Triune

by Willow Polson

  Mike nodded, then picked up his water glass and toasted. “To new beginnings.”

  “New beginnings,” his brothers replied, and they touched their glasses together and drank.

  The servings were generous, and they flew back to Brian’s studio with a paper bag full of leftovers, landing on the roof as usual. A chill breeze was starting to blow, and they appreciated the warmth of the studio once they’d slipped back down through the roof. Brian popped the food in his fridge, and returned to the main part of the studio to join them again.

  They all left their wings out as if by some unspoken agreement -- it was starting to feel so comfortable and natural that none of them really thought about it, and they were beginning to get more used to how the others looked, too. It wasn’t such a jarring thing to see the shoulders of huge feathered wings standing up proud from behind each others’ backs. It almost felt a little familiar, somehow.

  “Getting anywhere with Joe, here?” Mike said, hiking a thumb at the huge Saint Joseph window that was on the worktable.

  “Yeah, got the damaged stuff all taken out, and I was reshaping the leading when you guys showed up. It can be kind of stretchy and gets misshapen easily when damage happens. Not the stuff you did,” he added, turning to his brother. “The rock or baseball or whatever went through it before twisted up the metal. Usually I have to solder in new pieces, but I think I can just reshape this one. Having to cut in new pieces of lead makes it a little weaker and I don’t like to do it.”

  They listened, interested. Barrett in particular was starting to appreciate the amount of work that went into what Brian did, and wondered why he’d never come by to see his studio before the events of the past few days. He loved going to other countries to see what other artists were doing, but for some reason had never thought to do that with his own brother.

  Happy that they were so interested, he went on to describe how he set aside samples of the broken pieces so he could get as accurate a color match as possible, and how he used old books and photos to guess at the colors of pieces that were missing completely.

  “What about new stuff? You ever design anything new?” asked Mike.

  “Not lately. The repair part has been keeping me too busy, but I do have a sketchbook for when business slows down. There’s a shop in the touristy part of town that always buys my stuff.”

  Barrett smiled. His youngest brother was more of a resourceful businessman than he’d realized or given him credit for. Hands on his hips, he turned and looked at the wall of windows, darkened by night once again. His gaze couldn’t help but fall on the tree, the odd lines in its bark now making perfect sense, even when not combined with the illuminating peacock’s feathers.

  Water... he thought, not aware that they could hear, since he wasn’t specifically projecting to them.

  “What? Oh... the thing. The diagram. Yeah,” said Brian, turning to see that Barrett was looking at the windows. “Water’s the next stop, I guess. But then what’s after that? That’s what I can’t figure out. It’s a metaphor, you know?”

  Barrett’s wings flicked a little with annoyance. “I don’t really like water.” He also didn’t like that his private thoughts had been overheard.

  “Water’s not a metaphor,” said Mike, standing next to them.

  “No, not water, I mean the void. What comes after,” said Brian.

  They fell quiet for a little while, thinking about this. Then Mike had an idea.

  “What if it’s an actual like... cave or something? If it’s the elements, and we’ve done the others...”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Brian. “Oh, I wonder if that’s it! Earth, and you go into the earth where it’s dark, right?”

  Barrett only grunted. A cave at least sounded better than a potential run-in with the ocean or some other large body of water. His feathers ruffled a bit as he shuddered. He didn’t do well with unknown situations, and he was realizing that he’d conveniently forgotten that they were still on some kind of mysterious journey together. Something involving clues hidden in stained glass and metaphoric voids and heaven and saints and possibly a dragon at some point. He pressed his lips together and went in to make them all some tea. His brothers, realizing that something was eating at him, knew it was best to just leave him alone.

  It was all too “DaVinci Code” for Barrett’s tastes, and the fact that there was some kind of water thing involved made him think back to the time that he’d almost drowned on a trip to a lake when he was six. All he could remember of it was looking up through the water at the distorted surface and feeling like he was made of lead, unable to get back up, the light above him getting dimmer and brighter at the same time. He’d learned to swim since then, but had always been uneasy around bodies of water, especially large lakes and the ocean. Underwater film footage of any kind gave him chills.

