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Mariel frowned. “In other words, you are eating junk.” She looked at Julie. “I bet you aren’t eating right either. You and I should cook together every week like we used to.”
Julie’s face took on an affectionate expression as she reached for Mariel’s hand, then said to Noah, “One way she used to keep me occupied as a kid was to let me cook with her in the kitchen. Not that I ever got as good as her.”
“Is Wednesday a good day?” Mariel asked.
“It is,” Julie said. “Because I hate my Wednesday class and this will give me something to look forward to.”
“Is this that awful one you had to repeat?” the older woman asked.
Julie glanced at Noah. “I failed it last time. Bet you never failed a course.”
“No, but some are just not worth taking,” he said, trying to be sympathetic. “Can you drop it?”
She shook her head. “It’s a requirement for the Interior Design major.”
“Can Bryce help?” Mariel said.
“If he were here to show me on the computer, maybe, but when he tries to explain things to me by phone or email I get all mixed up.” Julie turned to Noah. “I’m not as smart as my father and brother.”
“I doubt that,” Noah said. “Maybe all you need to do is choose a different major. One that doesn’t have required courses that you hate.”
Mariel pursed her lips and then quickly changed the subject to the dessert she’d made, getting Julie smiling again and up on her feet to make the coffee.
Noah helped clear the table, and as he looked at Julie standing at the kitchen counter, the slump of her shoulders and a faraway look in her eye, he began to see the lonely girl Mariel had described—and wanted so badly to take her in his arms.
Julie must have sensed him looking at her because she turned to him and said, “Why do our parents always want us to be someone we’re not?”
Noah couldn’t answer that, and later on when he went to his room to study, his thoughts kept drifting back to the same question.
He’d been six years old the first time he saw those red doors of the firehouse when his dad took him into Manhattan to show him where he worked. The firefighter holiday parties, workshops and fundraisers became a normal part of his family life.
When he hit adolescence, he was thrilled when big Dan Taylor would take him into the workout room of the stationwhen he was off duty. He used to show Noah how to train, telling him FDNY training was the toughest in the US and his son was not going to fail. That was when Noah realized the pressure was on and it was a feeling he could not shake.
And did not like.
Whenever his mom made a picnic lunch and the family would head out to the park, his two sisters got to eat and go on the swings, but Noah was put through firefighter drills by his dad. Then one day he decided to speak up.
It was a little over a year later. He and his dad were in the firehouse workout room. Noah lay on the bench with his neck clenched and his back arched while the stabilizing muscles in his arms and shoulders struggled for that last rep.
His father stood over him, spotting him on the bench press. “Come on, son,” he said. “Just one more. You can do this.”
As a tall, thin fifteen-year-old, Noah gave it all he had but just couldn’t extend his arms fully enough. The gravity and muscle failure won out. His arms bent, collapsing, and the Olympic bar with one hundred sixty pounds of cast iron came to rest on Noah’s chest. He gasped out the words, “A little help, please.”
His father just crossed his arms and stood there looking down at him with a smirk. “What if you were trapped inside a house fire and a two-hundred-pound beam came crashing down on you? Suddenly you’re pinned to the floor and can’t escape. Are you going to just lie there and cry for help? In a situation like that, every second counts. Your own personal strength can make all the difference.”
“Better idea. I stay away from burning buildings.” Noah was about to tilt to the side and let the weights slide off one end of the barbell so he could get out from under it, but then his dad, who was bigger and huskier that he’d ever be, took hold and hoisted the heavy thing onto the rack like it was nothing.
Noah sat up and caught his breath. He felt his father’s large meaty hand rest on his shoulder. When he was a kid that hand used to mean safety and care—now it meant shame and coercion.
“It’ll get easier, Noah. But you’ve got to put more heart into it to get there. And, remember, babes like a man with some muscle.” He winked at him.
They were alone in the room at the moment, so Noah risked saying, “My heart isn’t in it, Dad. You’re pushing me to be a firefighter when that’s not what I want to do.”
A flash of anger went across Dan Taylor’s face. He looked away, then turned back and said, “Life isn’t always about what we want. There is such a thing as tradition. And duty. Especially in strong families like ours. Your grandfather and great-grandfather were FDNY men. Then there’s me and Uncle Jerry. Uncle Sal is a cop, but that’s still maintaining our family’s honor. This is our city. Our home. Us Taylors have been giving back through our service for generations and I’ll be damned if my only son is going to break that line.”
With that, his father stomped away to the showers. Noah kept his mouth shut until they were driving home when he could not keep it in any longer.
“I respect all you said, Dad, but maybe I’d rather serve in some other way.”
