CHAPTER TWO

Arthur's childhood home was exactly how he remembered it. The house had been repainted recently, maybe a year ago, in the same yellow he knew. The lawn was still the same, plus or minus a few plants as some died and needed to be replaced. The biggest difference was the backyard, which was now devoid of playground equipment and kids' toys. Instead there were lawn chair sets and a rock garden where the sandbox used to be.

Still, he rang the doorbell instead of barging in. DW just walked in, always saying "Well I grew up here," but Arthur felt it was wrong. Just because you grew up somewhere didn't make it home anymore, and now that Jane probably wasn't coming home, he felt the need to ring the doorbell even more.

Kate came to the door wearing one of his old concert t-shirts, hand-me-downs from Cousin Mo, and some cut-off shorts. She gestured him inside without speaking, but as she walked back up the stairs, she started talking:

"I'm glad you actually came over to help me. I'm working on something really, really important, but if Dad finds out, he'll probably have me admitted to the mental ward. It's big, really, and I'm surprised more people aren't noticing it. Well, some are noticing it, but most people aren't," Kate rambled, sinking down into a spinning computer chair. She turned her legs into the chair and swung back to face the keyboard, not even bothering to make sure her brother actually followed.

But Arthur did follow and he heard every word, not that he understood a single bit of it.

Kate continued, "I've been looking into some numbers. Some are based on Facebook posts and other social media, or word of mouth, and others are like real, cold-hard facts I found online, and look," Kate said, pulling up an Excel spreadsheet she'd clearly made herself. The color scheme was pink and purple with white cell lines—

Arthur forced himself to look past the girlish scheme and examine the data. He knew how to reach charts, namely thanks to the great Mr. Ratburn, who had eventually taught all of the Read children. DW picked up on some of it, but Kate seemed to ignore quite a few parts, such as titling your graph and actually saying what the numbers mean.

"Well?" Kate asked flatly.

"I have no idea what this is. It's just numbers, and the colors are distracting. Sometimes color doesn't help," Arthur warned.

Kate scoffed and rolled her eyes, "Look at the window bar. I know it's pink too, but I think your retinas will stay intact. Do you see what the spreadsheet is called?"

"It's a workbook like this, and it's called STROKES IN ELWOOD CITY. Is that what you've been working on, seeing who all has had strokes?" Arthur asked.

"Of course I have. I started at first just to see how often this happened, then I found this spreadsheet and downloaded it. Those numbers are from the last ten years, concrete numbers that have been made official. These numbers from the last four years are speculative because they haven't been proven with cross-referencing or whatever. This year's numbers are all estimates, math I did myself and backed up here," she said, clicking to another page done up in a blinding combination of blue and green, "This is a list of everyone I know that's had a stroke."

"That's a lot of people. And it's just from this past year?" Arthur asked. Kate nodded and watched as her brother sank into a chair beside her, "Well, you need to add one more. Dad said he saw Ed Crosswire getting wheeled in and he looked just like Mom. And Millicent had a stroke a few months ago," he added, watching her type information into new cells. He looked to his sister and tried to read her thoughts, see what she was thinking, but he knew if he just waited long enough—

"We've already doubled the average, and even last year's higher numbers don't compensate for this. You shouldn't have almost the same number as last year before summer has really started. It's like the beginning of June, not the end of November. Something big is happening here that's causing people to have strokes, Mom included," Kate said with the urgency of a child.

Arthur forgot how young she was quite a bit. She was so much smarter than him and DW, probably him and DW combined, and she always knew when to talk and when to keep her mouth shut, unless it was something she felt was important. She was always that way, and he doubted that was something that would ever change about her.

"Well, you need to do research on strokes, see what makes them happen. This very well could be a side effect of the Baby Boomer era, where a lot of people are reaching the same age at the same time, which makes numbers seem higher when they're—"

"Don't tell me they're not because they are," Kate interrupted with a fierce tone. She kept it up, "Listen here, Arthur. I know what I'm doing, and I've already looked into what causes strokes and when people should start having them. People your age can have them, but that doesn't mean it happens very often. Yet you've got two classmates who've had strokes. Fern and Sue Ellen are both receiving at-home care. Their moms lead the pack, and they liveblog everything. I know they were too young to have strokes, namely because you're not the only one with a classmate in the hospital."

The way she said it told him exactly who it was. Arthur's eyes instinctively fell on the large board Kate added to what was once his wall when he lived at home. On that board, his father glued a bulletin board to make a custom-sized wall mount for Kate's things. Where DW put up pictures of people in bands that she printed out on the home computer, Kate had real photographs of her and her best friends, Mei-Lin Barnes and Candice Jones, a girl they met in preschool and accepted into their circle, accepted being the key word. Even Candice knew she was just someone they allowed near them. Kate and Mei-Lin were the real BFF's, and now—

"Mei-Lin had a stroke two weeks ago. Binky came by and told me what happened because their parents just couldn't. She was about to get a scholarship for how smart she was, but now? Now she's just like mom turned out to be, drooling on herself and unable to really do much of anything. They say the prognosis is terrible. They cleared out the clots, but they couldn't fix the damage," Kate said, looking up to Arthur with tears in her eyes, "And the worst part? Mom I understand because we didn't find her for a while. I was doing something for school and was waiting for them to text me to come home for dinner. I just thought they'd forgotten, but no, Dad was dealing with her. And I was okay. I mean, I wish I would've gone home to work there. Instead Mom had to lay there for four hours.

"But Mei-Lin? She had her stroke at dinner, in front of everyone. They were out to eat just a block from the hospital. The stroke was so bad it put her in Mom's place despite the close proximity. And all of these others? You said it yourself that Ed Crosswire looked just like Mom. Well, Millicent did too. She was in a boutique and a nurse was there, like an RN not some clean-up nurse who only deals with babies. Ed? He was either in his office or on the job or something. He was probably surrounded by people, taken for help immediately, and in surgery without question, especially with all the money he has. But that's where everyone is even again. Anyone who's had a stroke like this has the worst kind—left side, very large. They aren't coming back from it."

Arthur cleared his throat before nodding, "I see your point, Kate. I agree with you. It's strange that so many people are having the same kind of stroke regardless of age. I just…I don't know what else we can do. You can't handle this on your own."

Kate scoffed, "Dad sent you here but told you to make me stop. Okay, I can do that, but only if you let me talk to someone who can do something about this."

"Alright," Arthur agreed, "I know just who to take you to."