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­damage—my parents because they didn’t question the miracle of their son’s survival and the doctors because they had little knowledge about long-term effects.
    The first night Mother told me I was different from Carter, she must have been convinced it was the only way to salvage her dream for us, knowing that the greatest chance for its success now rested with me.
    The sound of my sisters’ murmurings, soft secrets shared among the three of them, carried out through the open window to the front porch step where Mother and I sat trying to get cool after the day’s heat. She smoked her last Lucky Strike of the day and drank iced tea laced with more sugar than I could stand. Sugar and a fair bit of vodka. The number 36 train barreled through the Clayton crossing, rattling panes of glass in the ­living-room windows and announcing bedtime. As stars pierced the dark velvet of the Tennessee sky, Mother leaned down to me, her mouth brushing my ear. When she spoke, the noise of the words was no louder than that of a water moccasin gliding past me in Shelby Creek.
    â€œYou see those lights up in the sky, Ezekiel? You see the brightest one?” she said. “That, my boy, is you. Don’t let anybody tell you different. You’re one of the chosen ones. God will strengthen you. That’s what your name means.”
    This was new information. Up until then, I had known two things about the origin of my name—Mother heard it on one of her favorite radio shows— The Shadow— and somewhere in the middle of the Bible was a section with Ezekiel on it.
    I turned to stare up at her. She was the prettiest mother in Clayton; everybody said so. And when she smiled wide, when the smiling reached all the way into the deepest blue of her eyes, I got this feeling like everything was going to be okay.
    Tonight she did not smile wide. Instead, her eyes glowed with a far-off light that made me uneasy. I liked the idea of being the brightest star, but what about Carter? Wasn’t he one of the chosen ones, too?
    A small amount of tea lingered in Mother’s glass. Her voice grew louder. I sneaked a glance in Carter’s direction to make sure he wasn’t close by, because I sensed that whatever Mother was going to say next, he shouldn’t hear.
    â€œYou’re different, Ezekiel. You’re not like your brother, sweetheart. Not like our poor Carter.”
    There were a few things I’d begun to notice about my brother by this point—how he still didn’t know his ABCs and I had been reading since I was four. How he didn’t talk much. Sometimes he stared right through me, looking off into a place no one else could see. Ever since we’d taken him to the Memphis doctor earlier that summer, Mother never stopped smoking. No one told Carter and me what the doctor said. When I asked, Mother said not to worry about it. So I didn’t. At least not much. It would be a few more months before she would share the doctor’s prognosis with me. I don’t think she ever told Carter.
    In the fading light, Carter handed a socket wrench to our father as he changed the spark plugs under the hood of the 1945 Chevy half ton. My brother’s nearly seven-year-old frame already stretched two inches taller than mine. Older and taller, he’d say to me. Older by ten minutes.
    The play-by-play of the Cleveland/St. Louis Browns game came over the radio in Daddy’s Ford. A hit crackled toward us as Kenny Keltner knocked another one out of the park with guys on second and third. Daddy stopped hammering long enough to listen as all three runners scored.
    â€œYou wait and see, boys,” he told us, “Cleveland’s going all the way this year.”
    It was the most he’d said about baseball since Babe Ruth died. Daddy had sworn he wouldn’t listen to any more baseball that year, as a memorial to Babe. He broke down when Cleveland started winning.
    â€œYou realize