Mama pays the bills by the skin of her teeth, the ones that are now rotting. She hides them from other people, especially those who can afford routine check-ups, or maybe are insured. Mama’s never been sure of the path she’s sailed; she tries not to get eaten alive by sharks—her boss the great white in a business suit and two rows of teeth. She’s been cleaning his fish tank for years; a good lobster, the cockroach of the sea. Every holiday he hires her for catering events, during which she never smiles. He and his friends eat lobster and drink sparkling water. Mama’s eyes are beautiful and blue, but she thinks of them as those floating islands of trash—the ones that span the Atlantic Ocean. “We are trash, just nobodies,” she says, after a long day of work. Mama looks at my teeth, which are as crooked as hers. “They’re just like mine,” a fate that never fails to drown me.