February 2025 #2
“Daphne Hodges in the third grade,” she countered, spoken like someone still holding a grudge.
I had to think a moment. “Oh yeah, okay. I remember her. You’re right, Daphne didn’t like you one bit,” I amended. “But she was a pill.”
“She didn’t like cupcakes either.”
“Who doesn’t like cupcakes?” I asked Aja.
“Oh, I certainly have no idea.”
“Me and Jake did Valentine’s Day once the first time we were together,” Hannah told her aunt just as Harper lifted the first strand of lights up to her using what appeared to be a garment hook, the kind people in clothing stores used to get down hangers that were over their heads.
“It was lame, and I ended up getting in trouble with some criminals for pointing out that they were selling fake bags.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Aja needed clarification and looked to me.
“I told you about that. I know I did. I’ll remind you later.”
“Fine,” she said, watching with me as Harper looped the middle of a second strand of lights over the hook and lifted that up to Hannah. Of course to reach her, he had to climb up on the first set of ladders as well.
“Explain your vision to me,” I asked my daughter, wanting to keep her focused so she didn’t get distracted and start explaining something else to me with her hands and fall.
“Well, you know how much I hate big lights,” she reminded me, taking the second strand from the hook that Harper had raised to her. “I prefer soft amber lights, many, that are never harsh or assaulting, instead gentle and easy.”
“That tracks, yes,” I agreed.
“But they still need to be useful, which, again, is why the roots wouldn’t work out here, so my vision is like the inside of a caravan tent or a fortune teller’s tent, just very relaxing and soothing. Not a circus tent, that’s too much, much more fairy lights with a Zen vibe.”
“Okay.”
“Because I swear to God, if Wick turned on the big light even one more time, I was going to totally lose my mind. I screamed the last time.”
“She did,” Wick chimed in. “It was loud.”
“You’re doing so good, honey,” Harper praised him.
“I don’t want to hear it. I just want the tacos you promised me.”
“Already ordered,” Harper rushed out. “We’re all feasting tonight.”
“As you can see, I found these tiny Edison-style light bulbs on strands, and they’re perfect,” Hannah continued explaining to me, “and they have a dimmer, but right now, this is as bright as they go.”
“I’m so bored,” Jake chimed in.
“Shhhh,” she hushed him. “We’re almost done.”
“Dude, same,” Wick grumbled from under Jake.
“Just think how good this will look when it’s done,” Harper reminded his boyfriend.
“The fixture was not horrible,” he argued.
“It was vile,” Hannah assured him.
“Says you.”
Hannah huffed out a breath and looked down at Wick. “I asked you, in fact I asked all of you, if you cared if I changed out the light fixture for something else, and the consensus was no. But now you’re all giving me lip, and I––”
“No, no,” Jake ordered. “Do not lift up your foot to stomp it. Think about where you are first. You can yell at him when you’re back on solid ground.”
She growled at him but stopped doing anything else but taking each strand that Harper lifted up to her. My concern was that she seemed to be fussing with how the cords were lying instead of simply placing them in the bends of the octopus tentacles.
“Why is this taking so long?” Jake asked her.
“Just be quiet.”
“You’re getting heavy,” he told her.
“Think about what you’re saying right now,” she warned him.
Long-suffering sigh from him in response.
“Honey,” I said gently, “I think you’ve got it.”
“No, it’s not—if I don’t do it right, it’s going to bother me and I’ll have to do it again.”
“Yes, but there’s no way to do it wrong,” Sam offered.
“Yeah, there is.”
“My legs are starting to hurt,” Jake told her.
“Same,” Wick complained.
“Hannah,” Sam said gently. “You need to––”
“Just one more second,” she replied, but I heard her grunt in frustration. Whatever she was doing, it wasn’t working for her.
At which point the front door opened and Kola and Finn walked in. Kola looked like he was ready to pass out, and Finn was steering him.
“Do I even want to know?” Kola asked, walking over beside his father and putting his arms out. “Get down.”
“I will,” Hannah snapped at him. “I just want to make sure all these lights are––”
“If they’re carefully layered side by side and not bunched up, it’ll look weird on the top, like you’ll be able to see between the strands instead of it being a starburst like you want.”
She stopped what she was doing and stared down at him. Because of course, without her even telling him, he knew what she wanted everything to look like.
“Plus on the bottom, where you’re gonna attach it to the walls, they won’t be even. Some will be farther apart than others.”
