Page 30 of The Golden Hour

Oh, God. His Honey. His Daisy. His girls.

They’re dying. And he can’t do a fucking thing to stop it.

Help.

He needs help.

He turns and runs out of the room, ignoring his mother-in-law’s shriek of his name as he rushes toward Central Three and sees Dr. Weaver walking out of the room. She tosses bloody gloves into the bin and looks at him, concerned.

“Carpenter—”

“My wife!” It is the only thing Mason can scream. “My wife! My wife! Please, please⁠⁠—”

Weaver looks taken aback for one moment, before the words seem to register with her.

“Where?” she barks, and Mason turns, both of them sprinting down the hallway back to Honey. Weaver snarls at anyone in their way as she barrels into the room and jumps into the action. “What do we got?”

“Thirty-four weeks,” Farah says quickly. “Heavy bleeding. I think she’s abrupting.”

Farah is an obstetrician, not an emergency physician, so she steps back enough to let Dr. Weaver lead the trauma, while keeping one hand near Honey’s belly, her eyes flicking between the fetal monitor and Honey’s face.

“How long has she been bleeding?” Weaver asks Mason, before realizing he cannot answer and turning to Melissa standing by Honey’s head. “Ma’am. How long?”

The word bleeding slices through his chest.

“I-I don’t know—she stood up, and there was so much blood, she collapsed. I-I tried to catch her before she fell,” Melissa stammers, gesturing to the cut on her temple.

A nurse notices and steps toward her, “Ma’am, can I⁠⁠—”

“No!” Melissa snaps, stepping away from her. “My daughter first! Save her first—she’s been having pain all day. We thought it was Braxton Hicks or just her hyperemesis. He said it was normal⁠⁠—”

“He?” Farah asks, eyes narrowed. “Dr. Mortimer or Dr. Carpenter?”

Melissa’s eyes flicker toward Mason. He flinches at the anger and disappointment in them. Her tone is almost dry when she snaps, “Mortimer.”

Farah’s expression goes sharp with anger. “He should have fucking retired five years ago.”

“Farah…” Weaver gives her a sharp look.

Farah doesn’t even look over. She focuses back on the fetal monitor. Her frown deepens when she sees something Mason cannot let himself identify, and one of the nurses must see it too, because she glances between Honey’s heart rate and blood pressure monitors.

“Good Lord, her pressure is high,” one of the nurses says. “One-eighty-six over one-eighteen.”

Weaver and Farah start moving more frantically, but Mason’s heart stops at the numbers.

“Oh my God,” he rasps.

“Was she diagnosed with preeclampsia?” Farah asks, looking at Mason, then at Melissa when she thinks better of it. He shakes his head and looks toward Melissa, who is sobbing into her hands.

“No,” he says, but the word barely leaves his mouth. “She has HG. Dr. Mortimer said⁠⁠—”

“This is not hyperemesis,” Farah snaps at him. “She has preeclampsia, Carpenter.”

Preeclampsia.

Deadly if untreated.

He’s seen two mothers die from it in the ED. He distinctly remembers thinking that if he had been the doctor on those cases, he could have saved them. He almost wants to laugh at the fucking irony. Here is his wife with preeclampsia, and he didn’t do a fucking thing to help her.