“I’m sorry, hon, who’s Mister Banjo?”

Her voice is filled with accusation. “I already told you!”

Tom grits his teeth, tries to keep it together. “I’m sorry, hon. Could you tell me again?”

Tears come back to her eyes. “Mister Banjo. In Mrs. Millett’s class. He’s our pet hamster. I was going to bring him home tomorrow and keep him a week, like the other kids. This week it’s my turn…and I won’t be there tomorrow!”

She starts sobbing again, and Tom brings his hand up higher, to Denise’s head and soft blond hair. He strokes her hair and she sniffs and rubs a hand across her runny nose. She’s ten and normally wouldn’t be hugging a stuffed Tigger like this, but nothing here is normal. Still, despite the anger and fear and anguish, there’s pride in his little girl. She’s not your typical ten-year-old, especially since she has parents who sometimes depart for weeks or months, spending quality time on Skype or FaceTime.

He says, “I’m sure Mrs. Millett will understand. Mom…Mom will probably tell her when she can. And then we can fix the schedule so you can get Mister Banjo later.”

Denise nods and Tom wonders at what point his little girl will no longer be convinced that her dad can solve any problem in the world.

“Daddy?” she finally asks.

“Yes, love?”

“I’m scared.”

“I know,” he says.

“Are you scared?”

“I’m…okay. I’m concerned. This will be figured out. I’m sure.”

He strokes her fine hair, a part of him still wondering how he—with brown hair, and Amy, with black hair—managed to come up with this little blond princess. Not an angel, good Lord, no, not with her temper and her insane curiosity and daring—like the time she saw a Bugs Bunny cartoon and climbed up on the garage roof, black umbrella in hand, convinced she could come down like an eight-year-old parachutist.

In his daughter’s profile, Tom sees the outline of Amy’s face, first time they met. It was at an afternoon college lecture series in Maine—where, full of himself and a year into his first journalism job at the Boston Globe, he pontificated on the state of the world and the military—and at a following reception, she came up to him in her Army uniform, a sergeant.

“Nice lecture,” she said. “Too bad fifty percent of it was bullshit.”

Stunned but instantly attracted to her smile and bright eyes, he said, “Which fifty percent?”

“Take me out to dinner, and I’ll tell you,” she said.

And he did just that, and for years afterward.

Denise stares up at him, still looking like a much younger version of her mother.

“Why did they take us, Daddy?”

“Because…they want something. And we’re going to be traded, like when you trade those Magic trading cards.”

“What do they want?”

“I don’t know.”

Denise rolls over and now he’s stroking her forehead. “Who are they, Dad? I mean…they’re so scary. And it hurt. It really hurt when they zapped me.”