Business always slowed down in the winter. Not to say there was no business, but it was slow enough to be felt, like crawling on your elbows down a long-empty street towards the mocking sun in the distance. Nellie made sure to keep the shop front as cheery as she could manage, with bright curtains and little knickknacks. It drew in the locals well enough, people who were as married to the sea as she, herself, felt. It was the sweet pies, she found, that sold better in the cold months. People who wanted to impress their holiday guests would come by and pick up a pie or two (or sometimes three, if she was lucky). She sighed, wiping her hands on the front of her apron and surveying the crust she had rolled out.

Maybe the holidays would be cheerier if they had some family to bring around. She could hardly complain, though; just two years before, she had spent Christmas worrying how she would have enough money to keep the shop running. Now here she was, a husband and a house and the closest thing she would ever have to a son. She was grateful, she was. The pie crust on the counter didn't seem right. Too flat, too floury, cracking around the edges. She gave it a hard whack with her rolling pin.

"Bloody ol' pie! No one's gonna be eatin' it anyway," she shouted to the empty room. Days like this rose bleak and ominous. Days like this were the days Nellie spent waiting for something to happen, searching the breeze for the promise of exciting things not too far on the horizon. On this particular day, however, what had happened had turned out to be an argument. Maybe it was the lull in customers that had made Sweeney so irritable that morning. It wasn't as if they fought nearly as often as they had all cooped up in that stuffy house in London, but Nellie thought maybe that made their arguments all the worse.

She could hear Sweeney scuffling about in his shop above her. Weather be damned, there were always people in need of a haircut or a clean shave- even on slow days. They were all locals, though, which certainly cut down on her shop's meat pie output. She pictured him staring out the window at the boardwalk, the white sand, the churning sea, hands clasped behind his back. Did he still see London when he looked out the window? Did he find smokestacks and ghosts lingering just past the glass? She thought briefly of climbing the stairs just to see him, to see that he was for sure still there. Instead, she poured herself a tumbler of gin and sagged against the pie counter. The wind outside the shop picked up and rattled the little bell fixed to the front door. Thick grey clouds hovered on the horizon, threatening the familiar rain from days-long gone: days when she would sit and wonder what her life had become, wonder if the barber she had loved so desperately would ever return or if he had been lost to the thick shadow that was Australia, buried deep beneath the soil.

Days like these were the days she made soup. He liked it. Even though he could normally barely bring himself to compliment her soups, she saw the way the steam from the bowl relaxed his face, calmed his troubled soul. Nothing seemed like a better peace offering right then, than a hot bowl of soup and some fresh bread.

Nellie watched a couple arm in arm leaving the bar across from her. Its door was decorated with a big wreath, garish red bow secured to the front. Even the lamp posts dotting the street had garlands wound around them. The whole little town tried its best to seem alive in the winter, like a single flower poking through a snowdrift.

"Can't even go without fightin' during the bloody holiday season," she grouched, swirling what was left of the gin in her glass.

It was their first proper Christmas together, and she wanted it to be special.

The matter of gifts had been weighing heavily on her mind since the very beginning of the fall, and every slight chill of the wind brought Christmas to their front door. Toby was easy to shop for. A nice shiny pair of new shoes would be more than enough to overjoy him. Her eyes wandered to the parlor where she had been keeping her knitting. If Mister T doesn't like the scarf, I can always keep it for myself. Will he even use it? Somehow, he didn't seem quite right all bundled up. The man was probably immune to cold; he never shivered or even sneezed. She couldn't picture him asking her what she wanted, nor could she fathom answering that what she wanted truthfully was for him to sweep her gently into his arms in the small glow of the fireplace and-

"Are we having soup, mum?" Toby burst through the front door, coat buttoned up to his chin and scarf wound nearly up to his nose.

"'Course we are! Close that door, darling, you're lettin' in all the cold air!" She expected him to hurry back to work, but there were no newspapers in his hands and he lingered in the shop, concern creasing his face. "What is it, lad?"

"Are you alright?"

"Sure I am, love. Why, what's wrong?"

"Nothin', mum, I just… You've got a drink, is all. Was it Mr. Todd?" Toby's voice was barely a whisper, his eyes trained on the ceiling as if any mention of Mr. Todd would send the man himself crashing downstairs to apprehend him.

Nellie smiled wearily and ruffled Toby's hair. "We just had a bit of a spat this mornin', that's all. 'Spose I can't blame him. Mister T's had a real hard life."

"What happened to him?"

"Run along now, love. Mister T's been so good to us, and it's not right talking about what's past, hm?" Toby remained firmly rooted to his spot, seemingly unconvinced. Nellie prayed he could not hear her heart thudding wildly against her ribcage. "If ya don't get your paper route finished, I won't let ya have any dessert. Go on, Toby darling, it's alright." It was an empty threat, but he leaned up to kiss her cheek before he left all the same.

