Triune

by Willow Polson

  “Need to,” said Barrett. They all nodded, they all knew it.

  “But what about my studio?” said Brian. “I can’t just pick up sticks and leave it. It’s...” he said, trailing off, not sure how to find the words.

  “Special,” said Barrett, to their surprise. He knew what he felt, however, and he was becoming much more inclined to listen to his gut without question. “No, it’s not like you wouldn’t work there any more. You can just go there whenever you want, remember?”

  “Oh! That’s right!” Brian said, eyes widening. A grin spread across his face and he looked between them. “Bungalow, then.”

  Mike blinked. “What?”

  “Bungalow. Like a 1920s...”

  “They’re pretty cool,” interrupted Barrett. He’d just given one up to his ex-wife, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about getting another so soon after. But making it a home with them would be different. Maybe it would help erase the bad memories and replace them with new, better ones.

  “Be nice to be together again,” said Mike softly. “I’ve missed you both so much.”

  Brian pulled them into a hug. “I love you.”

  “Love you too,” said his brothers, holding onto each other.

  The conversation turned to types of houses, and locations, and how big of a kitchen they’d need, and the other details of peoples’ lives as they came together. On it went, into the small hours of the morning, until finally the last thing unresolved was where they’d be.

  “San Jose makes the most sense, though,” Barrett was saying. “That way I can still drive in to work and have it look halfway normal.”

  “But the studio...” Brian knew his argument was weaker, especially considering that he could simply teleport there whenever he wanted. “I really don’t want to leave it. It’s my whole life, and waking up there is really something special.”

  “There’s no other place like it, that’s true,” put in Mike. “And with the windows, it’s like our Batcave or something kind of.”

  “Batcave?” said Brian, confused. Barrett cut off the sidetrack with a raised hand.

  “Look. The bottom line is that Mike and I have to at least try to appear normal on a regular basis, and the bungalow was your idea in the first place. Brian, would you be willing to compromise? What if we found something where you could have a smaller personal studio?”

  “That’s not the majority of what I do, though,” he said, wings flicking with annoyance as he stood up and paced a little. “I also can’t really split up my supplies like that. Why can’t you guys have a secluded place where you leave the car? Or, better yet, sell the thing and use the light rail? You can appear close to a station and then ride it in. It stops a block or two from your office, right?”

  Barrett blinked. He hadn’t thought of that. “That’s doable. But I don’t want to get rid of the car, I might need it to drive a client to lunch or something. And besides, I really love it.” He smiled a little wistfully – he really had grown attached to his car, and part of him would miss taking it for long drives, especially with the stereo system it had.

  “The studio isn’t big enough for all of us to live there,” said Mike. “I’m used to sleeping wherever, pretty much. Barracks, mostly. I’d be happy there if it was big enough, but I doubt Bear would be up for it.”

  “Yeah, not really my kind of thing,” Barrett admitted. On sunny days it was beautiful enough, but the smell of solder and flux and Lava soap on top of the incredibly tiny kitchenette and bathroom, all with the 1970s decor remaining from when it was put in, were beyond the pale for his sensibilities.

  “Okay, what about this. Brian, if we got a place where your room had stained glass windows, or we could put them in, could that work at all?” Mike fiddled with his lip, still half thinking.

  “I guess so... if it’s that or living alone, I can compromise.” Part of Brian’s heart broke a little at the thought of living anywhere but his studio in the perfect, funky old brick building on the outskirts of town. But being without his brothers was impossible. He knew this as well as they did.

  Barrett nodded. “So the sky’s the limit then. No pun intended,” he said with a smirk, the others snickering. “I mean, with regards to location, not size. We’re not the X-Men for crying out loud, we don’t need a huge mansion. Just a three-bedroom bungalow. Shouldn’t be too hard to find something like that in the South Bay.”

  “What? Why the South Bay?” said Brian with a hint of a whine. “I thought you said...”

