Page 29 of The Golden Hour

Please don’t take her from him.

“Please, baby,” he begs, voice breaking as he bends over her, pressing his forehead to hers. “Please wake up. Honey, please. Please, please⁠⁠—”

Then a voice from behind him slices through the panic.

“Who called for OB—oh shit.” Dr. Farah’s eyes cut from Melissa to Mason to Honey, and then her face shifts into something fierce and determined. “Bay Two. Now. Move!”

Dr. Farah moves fast, pink scrubs blurring into the chaos, dark eyes already sweeping over Honey, the blood, the monitor, Mason’s hands on his wife’s face.

“Carpenter, is this your wife?” Farah barks.

Mason nods. “Honey.”

“Blood type?”

“A positive,” Mason answers automatically.

“Allergies?”

“None.”

He knows these answers like the back of his hand. He learned them in high school, back when he was certain he wanted to be a doctor and wanted to make sure Honey would always be his number one patient. Back when he was naive enough to think things would always stay the same, because when you’re sixteen and untouched by real responsibility, love is easy.

Memorizing her blood type, remembering her birthday, your anniversary, her favorite color, and her favorite food.

Remembering that she likes whiz on her cheesesteaks, not provolone. That she likes her French toast a little undercooked. That she doesn’t like putting her hair up in a ponytail because it always tugs at her scalp, so he bought her a million claw clips he finds in the oddest places in their house.

He knows all of that like the back of his hand.

But choosing her over the career that gives him a rush like nothing else? Choosing her when the ED lights up every part of him, when everyone praises him for being brilliant and untouchable?

Hard.

And because that was hard, Mason called it a necessary sacrifice.

He didn’t realize the sacrifice was his marriage, not just time.

Nurses rush over. Other doctors pull patients and family members out of the way as they roll Honey into the room. Ellen, jogging back in from her break, frowns at the chaos.

Then, when she sees who the patient is, her face drains of color.

“Get Mortimer on the fucking phone right now!” she barks at one of the nurses as she jogs toward Bay Two. “I don’t care if he’s golfing with Tiger Woods, get his ass here—now. So help me God, I’ll drag him off that fucking course myself.”

Mason feels completely helpless watching from the corner of the room as they cut away Honey’s ruined dress, hook her up to machines, start lines, call out numbers, draw blood, and press pads to her stomach to find Daisy.

All the things he told Lowell.

All the things Lowell is now doing while Mason stands there shaking.

The sound of two heartbeats fills the room.

Daisy’s, quick and fluttering.

Honey’s, slower and sluggish.

His wife and daughter are dying.

He knows all the terms they are barking at each other; he knows it all, and his mind fixates on every bad read and number from his girls.