She couldn't even remember how their argument had started, only that Sweeney had snapped at her and she'd slammed the door on her way out. It was a wonder that the neighbors hadn't heard them yelling. She was grateful that Toby's paper route took him out of the house when it did, or else he probably would have come flying up the stairs to her aid. A common child's fear, she assured herself. Nellie could remember worrying when her own parents had argued in the shadows of the lamp that burned long after she should have been asleep.

He's just afraid we'll separate, that's all. They wouldn't, of course, but she knew all too well that just one fight could seem like the end of the world. After everything she and Sweeney had been through, a silly argument was nothing. There was no way Toby could guess at the things they'd done- were doing, would continue to do as long as there were tourists flocking in the warmer months. It wasn't like before, at least, when Sweeney's rage shook the house like an earthquake and hung over them, a black cloud heavy with rain.

The little sign in the front window had been flipped to "Closed", and Toby sat reading at the dining room table while Nellie carefully chopped vegetables for the soup. He was waiting for the rain to begin, she knew, so he could watch for the lightning that sometimes struck the sea in the distance. The wall clock's steady ticking aimed to slowly drive her mad. Thick silence pervaded the air, wrapped its meaty hands around her neck and threatened to squeeze.

"My, my, what a day we've had, hm?" She choked out. Toby glanced up from his book, concern riddling his face.

"What were you fightin' about, mum?"

She sighed heavily and put down the knife. "I told ya, love, it's nothin' to worry your sweet head over." She sat in the chair beside him and pressed her hand to his cheek. "Sometimes we jus' get a little irritated with each other, that's all. Mister T's a good man, Toby dear. He's not like he was in London. I know he can be a bit frightening, but I promise ya, he won't ever do nothin' to hurt us. He loves us, he really does."

When Sweeney came sulking down the stairs to take his place at the dinner table, Nellie had determined not to say a thing to him- not about their fight, the upcoming holiday, or even about the lack of soup at his place setting. After all, she told herself, I don't need to cater to him when I was the one who got her feelings hurt. I do everything for him and he's not one bit grateful. Fueled by stubbornness (and a few glasses of gin), she seated herself stiffly opposite Sweeney. He looked first to her, and then to Toby, before standing up to fill his bowl. She got some satisfaction from holding her ground and dug into her soup without even asking about her companion's day. It took everything in her not to glance up at him; she could feel his intense eyes from all the way across the table.

"It's real good, mum," Toby said, spoon scraping the last bits of soup from his bowl. She smiled warmly at him.

"Save room for dessert, darling."

"It is good," Sweeney added, watching her closely. She said nothing.

Nellie brushed the knots out of her wild hair. At this point, Sweeney probably wasn't coming to bed. It was well past midnight; the careful ticking of the clock on the wall counted every agonizing second that she had spent pretending she wasn't waiting for him. She could imagine him awake all night, pacing the floor up in his shop, sharpening his razors, staring into space.

No sense waiting for him then. She turned out the lamp and settled under the covers. She wasn't even angry with Sweeney anymore; truthfully, she hadn't been since after dinner. Instead of going for a walk as had become their routine, he had perched on the sofa and buried his nose in a book. Admittedly, she stole glances at him from time to time when she knew he wasn't paying her any mind. Between the warm tones from the fire in the fireplace and the heavy contentedness the soup had left her with, all she wanted was to curl into his side and close her eyes. It would have been as easy as breathing. Had it not been raining, she would have taken Toby for a stroll just to avoid the temptation pulling urgently at her heart. Sweeney was probably going to end up sleeping on the sofa and waking up with a chill and a stiff neck in the morning.

It's his own bloody fault, then, if he decides not to come to bed.

She banished the thought from her mind and tried to will herself to sleep. If he wanted to spend the night in the living room, that was his choice. After all this time dreaming of the opportunity to sleep beside him, though, she could barely stand the thought of wasting a single night. Arguments aside, there was no reason to make him suffer any longer. As she was considering tiptoeing out to the sofa to bring him a blanket and an apology, the bedroom door creaked open softly. Nellie had never been a particularly good actress, but she tried her hardest to feign the shallow, even breaths of sleep. There was faint scuffling noise, then the rattle of things on the dresser and a mumbled curse from Sweeney. He must have bumped it. The objects on the dresser stood still after a moment and the whisper of his clothes as he undressed brushed her ear. Nellie felt the mattress on the other side of her dip beneath his familiar weight, and she smiled to herself.

"Nellie?"

Her heart leapt into her throat, though she fought to sound unaffected. "Hm?"

He draped an arm over her almost lazily and pressed his face into the back of her neck. "'M sorry."

"It's alright, love." The rain, coming down in slanted sheets, tapped gently at the big bay window and whispered promises of forgiveness. She turned over to face him. In the sparse moonlight creeping through the large bay window by their bed, his features were a smudged charcoal drawing. It occurred to her then, suspended in the strange space between night and day, that perhaps he had forgotten how to love and be loved. After all, Nellie had no idea what they had done to him all those years he was locked away, what monster they built up in his shadowy heart. She reached for his face with a gentle hand and traced her finger down the slope of his nose. "I'm sorry, too."