I could have used the day off, but there were old boxes and papers I needed to go through in my office. I'd been too busy with the re-open to get to them.

I figured: Knock 'em out and make a game plan for the rest of the day.

I'm used to opening the coffee house, so being in the empty building in the morning doesn't usually bother me, but this morning felt different. Absence of customers, the weather outside overcast and quiet, the house felt a little colder. I just wanted to get my paperwork finished and get the hell out of there.

The box seemed to be full of old business licenses, permits, copies of insurance forms and dusty folded blueprints, but, hidden at the bottom, was a collage that Charley had made. He had taken Polaroids of several of our first, and hunkiest, customers, cut the pictures into various shapes, glued them onto a large sheet of construction paper and painted the spaces between the snapshots with watercolors.

I thought it was adorable when he first painted it; he'd put a lot of time into it. Now it looked tacky, the paint cracked and flaking, faded, the pictures bent and coming loose.

I recognized some of the men in the picture. I'd been to their funerals.

I dropped the collage in the trash.

At the bottom of the box, there were a few more papers, some clippings about the coffee house in a file and one last picture. Framed, it was a picture of Charley and me, our arms around each other, kissing in front of the shop on our first day open.

My eyes were full of tears before I could stop them.

I heard someone come into the shop.

I must have left the door unlocked. I wiped at my face and blew my nose, throwing the tissue in the trash can with the collage.

I really didnāt feel like getting broken into on Christmas Day. Weapon. I needed a weapon. I pulled out the only thing I could find, a fluorescent yellow water gun.

"SURPRISE!" a man yelled.

I pulled the gun.

"Merry Christmas, Hugs!" said Fran, as she threw her hands up.