Page 51 of The Golden Hour

“Baby,” Mason whispers, hopeful. “Honey baby, it’s me…”

Honey’s mouth moves softly, a scratchy, breathy sound emitting from it that, when he leans closer, he realizes are words.

“My baby,” Honey whispers. “My baby… my baby… my baby…”

She repeats it over and over, each time a little more desperate than the last, as if she’s trying to remind herself and give a reason to claw her way out of the dreamy haze.

Mason realizes she is not fully conscious yet, not really. Part of her is still buried beneath medication and exhaustion, but the maternal instinct inside of her is stronger than all of it. Stronger than anesthesia, than magnesium, than pain itself.

He tries to keep his voice soft, gently comforting her. “Honey, it’s okay⁠⁠—”

With shaky, unsteady hands, Honey presses her palms to her stomach.

Mason stops breathing, and for one second, nothing happens.

Then his wife makes the most horrifying choking, gasping sound.

She looks down toward her belly, pressing harder with her hands, even as pain flashes across her face, but she does not seem to understand or even care about it. She tries to sit up, and Mason moves with hands outstretched.

“Don’t sit up, baby,” he says quickly. “You’ll pull your stitches⁠⁠—”

Mason cuts himself off when Honey’s eyes overflow with tears.

And she lets out a loud, wailing cry.

The sound is vicious and primal, coming from somewhere deep in her soul as she repeats it over and over. Mason feels his own tears sting his eyes and nose, helplessness blooming in his chest until it hurts to breathe.

“Honey baby, it’s okay—” Mason tries to comfort her.

“My baby!” Honey wails, ignoring him and glancing around the room like Daisy will suddenly appear. “My baby! Where is my baby?!”

Honey tries to sit up again, and this time she cries out in agony and falls back against the bed, the monitors reacting instantly, numbers shifting, alarms chirping.

“She’s okay,” Mason says, but nothing is penetrating her terror. “Honey, Daisy’s okay. She’s in the NICU. She’s breathing. She’s okay.”

“Daisy!” Honey screams, like Daisy can follow her voice.. “Daisy!”

The sound is tearing something apart in Mason’s chest.

Mason barely registers Dr. Farah rushing in, followed by a team of nurses. He barely registers as they shove him out of the way so they can reach Honey before she hurts herself. He barely registers anything but Honey’s voice keening over and over again.

“Where’s my baby? Daisy! Where’s my baby?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

HONEY

Empty.

As Dr. Farah speaks to her and her family, explaining everything that happened in the last six hours, Honey keeps her hands on her belly, the word repeating itself in her mind. Even after the medication fog cleared from her brain, even after the doctors and nurses came in and talked her down from her panic attack, even after hearing that Daisy was delivered and breathing on her own.

It doesn’t matter.

The logic won’t penetrate the misery she’s feeling.

She spent every second of the thirty-four weeks Daisy spent in her womb feeling her, talking to her, singing to her, laughing when her silly little girl kicked at her ribs or rolled beneath her palm in response to Honey’s voice. There was something primally comforting about having your baby in your womb, like it was the safest place in the world for them to be.

Because if they wanted to harm her child, they would have to go through her first.