Page 161 of The Golden Hour

Mason looks horrified. “I would never.”

“I know. Just like I know it would have been easier for you to have fallen back into the old behaviors. Yet you chose not to. We all have the opportunity to make better choices,” Honey says. “We just have to be brave enough to make them.”

“What do I do with this, Honey?” he asks quietly. “Knowing something I taught might have contributed to a child almost dying?”

“Talk about it,” Honey says. “With your therapist, or with me, or with Mac and the group. Own it because you can’t go back and unteach Lowell, but when you start at CHOP, you can make sure the next doctor learns better.”

Mason’s face brightens at that, excited by the prospect of his residency. She knows he’s been a little stir-crazy in the house. While he enjoys being home with Daisy, he’s itching to start work again and to be in the real specialty he’s made for.

“You teach every resident who works with you that nurses deserve to be heard. That women know their bodies and know when something is wrong. That every patient is a person before they’re ever a diagnosis.”

Mason gazes at her, his expression full of awe.

“You’re brilliant,” Mason says softly, turning his head to press a kiss to her palm. “Have I told you that?”

“Once or twice,” Honey teases. “It’s always nice to hear, though.”

Mason lays his hand over the one on his cheek and softly squeezes.

“How about I tell you every day for the rest of our lives?”

Honey beams. “Deal.”

Like magnets, their lips come together in a soft kiss. It’s been four months since Valentine’s Day. Four months since Honey forgave him and they decided to take everything slowly. Four months of sleeping in the same bed, of taking Daisy to all of their favorite places, and relearning each other—who they are now.

Day by day, as they said.

Mason started sleeping in the bed with Honey that weekend, her parents grinning at each other when they returned from the Poconos and felt the shift between them. Just sleeping. Mason held her all night, cramped in her bed, waking up tangled together with his gravelly morning voice telling her, “Good morning, baby.”

Honey feels like she’s going a little insane, caught between wanting to race back toward the physical part of their marriage and being terrified of what will happen when she does. Mason hasn’t seen her naked since before she gave birth. And while she’s almost back to pre-Daisy weight, her body has changed.

Her breasts are fuller and softer, her hips are wider, her belly carries pale stripes and a pouch that does not disappear no matter how many walks with Daisy she takes. There’s skin sagging that’s never sagged before. And there's a long scar across her belly that sometimes aches.

While she wants to believe Mason whenever he tells her she’s beautiful, she still has nightmares where she undresses in front of him and his face twists with disappointment. Or worse, disgust.

It’s not a fair thought, to her or to him, but Dr. DeNunez told her that many women struggle to recognize themselves after pregnancy and birth, especially after trauma. She can be grateful to the body that sustained her daughter and survived a traumatic birth, while still grieving the body she once felt proud of.

She’s still learning to love this new body, and that’s okay.

Honey pulls away from the kiss before her mind turns to complete mush.

“Alright, let’s finish putting this crib together so Daisy can sleep here tomorrow,” Honey says, grabbing the screwdriver once more and getting back to work.

She can feel Mason’s gaze on her, warm and heavy like a heated blanket.

“Um, excuse me, Carpenter,” she sniffs haughtily. “Hold these pieces together, please.”

She smiles, and the tension eases from Mason’s face, enough for a real smile to finally break through.

“Ah, sorry, Foreman Carpenter,” he chuckles, holding the pieces together. “Proceed.”

For the next hour, they work side by side to assemble Daisy’s crib and push it against the wallpaper-accented wall. It’s the same wallpaper she had in the nursery of their old house—honeycomb and bumblebees. It’s bad to let good wallpaper go to waste.

Mason unpacks a box full of stuffed animals and toys, placing them in the wicker basket Marlene found, while Honey packs the changing table with diapers and wipes. A strange rush of sadness hits her chest at the thought of not needing these diapers anymore, of potty training Daisy, and then she wonders about future babies.

Is her body too damaged to carry another child?

Her hand drifts to her lower belly, right over the c-section scar hidden beneath her leggings. Dr. Farah assured her at her appointment last month that there was no reason she should not be able to have another baby, but Honey needed to give her body the time and grace it deserved to heal.