Page 6 of The Golden Hour

That was as far as she got before she realized he had already hung up.

That was their new normal.

Fragmented words, incomplete conversations.

The most frustrating thing was that this was what Honey had been concerned about when they talked about finally having a baby. They were both twenty-nine. Mason was about to finish his residency, which would give him more flexibility, no longer having to prove himself every second of every shift, and Honey had wanted to have their firstborn by the time she was thirty.

The stars were aligned.

Mason had promised he would be there every step of the way.

It took until she was three months pregnant to realize that wasn’t going to be true.

She picks up her phone and texts her husband.

Dinner is ready. Are you almost home?

She places her phone on the counter and waits.

And waits.

Her body moves on its own. She doesn’t even plate up the pasta for him; instead, she puts it into Tupperware containers for his lunches this week. Because she knows already. Well, her body does. Her naive little heart still dares to hope. Poor thing.

Plugging her nose and only vomiting once in the powder room, she is able to get the kitchen cleaned up and the dishes done by the time the text comes through. She’s disappointed but not surprised.

Mason

Sorry baby. Got pulled into a trauma. They need me. Don’t wait up.

I love you!

Her thumbs move, already typing out the reply.

Do they actually need you, or did you volunteer?

But then she stops before she sends it, for two reasons. Because he probably won’t see it until later, when he actually trudges home in the middle of the night while she is asleep, and it will not matter at that point. And because she already knows that he wasn’t pulled in, that Nurse Ellen would have told him to go home after his shift. He volunteered to stay.

This isn’t something new. She already maps out the whole scene in her head and feels nothing but defeated before she even fights. So, she deletes the text, her heart reacts to his, and she turns off the kitchen light before carefully and slowly heading upstairs.

They bought their house two years ago, a nice three-bedroom townhouse with a garage and a fenced-in backyard. The best part is that it’s only a five-minute walk from her parents’ house, and ten minutes from Mason’s parents'.

When they were signing the papers, Mason firmly told her that this is just their starter home. That one day he would build her the house of her dreams when he was an attending. He made all these promises, and she knows that this is part of the deal. That residency is hell, and he needs to prove himself.

But she just thought…

She sighs as she finally sits down on their bed, getting off her sore and swollen feet and ankles. Her back aches, and she tries to massage the knot but huffs when she can’t reach it. Reaching down to take off her socks, she winces as her vision swims, tiny black specks drifting across the room before vanishing. She places two hands on the bed, waiting for the world to stop turning.

Then the tears come.

Frustrated, angry tears that she feels guilty for even spilling.

Why should she complain? So her husband has been working more. He’s an emergency medicine doctor. He’s essential. He’s needed. She knows how talented he is. There are people out there sick and dying, and they are placing their lives in his hands. The amount of pressure he is under is astronomical.

What could a daycare worker even know about that? You should just be lucky he’s not cheating on you. He’s surrounded by so many beautiful nurses and doctors daily. You remember looking up those stories about doctors being the number one profession full of cheaters… or maybe he is.

Maybe he’s not in trauma. Maybe he’s with a beautiful, successful doctor who understands him. You’re nothing, Honey. Nothing but an incubator for a baby that you’re probably going to screw up.

What kind of mother are you? What kind of example are you giving your daughter? She’s going to learn how to beg from you. She’s going to learn how to wait. She’s going to learn how to be grateful for scraps because her mother was too soft, too stupid, too needy⁠⁠—