Cracks in the dream

Washington Post ^ | 7/19/25 | Danielle Paquette and Obed Lamy

[DallasBiff]

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — She hadn’t seen cracks like that since the earthquake. Now they snaked up her buttercream dining room walls and etched tiny ravines in the ceiling.

“Crazy,” Fernande Vital said to her husband as they eyed the damage. “They’re driving me crazy.”

Clearly, they’d spread. Like the scars on all those buildings back home, she told a construction-worker friend who, as a fellow Haitian, understood. He’d also survived the 7.0 mega-tremors that once leveled much of their island nation.

Fernande had figured calamity wouldn’t trail them to America, land of the free, home of the Kardashian opulence on her teenage daughter’s TikTok feed. Not that glitz had ever been the goal. Her family of five sought the basics in southwestern Ohio: Assembly line work. Sunday service. A banged-up Honda minivan. A jar of faux carnations. Safety.

[left that other site]

True.! Or fade to an ugly dog-vomit yellow color.

[left that other site]

I hear you, FRiend.