A communal rustling from all around tells me that everyone is opening their individual booklets and I'm still staring at the cover, willing myself not to cry.
I quickly turn the page, aware that by my side, Will gives me a scrutinising gaze.
The first item is the eulogy that Mum arranged for the Reverend to read aloud. She put herself in charge of getting the booklets done; it made sense since Paul owns a printing shop over in Milton Keynes.
I blink to try and clear my eyes so I can focus on the text. Even through my blurry vision, however, I register that the text printed in front of me isn't the same as what appeared in the newspaper. At the same time, I am aware of much rustling and an outbreak of whispering all around me in the church. The Reverend has stopped talking and is staring down, apparently confused, at the notes in front of him.
Mum lets out a dramatic gasp from behind me and I try to force my brain to take in the fact that there is a white square of paper with different wording pasted over where the eulogy should be.
April Louise Hampton
Beloved daughter, liar, fake, cheater.
Most of you will probably choose to remember April Hampton as a beautiful woman who brought light and love to all those who had the good fortune to meet her. You will all choose to ignore what she really was. No one will mention how much suffering she caused others.
That is because most of you don't know what she did.
Very few people know the part she played in the death of little Paige Wakefield.
The quiet of the church hall suddenly erupts into chaos and loud, angry murmuring. I jump when a strong hand grips mine and I vaguely realise that Will is trying to loosen the grip I have on the paper in my damp hands. The pristine white crumples and tears as he finally pulls it from my frozen grip.
The room buzzes and the noise around me dissolves into a blur of noise and black.
3
I feel numb. Exhausted and drained. Anything I did feel a couple of hours ago has slipped away. Now I'm just a blank empty void. And right now I'm terrified of what might fill the space if I ever start to feel again.
The shock of earlier knocked the wind out of me. I was barely coping as it was and seeing those words printed boldly on the paper, I felt something inside break.
Mum was the same, except she had no qualms about people seeing how much the incident got to her. She is downstairs at the wake now, wine in hand, sobbing and letting everyone fuss over her.
I have taken refuge in one of the guest rooms of my father's house. It still feels strange to think of this place as only my dad's – this used to be our family home where my sister and I grew up, before the divorce. Instead Mum now lives in Milton Keynes with Paul. She only ever day-trips up to York for Eva's birthday or a fleeting visit at Christmas before she and her husband jet off somewhere to spend the festive season in the sun.
Will and I have arranged to stay here for a couple of weeks to spend some time with Dad who looked thoroughly relieved when we made the suggestion. He might not always know how to show it, but family means a lot to him. On the surface, April's death seems to have really hit him hard. He keeps talking about how fragile life is and how we should see more of each other. Just this morning he was remarking about how he hardly knows Eva.
With a sudden pang, I had wanted to tell him that I felt the same way. Gone are the days where my little girl would run into my arms at the school gates, throwing herself into an enthusiastic bear hug that would unsteady me for a second. We would walk home hand-in-hand and she would chatter excitedly about her day. I long for our movie weekends when Eva would cuddle up under a blanket with Will and myself on the sofa with some burned popcorn and a packet of Revels scattered over the coffee table. I smile when I think of how Eva would always scrunch her small nose up if she bit into a coffee-flavoured chocolate.
Despite the fact that my daughter still lives under the same roof, I feel like we hardly speak any more. Between school and her online social life, I feel as though we are virtually strangers.
Perhaps a funeral is not the best way to start the summer holidays, but I'd had a fleeting thought that some time away from our usual routine would give us some time to get to know each other again and for Eva to spend a little time with her grandparents.
Only now our little visit has turned even sourer. I throw yet another tissue into the small waste paper bin under the desk and sit down at the mirrored dressing table. My reflection shows that I look much worse than I imagined. My hazel eyes are blotchy and red and my nose matches, making my misery all the more obvious. I rummage through my makeup bag and pull out some concealer to repair the damage. When I've finished it is still obvious I've been crying just by the look of my bloodshot eyes, but it will have to do.
Right now I resent the way the room has been decorated. I haven't stayed overnight in the house since before I left for University and it couldn't be more different than how it used to look.
This was always a guest bedroom, even when we were little. Sometimes, April and I would sleep in here for no other reason than just because it was a fun thing to do. We would revel in the comfort of the king-sized bed, so vast compared to our own singles. Long after lights-out, April would pull me close to her and whisper in my ear scandalous tales of what the older girls in school got up to, which teachers she thought were perverts and other exciting rumours involving seemingly-respectable members of the community.
I would drink up all the details raptly, delighted to be privy to secrets only the older children knew about.
Now, however, the walls of this guest room are plastered with bold floral wallpaper instead of the calming magnolia Mum had on all the walls throughout our childhood. The freshly decorated look features throughout the house and I realise it must be for the sake of Dad's new business venture – running a bed and breakfast. It suddenly hits me that the summer holidays must be a peak time for tourists wanting to stay here and I am grateful for Dad wanting to have us around despite how much it must be costing him in lost earnings.
I can't shake the feeling, however, that Dad has deliberately changed some things around the house almost for the sake of it, as though he is trying to remove my mother's touch from the house. Even the act of opening a bottle of wine with dinner last night wasn't as simple as it should have been because I struggled to find where the utensils were kept.
I get to my feet heavily and move over to the window. Dad might have succeeded where the interior is concerned, but in the garden, I can still see Mum. The summer house she had custom-built is still standing, dated but proud and the roses she nurtured almost as much as April and I are still going strong; they weave sturdily through the trellis archway leading to the sweeping countryside vista surrounding the house.
For a few moments, I am lost in thought of this house in its prime; myself as a child, April – alive and well by my side; hand-in-hand, playing in the garden or running through the rose archway into the wild countryside beyond; my parents together and happy; the sun shining down on endless summer days of exploring, pushing the boundary set down by our parents further than they ever knew or could imagine. Of course, not every day was perfect. Thoughts of darker times creep into my mind and the hairs on my arms prickle warningly.
The beginning of the local woodland is visible from the top floor of the house. That was an area strictly forbidden to us. Our mother warned us that bad things happened to children that wandered into the woods.