I gripped the baseball bat and was immediately dismayed. That sucker was heavy, an old Louisville Slugger Mom had left over from the ’90s. I heaved it up like it was a goddamn prehistoric club, and I reared back and swung as hard as I could.

I missed, of course. I missed so bad I slipped and fell over and busted my nose. It was bleeding, I could tell, the hot wet penny taste of it on my lips. I heard Mom fussing over to me, but I shushed her, I told her I was fine, even though my nose was bleeding everywhere, even though I was crying a little and trying to hide it. I swung again and missed again, tumbling right over.

I heard a snicker or two then, the neighborhood boys having a laugh at my expense. That was fine. They’d stop laughing when I busted that armadillo and all that delicious candy fell out of its insides.

So I straightened up. I gritted my teeth. I bowed up to the piñata. I listened closely, like a ninja would, until I was certain I could hear the wind whistle past its paper snout. I swung as hard as I could.

I hit the piñata all right. It just didn’t bust. I hit it again and again and again. Nothing doing.

By now everyone was outright laughing at me, and I was full-on crying. I hit it and I hit it, and it simply would not bust.

Murphy couldn’t take it anymore, watching me make a fool of myself. So she ran up, jerked the bat out of my hands, and whomped it right open on the first try. The armadillo’s guts busted, fifty candy bars fell out, and all the kids swarmed them. My moment of misery was over. Murphy was always taking care of me like that, trying to make things easier for me, her loser brother. And I appreciated it. Like I said before, Murphy was my best friend.

Still, Murphy’s act of generosity had sealed the deal. My own baby sister had busted my piñata. She was stronger than me. I was branded a loser forever. I took my blindfold off, and there stood my mom, her arms crossed over her chest, shaking her head at me like I was the biggest failure in all the world.

I never had a birthday party again.

So no, I couldn’t ever be the kind of kid that Mom wanted. But she did a good job of loving me and making a place for me, and I would always be grateful for that. It was like she understood that I was different, that I couldn’t be like her and Murphy, and even if it disappointed her, she never held it against me.

Back to the point: Our life with Mom wasn’t all bad. I loved our strange house in an empty cul-de-sac called Drury Lanes. I loved the hammock in the backyard, miles from any traffic, where I could read and swat mosquitoes until the sun set. I loved my sister, Murphy, how much fun we had together when she wasn’t giving me shit or hanging out with cool kids. I liked the fact that I had a mysterious grandmother paying for everything for us—our house and Mom’s red Jeep Wrangler and our food—for pretty much the entirety of our life in small-town Mississippi. Minus all the shit with visions and the complete lack of friends, my life could have been worse. There was college to look forward to, anyway.