Someone real," I hear myself saying. "Someone who never has to pretend, and who I never have to pretend around. Someone who's smart, but knows how to laugh at himself. Someone who would listen to a symphony and start to cry, because he understands music can be too big for words. Someone who knows me better than I know myself. Someone I want to talk to first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Someone I feel like I've known my whole life, even if I haven't.

I'm telling you, if aliens landed on earth today and took a good hard look at why babies get born, they'd conclude that most people had children by accident, or because they drink too much on a certain night, or because birth control isn't one hundred percent, or for a thousand other reasons that really aren't very flattering.

I know better than most people that a criminal isn't always a thug in a black leather jacket with a big brand on his forehead to warn us away. Criminals sit next to us on the bus. They pack our groceries and cash our paychecks for us and teach our children. They look no different from you or me. And that's why they get away with it.

We'd sit with a big bowl of popcorn, wrapped together in a queen-size blanket, and would escape to a place where magic was ours for the taking, where men rescued the people they loved instead of abandoning them. A place where, no matter how bad things looked at that moment, there would always be a happy ending.

My grandmother told me that her father used to ask her a riddle: What must you break apart in order to bring a family close together? Bread, of course.

You build a wall to keep something unwanted out … or to hold something precious in.

I became a firefighter because I wanted to save people. But I should have been more specific. I should have named names.