My name is Liam. I’m 18 years old. For as long as I can remember, my life has smelled like diesel fuel and disinfectant. My mom wasn’t always a garbage collector—she was a nursing student once, with plans and a future. Then my dad fell from a construction scaffold when I was three. The bills swallowed our savings, and eventually, he disappeared. To keep us alive, my mom took the first job she could. Overnight, she became “the trash lady.” And at school, I became “the trash lady’s kid.”
Growing up, I learned how to disappear. Kids pinched their noses when I walked by. They joked about dumpsters and smells. Teachers looked away. I never told my mom. She came home exhausted every night, hands cracked and shoulders slumped, but she always smiled. “How was school?” she’d ask. “Good,” I’d lie. She worked double shifts, holidays, storms—never missed packing my lunch, never missed a meeting. She told me, “There’s no such thing as dirty work. Only honest work.” I carried that sentence like armor.