  “I still need to have something that my office won’t question. I can’t very well have a home address of Tibet or something, can I? My accountant would freak.”

  “No, that’s true,” said Mike with a laugh. Brian grumbled but had to admit that Barrett was not only right, but that his oldest brother’s needs did outweigh his own sentimentality. He stretched, first one wing then the other, then scratched his sides.

  “Okay. I’ll let you guys find some things. I’m going to bed. It’s...” Brian blinked at the clock. “It’s past three in the morning? When did that happen?”

  Mike chuckled. “You didn’t notice? Yeah, bed sounds good. Not as tired as I feel like I should be, though. Weird.”

  Barrett merely nodded slowly, thoughts of houses and locations and their future together and being underwater and various other weirdnesses bouncing around in his head like a room full of ping pong balls. He sat on the couch even after the others had both brushed their teeth and gotten into bed.

  “Bear...?”

  “Huh?” At last Mike’s voice shook him out of his daydreaming, and he realized they’d gone off without him. He brushed his teeth, then rummaged in Mike’s drawers for some spare pajama bottoms.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” said Brian as they all fussed under the blankets, trying to get comfortable.

  Buck ninety-five for my thoughts. I’m a CEO, said Barrett, smirking.

  “Ha ha, very funny,” said Brian sarcastically, but he was smiling too.

  “We’ve got the day off tomorrow,” Mike said with a yawn. “I say we do some house hunting.”

  “Sounds really good,” said Barrett.

  “Sounds perfect,” added Brian. “I love you both so much.”

  “Love you too,” his brothers answered, then Mike turned off the light.

  TWELVE

  The day was growing late, and they still hadn’t found anything. A few houses were nice enough, but nothing really said “home.” Brian had gone back to the studio that morning to get some work done, trusting that his older brothers would know what he liked and needed.

  Mike slumped in the passenger seat, tired of looking, and Barrett sighed in the driver’s seat, tired of driving. Fast food packaging and candy wrappers littered the floor, not even Barrett caring for the moment. They were driving back toward San Jose through an older neighborhood in Los Gatos, bungalow after bungalow going by.

  “See, now why can’t we find a place like these?” Mike muttered, half to himself.

  “Because there’s already people living in them. All the good ones are gone,” answered Barrett, sighing in agreement.

  “Wait,” said Mike, holding up a hand. “Waitwaitwait.... look. Look at that.” He sat up straighter and pointed at a small “For Sale By Owner” yard sign outside a large craftsman-style house. Stacked stone tapered columns held up a generous wraparound porch, and the upper bedroom window had been replaced with stained glass long ago. Or perhaps it had always been there -- the house looked as if it had been in a time capsule, untouched since it was built.

  Several hired men were busy pulling stuff out of the house and tossing it into a dumpster along the curb. The brothers practically jumped out of the car, seeing that a lot of what was being thrown out looked very old, perhaps original to the house.

  “Wait, stop,” said Barrett, his voice almost a command. Despite the fact that the crew didn’t know him from Adam and he wasn’t their boss, they felt some level of authority radiating off him and did as they
were told. Mike went inside to try and locate the owner.

  “Hello...?” he called, his voice echoing in the empty space.

  “Yes?” came the response. A middle-aged woman walked into the living room from the back, holding her wet hands out as if they were covered in something unspeakable.

  “Is this your place? Are you the owner?” Mike looked around, entranced. The house was everything they wanted and more.

  “Yeah, I’m the owner now. Why, you like it?”

  Barrett, get in here, Mike sent, then nodded at the woman. “It’s great. Can we get the grand tour?”

  “And don’t throw out anything else,” Barrett added, walking in. The woman’s eyes narrowed as soon as she saw him.

  “Sure, I guess I could show you around. Not gonna sell this old place unless I show it to people.”

  “We’re brothers, by the way,” said Mike, knowing what the woman was thinking. They could both feel her relax at this bit of information.

  “Brothers, huh?” she said as she led them into the kitchen. “Aren’t you a little old to be playing house together?”

