She stopped talking, and Lyall got obsessed. He fell back on what he understood and went back to the familiar. He started searching for answers. After being married some twenty-something years, they'd become the same person. It was odd how that had just happened, and neither he nor Hope realized it. They let things get too routine, too comfortable. Maybe he'd let this happen. Had he become too obsessed with work or finding answers in his lycanthropy research? He was going nowhere.
He crossed a line. When she switched on the range and stepped into the bathroom, Lyall searched her handbag. It was a red one. Perhaps it was new because he didn't recall seeing it before. Oh, wonderful, now he was imagining some lover sneaking off with his wife on afternoons whilst he divided his time among his research projects. He travelled for work all the time because he was away on business.
They needed the money to make ends meet, although things had gotten easier with one less person in the house. Remus lived with one of his friends now. Lyall used to work at the Ministry of Magic. As time passed, Lyall realized he made more money on his own investigating apparitions, and there was something to be said about being your own boss. The jobs fluctuated, really. Whenever things got really tight, he batted for the other team and worked as a "paranormal investigator" for the Muggles. This usually led to nothing and came along as easy money; he discovered a Boggart in his deaf neighbor's broom cupboard once, a nice surprise, so he never truly knew what he was going to find. This had the added bonus of making Hope laugh.
Lyall took the plunge. He flipped through stuffed envelopes and noticed the majority of them came from a Dr. Wilder or a Dr. Johnson. There were also white paper bags with stuff in them. Knowing he had a good five minutes at most, he shoved the papers back inside and added the pasta to boiling water. He finished up the spaghetti carbonara, whisking the eggs together with a fork and smiling at her when she came down the corridor.
She sat down at the table and fumbled around for something. Lyall dished up two plates and bought them over to the table. Hope showed no interest in the food. "Where is my handbag?"
Lyall, using a spoon and fork with his spaghetti, gestured for her to eat. They'd move on to the other stuff later. If she waited to bury the truth from him, it could wait a little longer. When she made no move, he put down his utensils, deciding to drop the act and stop pretending nothing was wrong.
He drummed his fingers on the table after grabbing her handbag. "Are you going to tell me, or do you want me to ask you?"
She stared at him, momentarily confused. Hope rested her chin on her hand and played with her food. "People don't hide things in plain sight if they don't want you to know."
Lyall let this sink in. She had been mulling this over for while. Had this affair been going on with Dr. Wilder for years then? Lyall knew he was blind to things he didn't want to see. Lyall was not a stupid man; he was quite aware of his shortcomings, even if he chose not to do anything about them. For instance, he never placed his socks in the hamper despite the fact that the damn thing stood mere feet away from the bed.
"Who is Dr. Wilder?" Lyall demanded, wanting it all out on the table. He could take it. Annoyed that she played with her food like a small child, he took out his wand and made the food, the distraction, disappear.
"Do you even know what a doctor is?" Hope put a hand over her left eye. "I expected you to figure this out without me having to spell it out for you, Lyall. A doctor, a physician, is what I guess you would call a Healer. That's the closest thing I can think off the top of my head. I have an awful migraine, so we're just going to do this really quickly. If I tell you, may I have my bag, please?"
Lyall nodded curtly, certain he didn't want to hear this. How exactly did they handle this? What kind of a person, even if she was unhappy, threw away everything after two decades together? Who would tell their son? They were Catholics, not the devoutest of the lot, yet he didn't really believe in divorce. He'd heard of this happening. Once the children left, the empty nest syndrome or whatever it was called kicked in, and seemingly happy couples parted ways.
Hurt, he at least wanted his say. He reached out and squeezed her hand. "I love you, Hope, and whatever this is ..."
"I have a brain tumor, Lyall." She said it matter-of-factly like she was beyond tears. "You want to know where I go after lunch when I'm supposed to go back to work? I go to the beach because I forget absolutely everything when I'm there."
Lyall decided to play dumb, although he thought he followed her. "What?"
"I told myself it was migraines. I didn't want it to be anything and left it alone. I was ... I am frightened." She took steadying breaths and closed her eyes. Lyall gave her the handbag. Hope held it. As she emptied it, she laid its contents out on the table. There were no fewer than five pill bottles. "Dr. Wilder is a neurologist. I've been seeing him for six months. Not romantically."
