BREAKING THE THREES

For the Rangel brothers, things have always happened in threes. Three brothers, all born in the three o'clock hour in the third month. Three teeth for the tooth fairy. Three cases of chicken pox. Three years later, three broken bones, one per brother, following a strange and stupid incident involving three tree branches. Three years after that, three suspensions from school for three separate unfortunate events, followed by three sudden cases of appendicitis three years later.

They were The Threes. They couldn't help it.

As time went by and The Threes were separated by circumstance and the trappings of adulthood, it seemed the bonds were broken and they forgot about these odd three-way synchronicities, even when waking up for no apparent reason at 3:33 in the morning and sending a three-way group text about nothing in particular. But then tragedy strikes the family once ... then again three years later ... and The Threes can no longer deny that this pattern must be more than mere coincidence.

Which means they have three years to break it. But how?