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A Devoted Father

After finishing his morning shift as a security guard at the Deutsche Bank, next to 2 World Trade Center, Francisco Bourdier always watched his 22-month-old daughter, Francesca, every afternoon and evening. He took her just about everywhere -- to the stores near their home in Jackson Heights, to the park, the movies, even the auto repair shop. He put her in for a daily nap about 5 p.m., then drove with her to Manhattan about 10 each weeknight to pick up his wife, Erma, the evening office manager in a hotel.

"That was his life -- his daughter," Mrs. Bourdier said. "They had a special bond."

When Francesca was an infant, her father, 40, regularly gave her the 2 a.m. bottle. More recently, he bought her Winnie the Pooh software and tried to interest her in computers, his hobby.

"Most of the time she played with the mouse," her mother said.

He also had started fixing her hair in a ponytail. "It wasn't really, like, good," Mrs. Bourdier said. "But he did it."

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on October 17, 2001.