This morning I stir rain into my Starbucks cappuccino, angry foam running vertically up the cup's embankments. Businessmen scurry past with their polished briefcases, ties worn a little too tight. Cellphones ring and mine had my aunt on the other end. She was drowning. I tell her to write the credit card company back and ask for proof, "Oh and auntie, ask them to stop harassing you."

I would give anything to hear her breathe. She grieves water and I teach her how to swim the way she taught me when I was a child. A newspaper headline catches my eye: 12 year old girl commits suicide because of poverty. She had hung herself because her father could not give her 100 pesos for a school project. I look at my 120-peso cappuccino. Voice dry and unconvincing, I bid goodbye,"Ok auntie, don't worry."

Hope floats, I try to tell myself. Yet the coffee leaves froth on my mouth and for the life of me, I could not stop the rain.