Free The One I Left Behind by Jennifer McMahon

down and announce: It’s a four-sunshine day! Get out there and enjoy it! Or Nothing but raindrops today, folks. Be sure to pack your umbrella.
    Reggie reached for the remote and changed the channel. There was a commercial with a guy in a chicken suit doing an ad for Bo Berr’s Ford Dealership. No credit, no problem. Don’t be chicken. Come on down.
    “Do you think that’s actually dear old Uncle Bo in the suit?” Tara asked, eyes wide as she leaned forward a little, studying the television. Reggie remembered the suggestive way Tara had bit into her ice cream cone, then licked her lips while she stared Bo down. It made Reggie queasy to think about.
    “Nah,” Reggie said. “He probably got one of the poor sales guys to do it. Or maybe it’s Sid!”
    “No way,” Tara said.
    “Who’s Sid?” asked Lorraine.
    “Bo Berr’s son,” Reggie explained. “He’s kind of a pothead.”
    Lorraine made a sour face.
    “Mom and Bo were an item once, right?”
    “I don’t recall,” Lorraine said in a dismissive tone.
    “No way!” Tara squealed. “Really?”
    Reggie nodded. “My mom told me. It was back when they were in high school. Bo was like this big football star then.”
    Lorraine fiddled with a loose string on the arm of the couch and said nothing.
    “Where is Mom, anyway?” Reggie asked.
    “I don’t know,” Lorraine said. “She got up just before noon and left without a word.”
    After the news, Reggie knew Lorraine would go to the garage for her fly rod and waders, then make her way down the slope of the backyard to the creek, where she’d stay until it got too dark to cast flies. The left side of the couch where she sat night after night was infused with the tangy, fish smell that seemed to follow her everywhere she went. Reggie half expected to look at her neck one day and see gills.
    “Two more weeks till summer vacation,” Lorraine said, still focused on the loose thread.
    “Mmmm,” Tara said, reaching for another Dorito. “Then it’s good-bye, Brighton Falls Junior High. Thank God .”
    “Maybe you two should get jobs,” Lorraine said.
    Tara laughed. “We’re too young.”
    “I was working in my father’s shop when I was twelve,” Lorraine said.
    “That was back before the days of child labor laws,” Tara shot back. “The Dark Ages,” she added, wiping orange cheese powder on her black jeans as she gave Reggie a conspiratorial wink.
    “I don’t think it’s good for young people to be idle,” Lorraine said.
    “We’re not going to be idle. We’re going to finish the tree house,” Reggie said. “And I’ll probably help Charlie do lawns,” Reggie added. Charlie had been cutting grass around their neighborhood since just after his mom died. He made good money and was always looking for help.
    “Speak for yourself, Dufrane,” Tara said. “I plan to be as idle as possible. Lay around. Eat bonbons. Work on my tan.”
    Reggie laughed. The idea of Tara sunbathing was bizarre. Reggie had never even seen her in short sleeves. “Don’t you die if sunlight hits you? Spontaneously combust or something?”
    Tara smiled. “Can’t see my reflection in a mirror either. And keep your damn crosses away from me!”
    “Tara!” Lorraine snapped. “That’s quite enough.”
    “Sorry, Miss Dufrane,” Tara said in a singsong voice.
    The six o’clock news came on and the lead story made them all hold their breath, leaning toward the television and the newscaster with perfect hair and a square jaw who sat behind the Eyewitness News desk.
    “A woman’s right hand was discovered on the front steps of the Brighton Falls police station earlier today. An unidentified source in the police department reports that the hand was left in a milk carton wrapped in brown paper.”
    Reggie had this sense of slipping into a movie, leaving real life behind.
    “What the hell?” Tara said, and Lorraine was too shocked to reprimand her for swearing.
    Reggie jerked her leg involuntarily, like when the