Ned found their youngest daughter on the ground, legs sprawled in front of her. Her knee looked awful, bloody and gravel-specked. Her blue eyes were full and miserable.

"Daddy," she wailed.

"It doesn't hurt," he told her, voice steady and calm.

She furrowed her brow doubtfully at him. You're crazy, said the set of her mouth.

He scooped her up and she put her head against his chest. She sniffled and the sound of Nancy's voice led him to the kitchen, and he put her down on the counter and watched as his wife made her voice bright and assured and deftly rolled up Katie's pants leg, kept up a steady stream of nonsense while she dabbed at the still-bleeding knee with a washcloth, went over it with alcohol, plastered it over with a band-aid and a kiss. By the time she was finished, Katie's cheeks had the muted sheen of dried tears, and she flung herself off the counter none the worse for wear, eager to rejoin her siblings.

"Have to throw away those jeans," Nancy said, half to herself. She had her palms flat on the counter to keep them from shaking, as she watched Katie launch herself into the backyard, red-gold hair flying.

"Like you haven't fixed up dozens of scraped knees."

"She's my baby," Nancy replied, rinsing the blood and bits of gravel out of the washcloth. "I can't help it."

Ned slid his arms around her from behind, resting his chin on the crown of her head. "And she looks just like you did, I bet."

"Almost," Nancy admitted. She smiled, then. "When I was her age, Hannah says, I climbed everything in sight. One summer she went through five boxes of band-aids and God knows how much alcohol. I fell out of trees and treehouses and skinned my palms on ropes and bashed my knees open when I lost my balance on my bike, but there was no way I would ever just stay inside. Safe," she said, softer.

He kissed her hair. "Sounds just like you."

She turned around in his arms, laid her head against his shoulder, and he remembered other evenings, the weight of her in his arms, the press of her mouth against his, in the few precious minutes they could steal for themselves. They hadn't been alone, really alone, in years.

"What am I supposed to do the day she tells me she wants to be a detective," Nancy sighed.

"Or a cop," Ned added.

"Or even the day she tells me she's going to college," Nancy said, and buried her face in his shirt. "God," she groaned, breath hot through the fabric, and his hips pressed hers against the sink.

She pulled back, gazing up at him, faintest suggestion in her eyes. He studied her for a moment, then shook his head, leaning down to brush his lips against her ear, her fists pulling his shirt taut against his back. "They can hear us kissing from the other side of the house," he reminded her, fingers trailing down the nape of her neck. "All you have to do is touch my zipper and they'll materialize, asking if they can build a rocket out of papier mache and the lawn mower."

She sighed in acknowledgement, gently dragging her nails across his shoulder blades, his spine, so that he surged suddenly against her.

"What about the first day she goes to school?" He caught her earlobe lightly in his teeth. "Hana and Lena got through it."

"But they had each other." She was arching, on her tiptoes, her hips shifting subtly against his. "All she wants is to be like them."

And he saw her, that little motherless girl, doing everything she could to please her father, to be like him, to climb and explore until her knees were raw and her palms burned, reckless because loneliness afforded little other privilege.

His wife had her head tilted back below his, gaze half-lidded as it met his own, lips slightly parted.

Then a softball thunked against the side of the house.

"Next one'll hit a window," she said, dreamily.

"Told you," he said, awash in disappointment, but before he left, to sweep up his sunburned glove and head out into the sharp green of their yard, he kissed his wife so hard that before it was over she had her legs wrapped around his waist, her fingers in his hair, her breasts full and tight against his chest.

"She's strong like you," he told her, stepping back carefully, and ran his finger down her jaw, her lips crushed red from his kiss. "She'll be all right."

Nancy left the band-aids out anyway.