Josephine Damato is not yet a '9/11 widow' but she expects to be all too soon. 'The doctors say he is one step from cancer,' she says, her slim hand beginning to shake as she reaches out and strokes her husband Mike's wrist. In their spacious surburban home in Long Island, a commute from New York, the couple's three daughters giggle as they play a game of pretend shopping. The oldest, Megan, nine, is in charge, while cheeky Alexandra, three, hands cake to one-year-old Daniella. There is a basketball hoop in the garden, toys dotted around and a Snoopy pennant above the front door saying 'Welcome'. Mike Damato was fit and earning $140,000 a year as a builder until he began working at Ground Zero just hours after hijackers had flown two planes into the World Trade Centre. He is 33, but now has the lungs of an asthmatic in his sixties - the corrosive dust and toxic air he breathed for months at the disaster site are eating away at his throat and oesophagus.