah’s ankles as she stood on his own broad shoulders and tightened what looked like a multi-pronged hook in the ceiling of their living room where previously there had been a lighting fixture.
I knew that the industrial-looking abomination had been there because I’d seen it when they moved in.
Now Hannah had put up, first, a gilded-and-black-enamel ceiling medallion that looked like it belonged in a palace in France somewhere, and under that, another piece that I wasn’t sure about.
Not that it looked garish or out of place, as it too was gilded, but as I examined it from thirty feet below, it appeared to be the lower half of an octopus, intricately made.
But the concern was, I saw no light. Meaning she’d replaced something that would illuminate the room with something purely decorative.
Which was fine, but an odd choice. More important was the fact that she was performing this labor with a battery-operated drill in her right hand and holding the octopus tentacles in her left, turning it so it fit flush against the medallion which, I could only assume, was recessed in some way.
I was going to have a heart attack just looking at her. The fact that all of her attention was on the task, not a drop on her feet, legs, or balance in general, was going to make me start hyperventilating before I had the heart attack. Of that I was certain.
“Oh dear God,” I rasped.
Any wrong movement, a twitch, a sneeze, heaven forbid a cramp, from any of the three, would put all of them on the ground. This was a high-wire circus act, and they were working without a net.
Now, if they were only up off the ground at their combined height of—and I was rounding—seventeen feet if you made both the boys six feet and rounded Hannah down to five, then, if they toppled, it was survivable.
But the ceiling in the living room was, as I mentioned earlier, thirty feet high, and so to reach that there were two step ladders bridged by planks of wood between them on the second-to-the-top step, and balanced on that, on the legs of each plank of wood, was Sam’s twelve-foot multi-position ladder.
That was what Wick was standing on, not the top, but again, the second one to the top so his shins had something to press against.
“Who thought this was a good idea?” I barely got out, bending over so I didn’t, in fact, start to hyperventilate, though I did have a pain in my chest. How ironic would it be if my heart gave out on Valentine’s Day.
“And you say I have a death wish?” I yelled at my husband for no good reason other than to vent.
“Dane Harcourt!” Aja yelled at her husband, and I heard him grunt from my right, so I turned my head to look at him. He was there, standing at the window with a mug of, I was guessing, Earl Grey, since that was his favorite. “You’re supposed to be supervising!”
“I am,” he replied defensively.
“He is,” Harper chimed in from where he was, lining up strands of lights on the couch so they were all in a row ready for whatever was going to happen. “Mr. Harcourt checked my math after I checked Jake’s.”
“Mine didn’t need checking,” Jake grumbled.
“Someone should always check. That’s just logical.”
“He’s right, Jacob.” Dane backed up Harper. “The devil is in the details.”
“What does that even mean?” Jake asked. “I always hear that, and it makes no sense.”
“It means inspect what you expect, as Dad always says,” Hannah clarified for him.
“Oh, okay. That I get.”
“That he gets?” Dane asked Harper.
“Mr. Kage has been saying that to us since we were small, so yeah, that he knows.”
“Explain to me about the tower of terror, please,” I begged my brother, nearly breathless.
“Listen,” Dane began, “while that stack of ladders and wood is clearly an OSHA violation, barring that, it is, in fact, structurally sound.”
“Oh, is it?” Aja sounded wildly sarcastic.
“I promise you it is,” he said with that superior tone of his that sounded like he was appalled over the fact that you doubted him. “As Harper said, we both checked Jake’s math.”
Of course it was Jake’s math at first, it always was. These kinds of things that stopped my heart—as well as other people’s—were his specialty.
“My only concern at all was with Hannah’s dismount, as that might topple Jake, who would in turn compromise Wick. But now that her father is here, I’m not worried. He can easily catch her, though she should first pass down the drill.”
As if on cue, I heard screws going into the ceiling.
“Is that my drill?” Sam asked because, why not?
“Yes,” she replied absently. “The ladder is yours too. I told you I was borrowing them.”
