Foundations - Kate Canterbary Page 0,5

in my words. "No. No, not at all."

My older brother blinked at me. Blinked again. "What?"

I leaned against the opposite countertop. "Not since before Maddie was born."

"Not even"—he motioned toward me in what I assumed to be a gesture suggestive of all the interactions on the periphery of sex—"some"—another vague hand movement—"or a little?"

"No," I said with a brisk shake of my head. "I don't know what that was supposed to imply but no, I'm not having any of it."

He folded his arms over his chest. He had the balls to look mortified. Now, this guy was the asshole. "Is that normal? How long is it supposed to be?"

I scratched my chin as I considered this. "The doctor told Lauren to wait six weeks before, you know, anything. That just didn't seem like the right amount of time to me."

I'd experienced powerlessness before. Growing up under my father's roof guaranteed it. Yet that was nothing compared to standing by while my wife suffered and screamed through hours of slow, hard labor and one futile round of pushing after another where she literally broke herself while I watched. I'd been powerless—useless. I couldn't forget the silent tears rolling down her cheeks or the sweat-dampened hair clinging to her forehead or the doctors and nurses speaking in hushed, urgent tones before announcing it was time to go, time for the operating room, time to get the baby out.

No, six weeks wasn't enough to heal. It didn't matter how much I wanted Lauren, how much I sensed myself caving without her. She needed more time and I needed to deal with that. And I would, regardless of whether it was incrementally killing me.

Patrick held up a hand. "I do not need the gory details. I get more than enough of them from Shannon."

"It's good you two are close like that."

"Shut up," he murmured. "Isn't this kid—what?—three months old now? That's a lot longer than six weeks, Matthew. I'm no expert but when I saw Lauren last weekend, she seemed—"

"Watch yourself," I warned.

I didn't expect Patrick to step out of line but I couldn't help myself anymore. I wanted to protect my wife and daughter from everything. Every fucking thing. The Commodore and I didn't agree on much but I understood him now. I understood it all, loud and clear. His priorities were my priorities. I wanted to build a stone fortress and lock my girls inside it, and I was capable of wanting that without diminishing any of their strength. I couldn't fathom a woman stronger than Lauren but that didn't mean she had to rely on herself all the time. I could be strong for her.

Hell, it was the only thing I could handle for her. Pregnancy, childbirth, nursing—I watched it all from the sidelines. And now, when we couldn't find more than five waking minutes together, something was troubling her and I couldn't solve that either. Here I was, useless all over again.

"Sturdy," he said eventually. "She seems sturdy. She didn't look like she was falling apart. She looked like she could handle some—"

"I said watch yourself," I interrupted. I scrubbed my hands over my face. Goddamn, I was the one falling apart here. "She's just now feeling better after the"—I cupped my hands in front of my chest because this conversation would only improve with more crude gesturing—"the breastfeeding thing. The infection."

"Andy told me about that. How does that happen?"

I shook my head. "I don't know, dude. Milk ducts and clogs and—I don't know. But it was terrible and I legitimately thought she was dying."

"What did Nick say about that?"

I paced the length of the kitchen, opening cabinets and glancing under the sink. "He said she wasn't dying. Told me to buy some cabbage."

"Okay," Patrick said slowly. "But that's improved? It's not—they're not—still infected, right?"

"Right," I said. "She had to stop breastfeeding for a few weeks. It was painful and she wasn't producing enough"—another crude gesture because why stop now?—"and Maddie went through a growth spurt at the same time so we had to supplement. The baby wasn't thrilled about those changes."

"Yeah, I'm sure she had a lot to say," Patrick remarked. "I'm no expert but it sounds like you're afraid of having sex with your wife."

"I am not afraid of having sex with my wife," I snapped.

"I'd be afraid," he said with a shrug. "If Andy went through all that giving birth and then the breastfeeding thing and a baby who wouldn't sleep on top of it all, yeah,