  “Saves money,” said Barrett shortly. “I’m Barrett Mason, this is Mike.” As much as he loved the house, he was already beginning to dislike its current owner.

  “Right. I’m Gail. Nice to meet you. Well anyway, here’s the kitchen and breakfast nook. I’m sure you’ll want to rip all this old crap out. I’ll knock a little off the price for that. I know it needs a lot of updating. My mother never touched anything. I swear to god the place looks just like it did when it was built in 1927.” She snorted derisively, but Mike smiled a little as he looked in the cabinets and under the sink.

  “Is that... is that a cooler cabinet?” asked Barrett, moving over to where his brother was.

  “Isn’t that the weirdest thing?” the owner said. “Who wants a dark, drafty cabinet with a couple of wire shelves? But my mom... she was a little unhinged. I don’t know.”

  Mike opened his mouth to speak, but Barrett gave him a little sly look, quieting him.

  “Yeah, quite a fixer-upper. How much?”

  After a few minutes of hemming and hawing, most of it talking to herself, she set a surprisingly low price, well below the market value. She clearly had no idea what she had, or what it was actually worth.

  “Throw in the contents of the dumpster out there, and we’ll take it.”

  The owner stared at him for a moment before finding her tongue. “What?”

  “Deal or no deal?”

  “But I’m not even done cleaning...”

  “We’ll take care of it.”

  The woman found she had no argument to counter his overly generous offer. As far as she was concerned, the dumpster was nothing more than garbage and a headache.

  “Y... okay, deal, but you haven’t even seen the rest of...”

  “Perfect. I can give you the down right now.”

  “But... you haven’t... what do you mean right now...?”

  Barrett got out his phone. “You have PayPal?”

  She stared at him, then at the phone. “Yeah...”

  “What’s your email?”

  After another moment of stunned silence, she gave it to him. He typed it in, tapped the screen a few times, then turned and showed her that he had, in fact, just sent a huge amount of money to her account.

  “Did you seriously...”

  “Yep. There was a cap on how much I could send all at once, but I can give you the rest as soon as I sell my condo. I’ll even tack on some interest. Here’s my card, all my contact information is there.”

  She stared at his card, dumbfounded and speechless.

  “I’ve got some decent money saved up. And shouldn’t you call Brian?” suggested Mike.

  “Oh, right, hold on.” Barrett took a few steps over toward the still-open front door and gazed out at the dumpster as he hit speed dial, one of the workers eying his car a little too closely as they waited for further instructions.

  “Brian? Who’s that?” asked the disoriented woman, still holding out her now-dry hands in the same “my hands have just been in something gross” position as when they’d met.

  “My brother.”

  “I thought he was your brother,” she said, indicating Barrett with a tip of her head.

  “I have two brothers. This is a three bedroom house,” Mike explained as if she were a little slow.

  She blinked at him. “How did you know it was a...”

  Bear? Why are you calling me on the phone?

  “Brian, hey, I found the perfect house,” Barrett said loudly into the phone, interrupting the woman. “I’m standing here with the owner right now,” he said in a meaningful tone, hoping Brian would take the hint as to why he needed to call and not just talk straight into his brother’s head.

  “Oh, right, I get you,” he said, understanding. “I’ll be there in a few.”

  “Wait, aren’t you still in...” But the phone cut off before he could say anything. About five minutes later, Brian knocked on the open front door. Mike’s eyes widened a little, but then he recovered and excused himself to the kitchen, where he rubbed his temples in frustration.

  “Oh, it’s perfect,” Brian said, beaming and looking around the living room.

  “How did you...” the woman started to say, and Brian realized his mistake.

  “I... was... in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by,” he tossed out with a weak chuckle, hoping the joke would diffuse the situation.

  “GPS,” said Barrett, clearing his throat. You were at a store up the road...

  “Yes, that’s right,” said Brian, looking over at his oldest brother, nodding. “I happened to be at a store up the road, and our phones are GPS linked.”

