Attachment

chapter five | family

ALEXIS MAXWELL

The plane is currently landing at Laguardia airport in NYC. As great as I was hoping it would feel to be home when it came time, it sucks that it had to be under these circumstances. I feel awful because my step-brothers have always accepted me as their sister and I've been ignoring them.

Stepping off of the plane I start making my way to the luggage center and grab my suitcase. For an airport that is in the city like this, it's very slow today. I see my oldest step-brother, Daniel waves me over to the four of them.

They all tackle me into a hug and right away I'm getting bombarded with the typical questions that someone asks you after you lose a loved one. Or two.

'Are you okay?'
'We're here for you.'
'You're not alone in this
'They'll always be looking down on you.'

It's not like I don't appreciate them, because I do, it's just with all the stress of this, school, and honestly everything else it's just a lot.

"I'm getting better, guys. What about you? How are you holding up?" I ask them, I'm not the only one who needs to be checked on.

"We're doing okay too. Do you want to come with us now to the fine real home so that we can make arrangements for Wednesday?" Daniel asks me.

"Sure. What about the will? I want to know what happens to the house? Are they going to sell it?" I ask anxiously. I don't want to live in NYC when I'm done with school anyway, but at the same time, I don't want the family home to get sold either.

"The four of us need to get down there to get the well-sorted, that is our next stop after we make arrangements at the funeral home." Daniel keeps answering my questions.

"Come on, Lex, we have a few things to get done today so we should get started." My second oldest step-brother, Diego said.

We are in two cars, driving to the funeral home to verify any last-minute plans for the funeral, which is being held on Wednesday. I'm sitting in the backseat of the car with Daniel driving, and Diego in the passenger seat. "Hey, are Leana and Freya around?" I ask them, referring to their wives.

Daniel is married to Leana and together they have three kids. Elijah- who is ten, William- who is 7, and Thomas- who is six.

Diego is married to Freya and the two of them have two kids. There is Thomas and Roman who are both twins and are five.

"Alright, here we are. Leana and Freya are at Mom and Brian's house with Milan, Tatiana, and all the kids.

Tatiana is Ryder's wife. Together, they have Lucy who is two, and Caroline who is about to turn one in a few months.

Milan is Julian's wife. They, are yet to have kids but are in the process of having a surrogate.

"All right, let's do this I guess," I mutter and open the front entrance doors of the funeral home.

"Hi, our dad and step-mom have their funeral on Wednesday and we just wanted to make sure that everything was all set up and ready to go," I told the receptionist with a fake smile to hide how I feel about this whole thing.

"Of course, and you are you?" She asked looking at Daniel, Diego, Ryder, and Julian. "Her step-brothers" Julian replies shortly. He tends to talk as little as possible in times like these.

We've been sitting in the funeral director's office for about an hour when she lets us go. "Okay everyone, that should be just about everything, you're all set for Wednesday. Now just to be clear this is going to be a closed casket because of the severity of the injuries." She says. "W-what?" I ask, finally breaking down.