Page 92 of The Golden Hour

Motherhood started as a nightmare, but now, somehow, it feels like a dream. Maybe that is the universe making things right for her, balancing the scales and giving her a break.

While it is not perfect, while she is exhausted to her bones, her breasts are constantly sore, she feels a little like a cow when she pumps, and her belly is being stubborn in deflating, she has never felt happier.

And begrudgingly she has to acknowledge that Mason has helped with that tremendously. He seemed to have truly heard her when she said he wasn’t helping with their daughter, he was being her father.

No, he’s been helping Honey specifically.

Almost obsessively.

Or maybe it just feels that way because it has been so long since he has been like this—caring and protective of her.

“How are you feeling today?” Mason asks, placing the cuff on her end table. His doctor tone is in full effect as he taps a couple of times on his phone, and Honey knows he is making his own notes, documenting her healing progress each day.

“Fine,” she answers.

She honestly appreciates him using that tone instead of his concerned husband one. It makes it easier for her.

To keep her walls up, strong and steady.

“Are you feeling dizzy again?” Mason asks, his voice is clinically warm. “Hungry? I can get you something to eat—whatever you want, I’ll run out to⁠⁠—”

“I’m okay,” Honey gently cuts him off before he offers to drive to every store from here to Ocean City just to satisfy a craving.

Two days ago, when his parents were over and completely occupied with Daisy, he disappeared for two hours and came home with boardwalk fries and caramel corn. He drove an hour to the shore because she mentioned craving those things in passing to her mother when they talked about bringing Daisy there one day. She had only said it because she was happy to be craving anything again, hungry again, wanting to eat and put back on the weight she lost through pregnancy.

“I just ate an hour ago,” Honey says, starting to list off on her fingers all the answers to the questions he was gearing up to ask. “I don’t feel dizzy. I don’t feel tired. My incision feels fine. My body feels fine. I don’t need the bathroom or to shower. I’m comfortable.”

Mason snaps his mouth closed and nods.

Honey adds softly, “But thank you.”

The sides of his mouth lift slightly at that.

And Honey pretends she doesn’t enjoy the sight of it.

Just like she pretended that she did not enjoy and savor the salty fries and sweet popcorn. He does not need to know that.

It’s between her and Daisy. Her little girl is a great secret keeper.

Truthfully, Mason has been incredible.

What really stings is that he was capable of this all along, but she has got about nine months of him being absent culminating in her and her daughter almost dying in the hospital he prioritized over them.

It is hard to let go of that, and a couple of weeks of devotion and some snacks is not going to do it for her. A pang hits her chest when she thinks that there might be nothing he can do to fix this.

Her mother and Marlene say to take it day by day, that there is no rush to leave, that they will take care of them forever if need be.

Her dad was already talking about adding onto their house for a bedroom for Daisy. Mason looked sick when he heard that.

Everything has happened in such a compressed amount of time that it takes her breath away. And while she loves her family, everyone is around her all the time, so when she’s feeding Daisy alone in her bedroom, it’s a nice breather.

She has so much time to think about logistics and the next steps to take. Though she is not quite sure what those next steps are.

Mason and Honey are about two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in medical school debt—thankfully, her parents had paid for her college out of pocket with the fund they set up when she was a baby. Unfortunately, that debt is tied to her name because they are married. They have a mortgage together, about one hundred twenty-seven thousand dollars left on it—and she hasn’t even told him that there is not a force on earth that can get her to go back to their house now.

She and Mason are tied together—legally, financially, and, as much as she hates to admit it still, emotionally.

She has loved Mason Carpenter since she was fourteen years old. That is not something that can be killed easily. Even through everything he has done. God, but she wishes it was. She wishes she could just close her eyes and will that love to disappear, unlocking him from her chest because it would be just so much easier to do so.