Tipping her head up, she looked at what she was trying to fix.
“It’s pretty right now, but if you keep futzing with it, you’re going to inadvertently jack it up, and then you’ll have to start over.”
“You think it’s pretty now?”
“Yeah, I do. You have the one light at the top, which is perfect. Someone, I’m betting Harper, was careful and passed you up strands with alternating spacing so none of the bulbs will touch, and the way Jake made the arms on the octopus, with some bends in tight and some of the hooks farther out, like I said, it looks like a starburst from here.
So it’ll be bright in the middle there, but softer toward the bottom. It’s good.”
It was nice the way he complimented his two best friends even as he explained things to his sister. And no, he hadn’t been there, but he knew them well enough to understand what part each played, as he knew their strengths.
Heavy sigh from her, and I breathed one of relief. All her life she’d been listening to her brother about things. More than any other person on the planet he could always, always, get her to see whatever absurd logic could be found in any given situation.
“Look, Wick’s a rock and all, but he’s gettin’ tired.”
“I know.”
“Thanks, man,” Wick murmured.
“So come on. We’ll use putty to make sure the lines are good before we put on the brackets. Did you get wall-mounted lights for the bottom that we can just press on and off?”
“Yeah, the ones with the solar panel like Uncle Dane suggested so I don’t have to worry about batteries all the time.”
I glanced at my brother.
“The environment is very important,” he explained.
“Yes, it is,” I agreed.
“So get down before you give Wick a hernia.”
“I am not heavy,” she grumbled at him.
“No, but Jake is.”
“Hey.” Jake sounded affronted. “Hurtful.”
Hannah let out a huff of air, sprang off Jake’s shoulders without rocking him at all, and dropped down into Kola’s arms. He caught her like she weighed nothing and placed her safely on the ground.
“I was going to do that,” Sam told his son.
“Nope, heads up, I need you for Jake,” Kola said, chuckling as he and his father easily caught his best friend and put him on his feet.
Wick was already climbing down, with Harper and Finn holding everything steady so he could descend without issue.
Sam bent over, took a breath, and then strode across the floor to Dane, who offered him a schematic drawn on a paper towel by Jake for him to look at.
There was also a star that Harper had drawn, because I knew what those looked like, that told me he approved the math, and finally Dane’s scribble, which, when Sam held it up for me and Aja, we could both see was his blocky numbers and letters.
The geometry written out there was to confirm to us all that the tower of terror would have held up all day.
The only variables he couldn’t account for were Wick’s legs and Jake’s back.
He had, I was certain, counted on Hannah’s balance.
“I really hate him,” Sam told Aja when he returned to us.
“Oh I know,” she said cheerfully.
The reason we were even visiting Hannah and the boys’ new place—Aja said that the guys sounded like they were Hannah’s backup singers—to begin with was that we were going to Duncan and Aaron’s for Valentine’s Day dinner with at least thirty other people.
They had invited us, Dane and Aja, and Dylan and Chris to a fancy evening at their penthouse overlooking Millennium Park.
Unfortunately, Chris had fallen off a ladder cleaning the gutters the week before, because, Dylan reported, he thought he was still in his thirties instead of his fifties, and broken his leg.
She felt bad about leaving him, so she would be home with him instead of at dinner with us.
Although, according to her, he was being a real ass, and a night out sounded good.
But still, in sickness and in health and all that.
Plus, Valentine’s Day. And… I knew Aaron.
He was a good man, and I was certain he was sending something to Chris and Dylan so they could enjoy their night at home together. He was a closet romantic, after all.
Once Hannah was back on the ground, she showed me how she had set up her and Jake’s room.
He had one side of the walk-in closet; all the rest was Hannah’s.
They had one guest room, and all the closet space in there was hers as well.
She still had closets full at home too. I was forever getting calls that began with, “Could you go upstairs and see if you can find…” and then I’d have to get on FaceTime and play hunt for the dress, or pants, or strange asymmetrical sweater.
I didn’t really mind, and when I wasn’t home, she and her father had fun conversations about colors like aubergine and chartreuse. Oh to be a fly on the wall.
I liked all the organizational pieces she got for the kitchen, and I noted that she still had my red Le Creuset Dutch oven she borrowed two weeks prior.
“I’m making pot roast for you guys next Tuesday to return it to you.”
“Okay. Sounds good,” I said, squinting at her.
“You’re the one who told me to never return a pot empty.”