“I don’t recall being asked about the drill.”
“This is your old one. I didn’t take the new one with the flashlight on top so you can see where you’re drilling.”
Sam only grunted, which caused her to look down at him. He was now directly below her, ready to catch her at a moment’s notice. “It’s fine,” he said quickly, “just pay attention to what you’re doing.”
Lifting her head, she decided she didn’t love the fit, unscrewed it just a bit, and redrilled. I could hear the seamless sound of the screw going in flush the second time.
“There we go,” she cooed, and then put in the next screw. “How’s it look?”
That question, clearly, was for her father.
“It looks great. The medallion is really nice too.”
“Uncle Aaron had it flown in from Venice for me.”
“I would expect nothing less,” he said with a sigh. “May I ask why you’re installing an octopus on the ceiling?”
“Oh sure. I’m going to hang twenty light strands from it because the root lights I really wanted needed to be installed by a professional.
I mean, it would have been so pretty, but I thought, when we decide to move at some point, other people might not want it to look like they’re living underground, you know? ”
I glanced at Dane.
“I’ve seen those fixtures, and while they’re lovely, she’s right.
In this space, with the coffered ceiling, you’d need to do a larger area, and that’s a lot of electrical work.
Even a single piece, with the appropriate scaffolding, would be cost prohibitive, and really, they’re made to be accent pieces, not lights you live by, so it would be a tad too dark in here to get anything done outside of watching television. ”
“That was my thought too,” Hannah agreed. “No study sessions, no parties, the downside was just too much. The lighting in here has to be functional.”
“Perhaps you could get a smaller installation and put it in a bathroom for when the other lights are off to add some ambiance.”
“Ooooh, that’s a good idea,” she said happily.
“And so now?” Sam asked, sounding pained as he stared up at her.
She had on yoga pants and a sports bra, and I thought how it made sense that she wasn’t wearing any shoes, just her bare feet on Jake’s shoulders, as were his on Wick’s.
Jake was in workout clothes as well, and I had to wonder if they had just gotten home from the gym when Hannah said, “Hey, let’s put up the fixture now since I’m thinking about it. ”
“Are you guys going to go and work out after this?”
“We were supposed to go for a run before dinner,” Hannah answered. “But now I’m thinking Jake might just want to chill.”
“I can’t speak for Jake, but I’ll be done for the evening after this,” Wick grumbled.
“I second that,” Jake whined.
“Okay,” Hannah announced, “I’m happy with how this looks. The drill is coming down, and I need the lights to come up.”
Terrifying to watch Jake take his hand off Hannah’s ankle and reach for the drill, which she passed him. Just as scary for Wick to let go of Jake’s as he was passed the drill that Harper took from his boyfriend and placed on the couch.
“Why don’t we do the lights another time?” Aja asked hopefully. “It’s Valentine’s Day. Don’t you have plans?”
“That’s absurd, she’s already up there,” Dane told his wife.
“I’m going to murder you,” she said tightly.
“On Valentine’s Day?” He sounded like he was daring her. “Really?”
“You loathe Valentine’s Day,” she reminded him.
It was, in fact, the holiday that Dane Harcourt hated the most, with St. Patrick’s Day running a close second.
He still had memories of being pinched for not wearing green as a child, even though he’d never owned anything in that shade ever.
Dane had been a precocious child. No one was surprised to hear this.
“And yet, you have never not had roses as well as soft, warm, comfy pajamas on this day.”
She grunted. “This is true. Your pajama game is on point. Perhaps I’ll wait until tomorrow to kill you.”
“Now you’re just making things up,” he said dismissively.
“I’m with Uncle Dane,” Hannah told Aja. “Valentine’s Day is really just the worst. And I’m not one of those people who lie about it and secretly hope for a gift.
No. Not at all. I liked it when I was little and Pa got us chocolate-covered strawberries and made cupcakes for my class.
But I never enjoyed getting all the cards in class from kids who I knew hated me. ”
“No one hated you,” I assured her.