  A hand on his shoulder made him jump and spin around, wings flaring out halfway in alarm, tea packets spilling in every direction. It was only Mike, who put his hands up in the universal “hey, no harm meant” gesture. With a sigh, Barrett knelt down and started picking up the teas, Mike getting down to help.

  You all right?

  Yeah. Just... don’t like water.

  I know. It’ll be okay. We’re together.

  Barrett looked up into his brother’s eyes. Confidence and concern looked back, and Barrett could see the love there too. Could feel it coming from Michael like warmth from a sunny window. Somehow Barrett could also feel that it would be okay, just as he’d said. They had each other, and the confidence his brother radiated was helping a lot. Nothing had ever held Mike back, and even this, strange and unfamiliar as it was, was just a speed bump in the road they were all traveling on together.

  Barrett smiled a little and stood back up, tucking the errant tea packets back into their basket on the table. “Sometimes I need a leader too.”

  Mike smiled back and pulled him into a hug. “I’m here. Always.”

  Brian came in then, and before he could even say anything, they pulled him in too, standing there for a long time, just feeling each others’ warmth, listening to each others’ breathing, the solid normalcy of the Masons despite the brush of soft feathers on hand and arm.

  Tea? said Brian at last, and Barrett nodded.

  “Sorry, I kind of derailed myself on Memory Lane there.” He chuckled and finished heating three mugs of water in the little microwave.

  “You’re also mixing your metaphors.”

  “What?”

  “Trains derail, cars drive down lanes,” Brian said with a little amused smirk.

  “Also not really a metaphor,” said Mike, smirking at his younger brother.

  “Sure it is. They are. What...?” said Brian, confused.

  “Analogy.”

  “No, metaphor. Derail like a train.”

  “Then it’s a simile.”

  “No, it’s...”

  “TEA,” said Barrett loudly, putting down the hot mugs a little loudly and clearing his throat. His brothers grinned at each other and sat down like good little boys, knowing they didn’t dare continue the argument. At least, not until later when he was out of earshot.

  They spent a little more time discussing the water and earth things that were coming. Would they be challenges? Tests? Or just familiarity like air had been? And then there was the last circle on the diagram.

  “So if that’s heaven,” started Mike, but Brian shook his head.

  “It’s ‘godhead,’ which is like total enlightenment. Nirvana? Is that right? The Buddhist thing?”

  “Heck if I know.” Mike shrugged, then finished off his tea. He noticed it was getting colder in the studio, but for some reason didn’t feel cold himself. The wind had picked up and the first big drops of the spring storm tapped on the windows, blown at an angle. Suddenly Brian stood up.

  “Oh god... the skylight. The roof’s gonna leak if we get much rain.”

  Mike winced. “What can we do about it, though? Do you have any plastic or a big ta
rp or anything?”

  “No. Dammit.” With a resigned sigh, he hunted down a big canvas painter’s dropcloth and put it over the Saint Joseph window, then moved anything that could get ruined out from under the plywood patch in the roof. “At least the rest of the roof is tight.”

  “Hell. Do you want to stay at my place tonight?” offered Mike, but Brian shook his head.

  “No, I better stay here and keep an eye on things. Put down buckets if I need to. And like I just said, everything else is tight. It’s not going to leak on my clothes or bed or anything.”

  “Right. Well, if you change your mind...”

  They looked at each other, Mike knowing in the back of his mind that it was partly an excuse to be close to his brother for the night, and Brian starting to pick up on it too.

  “I’d invite you guys to stay again, but there’s not really anywhere to sleep with the roof leaking. And you need to be fresh for work tomorrow.”

  Barrett sighed and ran his hands through his wavy hair, still a little windblown from earlier. “Yeah, that’s true.”

