I elaborated. “The decor. Comfortable, yet chic. Luxurious, yet lived in. Bright whites, farmhouse furnishings.”
“What’s your apartment like, then?” Matthew wondered as he drew his knuckle down one of my arms. “Is it much like Eric and Jane’s place?”
I considered my cousin’s large townhouse on the Upper West Side, with its loft-like space and colorful, modern furnishings. “No. Jane has much more eclectic taste than I do. I forget that you’ve never actually been in my home.” I smiled to myself. “It belonged to some distant cousin who died a few years before I was married and then was gifted to me. I never changed any of the interior, so it looks very dated. And very formal.”
Matthew lay on his side, watching me carefully. “You never wanted to change it?”
I shrugged. “It was never my home.”
He remained quiet, watching our fingers toy with each other against the soft white sheets.
“It’s a wreck now,” I said sometime later, “but the house you saw—the one in Newton—that was my dream home. When I bought it, anyway. I imagined Olivia there. The backyard was this lovely meadow. You couldn’t see it through all the overgrown grass, but there’s actually a creek running through the far corner, with a willow tree and a thicket of raspberries alongside it.” I closed my eyes. “I used to imagine sitting in the back, living this idyllic—not quite rural, but something calmer—life. I even had a place secured for Coral, my horse, at a farm in Concord.”
“It sounds like it would have been nice.”
“It would have been safe.” And then, because for some reason, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about it: “How long did Skylar nurse Jenny? Do you know?”
Matthew screwed up his brows. “Ah…”
I giggled. “I’m guessing you didn’t keep track?”
He snorted. “No, I don’t really ‘keep track’ of what Skylar does with her tits, doll. And if I did, I’m pretty sure Brandon would kick my ass.” He lay back in the bed, looking up at the shadows from the ceiling fan that striped the plaster. “It’s hard to say. I’d guess around the same amount of time Lea does, which is about a year and a half, maybe longer. I remember her leaving the room to do it when Jenny was about to walk. That was around fall, when I visited for Thanksgiving.”
“They made me stop,” I said.
His whole body stilled. “What do you mean, they made you stop? Who’s ‘they’?”
“My husband. My grandmother. I don’t know. People.”
He sat up, causing the sheets to fall down his broad chest, like Dionysus rising from his slumber. “How does someone make you stop feeding your kid?”
I shrugged. “It’s hard to explain. You didn’t know my grandmother, but—”
“I’ve heard enough stories and met your family. I have a pretty good idea.”
I swallowed. “I was really young, remember. I had a hard time speaking up for myself.”
“You don’t seem to have a hard time doing it around me.”
I smiled. “I—you seem to bring that out in me. I’m not sure what I think about it.”
“It’s good. Very good.”
“You like that I’m difficult?”
Another kiss. “I like that you’re you.”
The kiss deepened. And maybe I would have let it sink into something much more, but my mind was still lingering on the topic at hand. Matthew seemed to sense it, and eventually, he released my chin and settled us both back onto the blanket while he pulled me close.
After a few minutes, I finally spoke again.
“She was almost six months old. The doctor said she could eat. I fought it until then. My grandmother never nursed either of her children—a lot of women didn’t back then, and she said it would ruin my figure. And my hus—Calvin, he…well, he just didn’t like it. Maybe it meant I would not be available to him for even longer. I honestly don’t know.”
Matthew didn’t say anything for a long time, just kept his dark eyes trained on me in the dim light. I didn’t look away.
Then, he reached out and drew the sheets down to my waist, baring my breasts again in the moonlight. He took a long time to examine them, cupping each small, pale globe in his hands, brushing his thumbs lightly over the coral pink topography of areola and nipple. Then he leaned down and pulled one of the tightened buds between his lips. His mouth worked in long, slow sucks, once, twice, three times on one side, then repeated the motion on the other. With each tender pull,