third grade anymore. Plus, the harder I thought about it the more I felt that the man I’d seen earlier wasn’t Gideon at all. Just some passing stranger stopping in our small town, probably rented a room at the Big Buck Motel across from the Shopper Mart and was now about to meet with a local realtor to buy a hunting camp. Perhaps he resembled Mr. Pierce, strongly, but that was all it was. Yep, that was it. A case of mistaken identity.
I turned off Main Street onto Alberton Avenue. My parents’ home was the first house off Main on Alberton, and I hustled up the slick stone path to the front door and let myself in, turning to shuck off my coat and wet shoes before stepping onto the new rose carpeting. The smell of roasting meat tickled my nose. My stomach rumbled. Guess the apple that I’d forced down during a meeting with Pastor Nichols from the Presbyterian Church had worn off.
He served on the finance committee for the carnival and had plenty of fresh ideas to add to mine. Pastor Nichols was a young man of the cloth, fresh out of college last year, and had really stirred things up when he’d arrived to replace Pastor Gwinn who’d retired and sadly died three years ago. Pastor Nichols was one of those hipster cool men of God who marched in Pride parades, believed in women’s rights, and was arrested in college for attending a protest over racial inequality down in Philadelphia when things turned unruly. Whenever some of the old folks in town saw me, the pastor, and Aubrey together, they whispered about how “Radical” the town leadership was becoming. That always made us giggle.
“Evan, that you?” Mom called from the kitchen. I hung up my wet coat, noting the two flags that had been neatly rolled and brought in from the rain. Dad’s work. He disliked seeing wet limp flags on his poles. Ever since my childhood Dad had always flown two flags out front. The American flag and the Welsh flag. He was proud of his Welsh roots and had taken us back several times over the years to visit family in Cardiff. “Did you take off your boots?”
“Yes, Mom, it’s me, and yes, I took off my shoes.” I trotted down the short hall of the old fifties ranch style house which was an exact replica of mine next door only Dad preferred white paint, and I liked tan siding. Other than color, they were identical, just like many other homes in Cedarburg. Built for workers of the foundry that had opened up after the Second World War and had shut down when the bottom fell out of American steel in the late seventies and early eighties. My grandfather had worked at the foundry for years. Dad had as well as a young man then went on after that closure to get a degree in teaching. That was where he met Mom, at the middle school where they both were teachers. Dad retired last year. Mom has four more years to go.
“Evan, did you hear that Gideon Pierce is back in town?” Mom asked as soon as my sock-covered feet touched the sparkling linoleum. Dad was bent over the open oven door, basting a pot roast with tiny carrots and potato wedges. His bright blue eyes flew from dinner to me. I waved off the concern with all the glib I could conjure.
“It’s fine. I’m not even sure it was him. It was probably someone who—”
“Oh no, Evan, it was Gideon. Paul Wilkerson at the Big Buck texted me that he spoke to Gideon as he was coming out of the Big Buck. Says it’s Gideon. He has that scar on his forehead, remember?” She drew a line down her worried brow.
Yes, I remembered, quite clearly. Gideon had always carried that scar. He once told Pamela Minks that he got it when he’d been diving into the old quarry over in Silverton. Quarry diving sounded like a Gideon Pierce sort of endeavor. Tons of machismo and swagger.
“Oh, well then it’s a verified Gideon sighting,” I teased, padding over the side-by-side to open the left door and reach in for a cold can of diet ginger ale. It was the only kind of soda in the house.
Dad closed the oven door as I popped the tab. “Evan, don’t get into a confrontation with Gideon.”
My eyes flared as tiny bubbles tickled my chin. “Me?! When was I