The path ended on the road where the Bouchers lived, and I turned left to head down the hill. Beyond their house was a Nike missile site, owned by the US government. Because Philadelphia was a major American city, it was surrounded by these sites, which were supposed to detect incoming missiles and launch antimissile missiles that would hit them and bring them down. Some sites had radar and some sites had missiles. I didn’t know which one we were. Either way, it meant that nuclear war was close to us, that we could be a target and that missiles were buried in our ground. I worried about nuclear arms and radiation. A couple years earlier, when the Three Mile Island meltdown happened, people needed to evacuate. We’d listened to the radio in Dad’s truck on the way to school. Harrisburg was only an hour and a half away, even less as the crow flies. I’d imagined the people fleeing on foot, looking behind them in terror at something invisible carried on the air, how everything could be obliterated by a contamination you couldn’t even see. People said the sites hadn’t even been used since the 1960s. Did that mean they took out the surface-to-air missiles, or were they still here in the ground? No one knew.

Mrs. Boucher’s house sat several hundred yards from the road, at a steep drop and barely visible from the top of the driveway. As I walked down, I could see the lights of the house in slices through the trees. I decided then that I would tell her what had happened with Ellen. Maybe she would take me and the boys in the car and go down the mountain to look for Ellen along the road. Or I could stay in the house with the boys, and she could go. I knew she would help us. But when I got to the front door, Mrs. Boucher opened it before I’d even knocked. She had a light scarf wrapped around her shoulders and was holding her pocketbook and keys. She moved back to let me in, keeping her hand on the open door.

“Hi, Libby. Sorry, I’m rushing tonight. The boys are in their pajamas. There’s ice cream in the freezer. I got mint chocolate chip for you.” I hesitated before stepping inside. Mrs. Boucher looked at me. “Is everything okay?”

“Oh, yeah, fine. Thank you. And for the ice cream. I finished school for the summer today,” I added, as if this explained something. I stepped past her into the hallway.

“Ah, the paradox of freedom,” said Mrs. Boucher, like she understood. “I’ll see you when I get back,” and she shut the front door.