Page 11 of Every Beat of My Heart

Izzy grinned, then climbed down from her chair and into my lap. I let her settle on one leg, pulling her coloring book closer. Her head bent over the coloring page again.

I breathed in the sweet scent of her, strawberries and graham crackers. That was the snack she probably ate after school.

“When are you going to teach at my school?” Izzy asked.

“They need more subs at the middle school. No one wants to teach those hooligans.” I pretended to shudder like the teenagers scared me too.

“I’m going to stay in elementary school forever. I don’t want to go to middle school,” Izzy said as she concentrated on coloring the whale on the page in the lines.

“I’ll homeschool you if it gets to that,” I promised her.

Izzy smiled up at me.

I didn’t want her to be exposed to middle-school aged boys any more than Cole did. I’d seen the way some of the eighth-grade boys acted. If I had my way, she’d be enrolled in an all-girls school.

Dad snorted. “You don’t have time for that. Not working three jobs. Besides, you’re not a teacher.”

“It wouldn’t take much for me to be one. I just need to get my certificate.” I’d looked it up a few years ago, and I didn’t need much for the degree. Just a few teaching classes since I’d already majored in math.

“Is that what you want to do?”

“I’m happy being a firefighter,” I said simply, hoping he’d drop it. I was aware that my dad didn’t think much of my choices in life. I wouldn’t do anything else to make him think less of me.

“If you’re happy at the firehouse, why are you working all these other jobs?”

“Firefighting’s a worthy profession, and I enjoy being around kids.” The only time he was proud of me was when I graduated from the fire academy, but then he’d said something about wasting my education. It had hurt and made me realize I wasn’t going to be able to please my family. There was something about me that was fundamentally and inexcusably different than them.

I wasn’t in law enforcement like my brothers. I protected the community, but it wasn’t the same. I would never be good enough in his eyes.

I colored the boat on the page red. “I’ve been doing more of the home visits, where I check to ensure the fire alarms are working properly and the homeowners know how to use their equipment.”

“Is that part of the job now?”

“It’s something we’ve been doing in my department more frequently. It just depends on how much time we have. And I enjoy doing it.”

Dad grunted as he moved around the kitchen, getting something ready for dinner.

“I met this single mother the other day. Her son was home alone, cooking.” I could relate to that. We’d done a lot of that after our mother died. “Instead of escaping from the house, he tried to use the fire extinguisher, but it didn’t work for him. I demonstrated how to use it and made sure they had a replacement near the stove.”

“You do good work. I’ll give you that.”

My entire body flushed with pride. It was rare for my dad to say anything like that.

“Your talent would be wasted as a teacher.”

My stomach dropped. He’d never fully accept me. Not really. “Teachers help the community, just in a different way.” It wasn’t a protective role in the way that society thought of it. But they were shaping minds and building kids’ confidence. I didn’t think there was anything more important than that.

Sometimes I wondered if my indecision about my career choices was because my hopes and dreams were stepped on more than they were encouraged growing up.

Dad didn’t want me to be a teacher. He tolerated my chosen profession, but he wasn’t proud of me. Not in the way I’d always craved. I needed to get over it because I was an adult now and shouldn’t need his approval.

I wondered what my life would have been like if my mother lived. Would she have encouraged me to do my own thing? It didn’t matter because she was gone, and I’d never know.

Ten minutes later, Dad placed the plate of chicken, potatoes, and carrots in front of me. Dad cooked but just the essentials, nothing fancy. But I was starving, so I slid Izzy over to her seat and dug in.

“You just stop by for food,” Dad said to me.

I winked at Izzy. “And the company.”

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