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“No. Uncle Mason is too rough. He’s always tickling or squeezing me. He never just snuggles me like this. Uncle Charlie is better. He’ll snuggle occasionally.”
Jealousy spreads through me like wildfire, but I refrain from voicing anything that could let Waverley know it.
No matter how much it kills me inside, I can’t help but feel relief that she had Charles these last seven years.
There’s no one better.
“You snuggle the best.”
I smile. “You’re the best snuggler, too.”
“Better than Mum?”
Pain shudders through me. Because I miss it. And because I can’t quite remember how it feels to hold her. I can picture her lay in my arms, staring up at me. But I can’t remember the feel of her skin on mine or the smell of her shampoo.
“Did you not snuggle?” Waverley eventually asks.
“No, we did. We used to snuggle all the time.”
“I think if you asked her nicely, she’d let you snuggle her again.”
“I don’t know about that, Scamp.”
“Why will you call me Scamp but not Ave? I googled what it meant earlier, and I had to remember that I’m trying to make you like me and not to get offended.”
I chuckle, desperately trying to commit her, this moment, the feel of her snuggled in close, and the smell of her shampoo, to memory. “It’s not a bad thing. And…” I lean across, lifting her chin to look at me. “I already like you very much.” I swallow around the lie, dousing down the love I have for this little girl. “And I’ll call you whatever you want me to call you.”
“You used to call Mummy sunshine.”
Fuck.
I take a breath, let out a shaky exhale, then force a smile. “Who told you all my secrets?”
Waverley grins. “She did.”
I tut sarcastically. “What else did she tell you?”
She thinks for a second. “She told me that you loved your bike. Did you know it’s nearly fixed? I’m going to ride on it when it’s better.”
Scarlet’s fixing it? Again? “You are?”
“Yep. And those letters.” She leans over my chest, pointing to them on the bedside table. “She wrote those out every month for six years, but you never replied. I even wrote in some of them.”
“You wrote to me?”
She nods. “I have messy handwriting, but I’ve almost got my pen licence, so just you wait. Then I’ll write new ones for you.”
I didn’t think I could regret not reading the letters any more than I already did. Not after finding out they held the truth about Waverley. And yet lying here now, I feel ready to tear into my own flesh and bone for being so fucking stupid. For missing so much of her life.
“I’m sorry, Waverley. I didn’t know you’d written to me, but I promise if I’d known, I’d have read your letters every single day over and over while I was away.”
“You’d have tried.” She grins. “My handwriting was really bad in some of them.”
I smile at her sense of humour.
How can Scarlet not take credit for raising her?
She’s incredible.