  Silence fell over them and they just looked at each other, procrastinating like they had on the roof of Barrett’s office building. The difference this time being that they knew they were supposed to be together, even if they didn’t say it to each other. They didn’t need to say it. They knew it like they knew their names.

  Barrett was going over this in his mind, but torn whether to bring it up and just say it – some part of him still wanted to cling to normalcy and forget any of this had happened. Brian, however, had the thinnest filter and dove right in.

  “So what are we going to do?”

  The question hung there, the rain beating down on the windows. His brothers were realizing they’d have to fly home in the pouring rain, but they all knew Brian had asked a much bigger question.

  “Dunno,” Barrett said finally. “Cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess.”

  “We’re kind of there now,” said Mike softly. But before they could discuss it any further, a tiny waterfall began dribbling out of the ceiling at one corner of the plywood patch.

  “Shit!” squeaked Brian, grabbing a bucket and putting it under the leak, trying to guess how long it would be before he’d have to empty it, then wondering if he had a plastic trashcan that was watertight.

  Mike was feeling worse and worse about smashing the skylight to begin with, and sighed heavily. “Look... tell you what. I’ll camp out here tonight and help with this mess. It’s the least I can do. And I’ve slept in far worse places,” he said with a fond smile. “If you have some blankets, or maybe a sleeping bag, I’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah... yeah, I do. Remember the last campout?” Brian smiled and went to get them, Barrett increasingly torn. He was starting to fidget and look between them, the clock, the rain-soaked windows and the leaky roof. He didn’t want to get himself and his suit soaking wet by flying home, but he didn’t relish the idea of sleeping on the floor in his clothes either. And, most importantly, he couldn’t stand the thought of being without them.

  “Uh...” he finally grunted, “What if we move the kitchen table back and put the futon mattress in the doorway kind of?”

  Mike glanced into the kitchen, smiling, then nodded. “I think that’ll work.”

  Soon they had the futon back on the floor, Barrett’s anxiety level dropping by the second. All of them could sense the energy in the room becoming calmer as the problem of having to be apart was solved for one more night.

  Smashed together on the mattress as before, Barrett idly watched the rain drumming on the windows and running into the bucket on the floor. He chuckled to himself a little, wondering what the people in his office would think if they saw him like this, wings or not. But that didn’t matter. An alarm had been set to give himself and Mike plenty of time to get back to San Jose and shower and change, even if it was still raining.

  And, in the morning, it was still raining. The bucket had been emptied several times during the night, and it seemed the storm had no end in sight, unusual for late spring in the west. Barrett and Mike arrived in San Jose soaking wet after a brief stop in Sacramento, feathers dripping despite the natural tendency for water to roll off and resistance to outside forces they seemed to have while flying. But this was a wet, tropical storm from across the Pacific, and the flood warnings were starting to pop up in the counties that usually struggled with such things.

  Brian had gone out to get a huge tarp for the roof, and thanks to the ability of flight, was able to get it in place without too much trouble, pinning down the edges with lumber from the alley. Secure once again, he set back to work on “Saint Joe,” music blasting as usual, shutting out the other things from his mind until he had to worry about them later.

  Barrett and Mike arrived at the office a bit later than usual, not that it was a problem for the CEO and his brother to arrive late. After a quick meeting with Angela, David, and a couple of people in the design department, the brothers retreated to Barrett’s office, closing the door and the blinds behind them.

  “I don’t know about you, but I can’t concentrate worth a damn,” muttered Barrett, looking out at the rain. Mike nodded, sensing his brother’s case of the nerves, and it wasn’t from coffee.

  “You’re really keyed up about this water thing.”

  “Yeah, and it’s raining like hell out there,” Barrett said, sighing. “You think it’s coming? Is the rain part of it? Or am I paranoid or what? I don’t know, Mike, I just don’t.”

  His brother put a comforting hand on his shoulder. It’ll be okay. We can heal from anything now. You know what I think?

  Barrett looked at him, putting a hand over his. What?

