Carl Bini, 44, met his wife when they were 10. Ten years later they were married and a few years after that had their first, then their second daughter. Bini was a New York City firefighter for 18 years, which put him two years away from retirement. On the morning of 9/11 he was off-duty having a meeting with Joseph Mascali, another Rescue 5 firefighter with whom he had a construction business. They were meeting about a post-retirement business project. When he heard about the attack, he phoned his wife to tell her they were on their way to respond. “Be careful,” she warned. But after 23 years of marriage, she also understood. “If I could have tied him down, he would have bitten through the ropes to go.”