Page 102 of The Golden Hour

Lowell frowns. “I’ve watched you do it a bunch of times, Dr. Carpenter⁠⁠—”

“I didn’t do it well enough,” Mason cuts him off, his voice hard.

He thinks of all the times he’s done so in the past, his mind just going down a checklist of words to hit, like a fucked game of medical mad-libs.

I am so—insert adjective—sorry.

Your—insert relative’s name—has died.

They were brought in with—insert diagnosis.

The—insert noun—of the injuries was too—insert adjective—to treat.

“I’m going to show you how to do it properly.”

Lowell, always eager to learn, nods his head quickly. Mason takes a deep breath, his stomach twisting uncomfortably as they walk to the family room. He only felt this anxiety when he had first started doing this. He tucks his hand into his scrub pocket, touching the little sock in there as he steps into the room.

A redheaded woman springs off the couch, a sleeping toddler girl with matching hair in her arms.

World’s Best Daddy flashes in his mind, the gold glint of the ring on the man’s pale finger.

Mason’s left thumb goes to his wedding band, rubbing against the warm metal.

“How is he?” the redhead asks hopefully, hiking the toddler higher on her hip. An older couple stands next to her, and he can see from the resemblance that they’re the deceased patient’s parents.

His stomach tightens even more.

“How’s Jason?” the redhead asks him, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Can we see him?”

“Hello, my name is Dr. Carpenter,” Mason says, trying to find the balance between steady and warm. He thinks he finds it, but it grants him no victory because of the news he is about to deliver. “I was the doctor in charge of Jason’s treatment.”

The family introduces themselves, and Mason firmly shakes each person’s hands, and meets their eyes head on. Not with the dismissiveness he used to grant patient’s families, blank faces and names that he’d forget in twenty minutes.

He thinks that Susan Baker’s dark eyes, so much like Jason’s, are going to stay in his mind forever.

As is Robert’s firm handshake.

As is the full body trembling of Lisa, the wife, or the peaceful sleepy expression of Tina, the baby.

Mason’s eyes linger on the sleeping toddler, completely unaware that her life has changed. She went to sleep in one reality, woke up in a darker one. He feels sick as he has to deliver the news, and can’t help but think of Honey and Daisy.

He could have been in their shoes a month ago, being informed that his wife bled out and died because he was too blind, too stupid, too neglectful to see her suffering. The difference was, the drowning was no one’s fault—just an accident.

Mason swallows thickly and straightens his spine. His hands go behind his back and his right hand spins and spins his wedding ring around his finger.

“Mrs. Baker,” Mason says, speaking right to Lisa. “I’m sorry to tell you that Jason has died.”

There’s a lull of silence after those words, it stretches thick and heavy like the humidity outside. Lowell shifts behind him. It’s the only noise in this room, seemingly the only noise in this hospital.

“No,” Lisa gasps, her eyes wide and flickering back and forth. She stutters, “No, he was—no, he can’t⁠⁠—”

Susan opens her mouth and wails so loudly that it startles the baby awake out of her sleep.

But Susan’s baby has just died.

Robert pulls Susan into his arms as she cries violently. Lisa tries to calm Tina, who is startled by her grandmother’s grief and her mother’s sobs.

And Mason feels powerless as he watches this family crumble apart.