Lyall, not liking the way this was headed, took a wild guess because he wanted to seem like he wasn't an idiot. His heart dropped into his stomach. "He's a brain doctor? Because you get headaches."
"Yes. I have a mass lodged in my brain. Migraines are a lot worse than headaches, really, but I've told you this. You've seen it."
Lyall missed something that was right in front of him. They took each other by their word because things usually turned out fine. There were rough patches, mostly financial ones, whatever happened they got through it together. There were days she laid in bed in the dark with the curtains drawn to block out the light. Loud noises disrupted her peace. He called these her dark days, since Hope only left the room to use the bathroom or make a cup of tea. A cold compress sometimes helped; this blocked the light. Whenever he'd asked if she needed anything or offered her a simple pain remedy, she covered her eyes with her hand. She did that now.
"Dr. Wilder started me on pain management yesterday, and he referred me to a psychologist. That's Dr. Johnson."
"What's that? A psychologist?" Lyall screwed up his face, thinking hard. He always liked to throw out a guess at these Muggle things because the explanations or the details sometimes got left out. He got up, hating this feeling of uselessness, and washed the dishes by hand after putting on the kettle.
Hope reached up and took the clip out of her hair. She set it on the table and shook her head slightly, letting her blonde hair fall, reading over her pill bottles. "It's someone to talk to."
He stopped her right there. "You can't talk to me?"
"It's not like that, love," she said, reading the instructions for her makeshift apothecary. "It's easier talking to a stranger."
"Who isn't your husband," he hedged, no longer bothering to disguise his anger. He lied straight through his teeth. "I get it."
"This is why I didn't bother telling you. Because I knew you'd do this. You're probably crafting a plan in your head right now." Hope sighed when he answered with silence, which she took to mean she was right. "This is a normal problem, not a magical one, Lyall, and I beg you not to waste your time. You can't fix this."
"Watch me." He hissed through gritted teeth.
Hope inhaled, taking in a shaky breath. He knew she fought tears. Lyall wanted to cry, too, honestly, but if she wasn't going there, neither was he. "I'm dying, Lyall."
Lyall frowned, trying not to look at her, knocking up some scrambled eggs toast, for he felt better if she got something in her stomach. He hadn't been an utterly clueless idiot. Her clothes no longer fit and hung loosely around her frame. Hope had always been a thin woman who liked to eat, until she stopped. The long walks she took nowadays explained these away. Although they had enjoyed each other's company, they liked their private time, too. Neither of them had any truly close friends because they had jumped from place to place.
The excuses wore them thin. He placed the breakfast and tea in front of her, and Hope ate it. Lyall laughed softly, unable to help himself, remembering one of the lies they gave Remus to tell his friends at school. They recycled these so much with family and friends, and co-workers, the words hardly carried any meaning anymore: Remus's mother was ill.
"What is it?" Hope set her fork down, tipped the third pill bottle into her hand, washed them down, and started eating again. "We share jokes. Come on. I'm not with Dr. Johnson, either, if that's what you're thinking. He has a boyfriend."
"Really?" Lyall opened a few of the correspondences. One was an invoice of services rendered by the said Dr. Johnson. "You have to pay for any of this?"
"NHS covers it." Hope spread eggs onto her toast.
Lyall held up two fingers; this was the second piece she'd failed it fill him in on. He got this one because she'd explained the Muggle healthcare system to him before. It was funded by the government through taxation, and she wasn't really a fan of it, faithful contributor or no. Hope was forever in a funny position because she was both. Whilst she left her life behind to be with him, she still worked at insurance firms and held an employment history with gaps throughout it.
Hope took her time eating, noting he didn't share the joke. She relaxed again, slipping back into her usual self. "What's funny?"
"Oh, it's nothing." Lyall knew it really was nothing.
Hope made a face, which urged him, at least, to fill her in. He got up, did the dishes again, this time by magic, and made himself a cup of tea when he refilled hers. They sat down as the dishes clinked together and the counters washed themselves. He passed her a cup and started on the newspaper crossword. On those nights he actually made it home at a reasonable hour, they followed this ritual after dinner. Usually one of them cooked whilst the other one washed up. He gave her a pass tonight.
As she was tired, he helped her to bed and called it an early night. What were they going to do anyway? He found his glasses on the bedside table and flipped through the pages. They were boring people, and to be honest, he liked this about their relationship. Remus certainly kept things interesting. This reminded him of something; she thought he was dodging her question.