  I bet we can’t even drown. That’s what I think. Remember the fire? All that smoke? We went right through that.

  Barrett’s eyes widened. “You’re right.” Then he realized he was switching between speaking verbally and directly mind-to-mind and winced. “Dammit, we have to be more careful about how we talk.”

  “Yeah, but we’re in your office, so it’s cool. Not like it’s bugged,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Probably. Hopefully,” Barrett said with a little wry smile. “I wouldn’t put it past David, though.”

  “Seriously?” Mike blinked at him, wondering if he’d misjudged the man. Barrett laughed.

  “Nah, I’m just kidding. He’s a good guy.” His gaze unfocused on the blinds separating his office from the rest of his employees, thinking. Mike left him alone, lost in thoughts of his own for a time, the rain continuing to beat against the windows. A soft knock at the door brought them both back.

  “Yeah...?” Barrett said, knowing it was Angela. Only she knocked that way, and he opened the door to let her in.

  “Were you going to get out that catalog? The one we talked about at the meeting?” she asked tentatively.

  “Oh crap. Yes, sorry...” Barrett rummaged through the credenza, then handed a file to her. “Sorry, I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

  Angela nodded and smiled a little, looked between them, then left, closing the door behind her. Barrett sank into his chair with a sigh.

  “I don’t know how I can do this, Mike. Not any more. Not like this.”

  His brother nodded, understanding completely. He knew what “like this” meant.

  “I mean, how can I sit here, in this office,” Barrett continued, “when I know what’s coming. When all I can think about is...” When all I can think about is flying with my brothers. I don’t know what I’m turning into, but I know one thing, I’m starting to suck as a CEO.

  Their gaze met and held. Mike could see the struggle going on inside his older brother. Could feel it. Mason Imports was his whole life, but now his life had taken a dramatic sudden left turn into some unknown foreign country without a map. And he couldn’t tell if he liked it or not, but definitely didn’t want to go back, either. Couldn’t go back. Barrett knew his fate, just as they all did, and had no choice but to roll with it.
Mike moved over and stood next to him.

  “Water thing’s not helping, either,” he said.

  “Water thing’s not helping,” replied Barrett, closing his eyes.

  And still the rain battered the glass, through an awkward lunch, through another brief meeting, through some more training for Mike, through an afternoon of self-doubt for Barrett. Flood warnings were in effect in seven counties and the number was continuing to rise, along with the water and his stress level. Everyone in the office could see it, and finally David cornered him near the end of the day.

  “Hey, are you all right?” he asked quietly. David was boisterous most of the time, but when someone was having a problem, his bedside manner was amazing, even if that someone was his boss. He loved children and had done some moonlighting as a party clown in his younger days, knowing just how to entertain or even soothe a crying child.

  “It’s... personal. I don’t know. I can’t really talk about it,” Barrett finally muttered, stealing a glance at Mike. David nodded.

  “Family stuff. I understand. Look, why don’t you go home. Maybe take tomorrow off.”

  “Take... but the gift show meeting! And there’s the ad to work up for...”

  “I can handle it. Seriously.”

  Barrett fidgeted, unsure what to do. He’d always had a hand in every meeting, every decision, and had only taken time off when he was at death’s door with the flu.

  “Barrett. I got this. One meeting and some paperwork is all you’re going to miss. Mental health day, all right?”

  With a deep sigh, the CEO of Mason Imports finally nodded a little. “All right. Tomorrow off.”

  David clapped him on the shoulder. “Get outta here, you bum! You’re fired!” They both laughed quietly, Barrett even cracking a little smile.

  “Fine, fine. Mental health day. Don’t break the company while I’m gone.”

  “Only a little. Sign might say David’s Imports when you get back.”

  Barrett smirked, then went into his office and retrieved his jacket. To his mild surprise, his initial reaction was to go up the stairwell to the roof access, and when he shared this with Mike, the two of them quietly snickered all the way down to his car.