  “Oh... that’s... convenient,” she said, apparently okay with this reasonable, normal explanation. After all, what other explanation could there be? The three of them all mentally breathed a sigh of relief.

  Christ, you gotta... Mike started to say, returning from the kitchen.

  Be more careful, I know, I know, Brian sent back, turning to look at more of the house’s features.

  “Yeah, it’s handy,” said Barrett belatedly, pretending to be distracted by a text message. “So, Brian, we thought you could take the front upstairs bedroom, that’s where the stained glass is.”

  The workers were paid for their time and dismissed, information exchanged, a phone call made to verify that the money had, in fact, been transferred to her PayPal account, and the woman dropped the keys to her mother’s house into Barrett’s hand.

  “Something... I just trust you. Maybe it’s crazy, but... I know you’re good for the other part. I know where to find you, anyway,” she said with a little laugh.

  “We’ll take good care of the place.” said Brian with a kind smile. She smiled back, gaze a little distant.

  “You know, when I came here after she died, all I could see was all her old crap, and all the years she insisted on staying here rather than move to a better place. But it does have kind of a neat vibe, if you like that sort of stuff. A lot of memories, too.” She turned toward the window to the right of the front door, a large central pane surrounded by little four-inch panes, each one a different color of glass. “We used to have our Christmas tree right there...”

  Barrett put a gentle hand on her shoulder and she turned, eyes bright.

  “We’ll take care of it, Gail. Promise. That’s a great place for a tree. I think we’ll put ours there, too,” Mike said.

  “That’d... that’d be nice. We’ll keep in touch,” she said, but didn’t even know why she was saying it. Faced with actually handing over the old place and never coming back, she hesitated, but could feel that something was right in what she was doing. That they were good people.

  After a few last goodbyes, the door closed behind her with a soft click and they were alone inside their new house.

  “I love it. I really do,” breathed Brian. “Does need some cleaning, but... it’s got su
ch a soul to it. So much attention to detail and craftsmanship.”

  “That’s why it’s called a Craftsman,” said Barrett with a chuckle, admiring the dark wood paneling on the walls and ceiling of the large living room, complete with clinker brick fireplace and matching bookcases on either side. It was truly an exceptional example of classic 1920s architecture, and, other than the usual debris of living here and there, looked as if nothing had been altered at all. Any new paint was matched carefully to the original color, the woodwork was regularly wiped down and oiled, bricks and tiles scrubbed clean as spring. Any small marks caused by the play of children and the moving of furniture only added to its character.

  “I guess I know what we’re doing tonight,” said Mike scrubbing at his short hair. “Cleaning. But we’ve also got kind of a problem. I don’t have any furniture. That was a furnished apartment, right?”

  “Right. But I’ve got some extra stuff, and we can get some things tomorrow,” said Barrett.

  “I have a few things, but not a lot,” added Brian with a little sad sigh. He’d never bothered to accumulate much stuff, because he’d gone almost directly from his last foster home to living at the studio. Now, however, it was suddenly important, but he didn’t want to strip everything out of the studio in case they wanted to crash there sometime, and a lot of the furnishings had belonged to Mr. Jefferson and weren’t really something that would work in their new place. He chuckled to himself at the mental image of the bench made from a car’s bench seat sitting in their living room.

  “Tell you what,” said Mike, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Bear can go be a big important CEO tomorrow, and you and I can go furniture shopping. Like I said, I have a pretty good chunk of savings, and he’s already got plenty of stuff.”

  Brian grinned. “I’d like to have more time with you,” he said, hugging him tight.

  “All right,” Mike chuckled, “Don’t break me in half. Okay with you?” he said, looking at Barrett.

  “Sounds like a plan. Why don’t we just sweep up a little tonight, then we can go hang out at Mike’s like we did last night. Tomorrow you guys will have your stuff, and after work and shopping, we can finish cleaning. Doesn’t look like there’s that much to do, really. Whoever had it before kept it spotless.”