He sat up, draping his arm over her shoulder and smiling again as the thought wandered back into his head. So, you know when we used to ask Remus to tell people you were ill?"
"Yes." An awkward silence followed, and she read over his shoulder, eventually giving him the answer. Lyall wasn't going to say it. "Shouldn't we feel better about ourselves since we're no longer lying? 'To hold a station or harbor; to divide into four equal parts'. Quarter."
Lyall, trying to figure out the first answer, liked to go in order. He got lost because the hint about the hare did nothing for him. "What?"
"Nine down, seven letters," she said, pointing it out with her finger. Hope snuggled closer to him.
"Ah, nice one, dear." He filled it in. Always meaning to start out with good intentions, Hope threw his habit out the window if she got a couple good ones in first. She gave him another answer a few minutes later, and he kissed her on the head. The hint of a boxed bride went way over his head. He paused, smiling getting back on track when Hope spelled it out for him. "What's a casquette girl?"
"In France, they used to sell virgins to the colonies, readymade brides." Hope read a lot. There were always three or four books she had going at a time, things she bought from consignment shops, and the woman read anything and everything. She did not share his appalled expression. "I didn't say it was pretty."
Lyall and Hope finished the crossword in about twenty minutes. He didn't even have to put the thing down because he got frustrated with it and come back to it with fresh eyes. Whilst he did get up to grab a snack, some chocolate cake they hid in the large bread box, they wrapped things up nicely in one sitting. These days, they stored sweets away out of habit. When Remus lived here, this cake would not have survived the night. He would've left a funny note about the cake mysteriously passing away in the middle of the night or something that followed along those lines.
He took her empty plate and set it on top of his before he set it on his bedside table. There were endless questions he wanted to ask her before she nodded off. She definitely looked tired. Seeing everything in a new light rather than passing it off as age, he suddenly found himself rethinking every small detail. Lyall couldn't help it. Would he need to help her with her pills? Was she on a special, regulated diet? Had he done anything to make things worse?
Since she wanted to get this discussion over with as painlessly as possible for the both of them, she answered his questions patiently and waited for more. This was his chance to learn about the sleeping monster. No, Dr. Wilder had given her this plastic pill organizer thing, though writing the dosages down would be helpful. No, of course he hadn't done anything wrong. These things happened. If anything, Hope said, she should have gone to see someone sooner instead of dismissing this as mere headaches.
"What're you doing?" He started to get up when she shook her head, trying to tell hm she was fine.
An image of Remus flashed in his mind; his boy often got violently ill whenever his transformations first started. Things got better after a few years, yet there was no denying those things were nasty. Remus used to stop eating the day before the full moon appeared. Before they sought help from a Healer, Lyall didn't know this was indeed doing his son more harm than good. It was no good, really. Lyall took his wand off the bedside table and conjured a large, battered saucepan. This thing usually stayed in the back of the cupboard.
He made the correct call just in time; Lyall held Hope's hair back and waited until she was done. They'd been down this road countless times before with Remus. Whilst she might be ashamed or frustrated, he compared this to making the bed every morning. After he cleaned her up, he did the dishes for the third time that evening and carried the sterilized pot back into the bedroom just in case. It was better to be safe than sorry. He'd also grabbed a glass of water and one of the pill bottles she'd asked for.
"What're these things?" He read the label and tipped two into his hand before offering them to her.
"Pills I take before nine o'clock. They help me sleep." It was 8:58. She took them together and sipped some water before getting up to brush her teeth and wash her face. She came back to bed with a soft, green blanket.
"Isn't that Remus's?" Lyall picked up a copy of the Evening Prophet, asking her if she wanted a second round with a crossword puzzle. Hope shook her head. Lyall never bothered actually reading the village newspaper because he went straight for the puzzles.
"This thing? Feel this thing." Hope got back in bed and nodded when he touched the bed. "No, this was mine way back in the day. A friend gave this to me when I moved into the flat over the bookshop. Remus thinks it belongs to him, maybe, because he stole it. I don't play that finders keepers nonsense. I took it out of one of his boxes the day he moved in with Peter."
"So, what you're telling me is you're both thieves. Nice." Lyall chuckled when she didn't even bother acknowledging this with a response. Hope laid down beside him and fell asleep within minutes.
The doctors, these physicians, had given her a year. Hope lasted about nine months and simply fell asleep one afternoon while reading a book. And then she went.