Detective Donald Flack Jr. was patrolling the Upper East Side on a cold morning in November. Shop windows were already decorated for the Christmas season and thousands of people were already flooding the streets doing their holiday shopping. Flack was thinking about how ridiculous it was that people were already doing their holiday shopping.
His thought, however, was interrupted when he caught sight of the small corner shop he was approaching. The shop stirred a memory so strong that he had to stop. To anyone this shop would mean nothing. It wasn't popular and the coffee it served was certainly nothing to talk about. To Flack, though, it stood as a grim reminder of what he lost.
The shop, which was now festively decorated, caused a deep ache in his chest. It was a familiar ache that had been plaguing him at random moments for the last few weeks. Seeing the shop decorated and looking so happy made him angry. How dare the place that made him feel such sorrow move on when he could not bring himself to!
The sound of the police radio snapped him out of the trance he had fallen in to. He was needed elsewhere.