Page 7 of The Golden Hour

Honey rubs a hand over her belly, feeling her daughter’s fluttering kicks, and closes her eyes against the darkening thoughts creeping into her like poison.

The thoughts are like her nausea now—near constant.

When she brought it up to Dr. Mortimer, he just smiled and patted her hand.

“Pregnancy hormones,” he chuckled, the sound almost dismissive. “All first-time mothers get too emotional and a little hysterical. It’ll pass once you hold that little baby in your arms. You’ll see.”

She tried to tell him it felt darker than that. Like something was sitting on her chest, pressing all the air from her lungs. She tried to tell him she was scared of the thoughts she was having, scared of how easily they seemed to find her now.

“Just try to rest more,” he said. “Drink lots of water.”

And he was the doctor, so she smiled and nodded, hoping the feeling would pass.

But it hasn’t.

She’s scared, because it seems to be getting worse.

Honey wipes her wet cheeks and leans back on the bed, hissing at the knot in her lower back. Slowly, she reclines against the pillows and settles, finding some relief.

“We’re okay, Daisy,” she says, hand brushing over her active little girl tumbling around. She smiles. “I’m okay.”

She asks Alexa to turn off the lights in the room, and closes her eyes until the room stops tilting.

The dark seems to only make it lonelier.

CHAPTER THREE

HONEY

“Smile, Honey!”

Honey paints on a wide smile and turns toward her mother’s camera, holding up the little onesie in her hands—a gift from Marlene and Rob, Mason’s parents. She’s known them since she was fourteen years old, since the homecoming dance when they drove Mason to her house to take pictures in their dressy clothes.

That’s something people always remind her—she’s lucky to have such amazing in-laws. And she truly knows it.

Marlene and her mom became good friends over the years, bonding over their M names and their shared love of crafting. Marlene’s a painter, and her mother is incredibly talented in home projects. They even started a little business four years ago. Her mother takes old furniture, refurbishes it, and Marlene paints or stains it.

Her father, Phil, and Mason’s father, Rob, are two peas in a pod. Both are mechanics and spend hours together in the garage, fixing up Phil’s classic Bronco and watching Philly sports in her living room.

Mason once told Honey it was just proof that they were meant to be.

That was when he still remembered how to be romantic.

Before the missed dinners and missed appointments. Before he started leaving before she woke up, coming home after she was already asleep, then doing the same thing all over again. Before his days off were spent sleeping or just going back into the hospital whenever an alert came through asking for extra help.

The guests at the baby shower chime in with their own exclamations at the onesie.

“So cute!”

“Look how small! I can’t believe Jordan was that size once.”

Honey keeps a smile on her face after her mom takes the picture, and her fingers gently caress the soft fabric. Her eyes sting as she traces the little bumblebee on a honeycomb, the words Sweet Like Mommy written in pretty script.

She lets herself picture Daisy in it, her sweet little girl giggling at her as Honey pulls the onesie on and tickles her tummy. Those are the thoughts that make the nausea swirling in her gut and the migraine jackhammering her head worth it.

She keeps a smile on her face and breathes in and out of her mouth, so she doesn’t smell the delicious food—normally all her favorites—that’s suddenly making her sick. They already had to reschedule this baby shower from two months ago, when her hyperemesis had kept her locked in a dark room with a bucket by the bed while her mother softly called all of the invited guests and canceled.

She felt awful, but her mother, Mason’s mother, and everyone were so kind about it. Most of them were mothers; they understood what she was going through. Her cousin, Fia, had already gone through hyperemesis with her son, so she knew the misery that Honey was in and told her to rest.