Todd D. Pelino

The Natural Father

You always found Todd D. Pelino surrounded by the children. Fatherly — that was him, his wife's girlfriends said. The other men kidded him for it, though they knew in their hearts that it was true.

They were five couples, with nine kids among them, whose houses were close but not too close. Home was Fair Haven, N.J. Work was Wall Street, Cantor Fitzgerald, and it was tougher than the muddiest soccer match Mr. Pelino, 34, ever played at Colgate. Come Saturdays at 5 p.m., Todd and Megan Pelino put their children, Bennett, 2, and Annie, 9 months, into a double stroller and wheeled them to the red- brick church down Hance Road, where they sat with other young families in a back pew.

"Once he did say to me that he was praying for life and everything to be as good as it is now, meaning then," said Ms. Pelino, whose sister, Kaleen Pezzuti, was also killed in the Sept. 11 attack. "We hoped there would be more kids. He was always first to hold the newborns. My friends said, `Of all these guys, Todd is the natural father.' "