FATAMORGANA

St. Louis is politically diverse. When we lived in the Shaw neighborhood, I used to run along Flora Avenue—tree-lined, landscaped, one of the city’s most beautiful. Every October, the Shaw Art Fair takes place there. It’s a wide avenue but quiet, with slow, low traffic.

At the height of the BLM protests, I started counting American flags and BLM signs on people’s lawns. The houses had either one or the other. Never both. It was a political identity mapped onto front lawns. Declarations of who they were — not just the parent who planted the sign, but the family behind the door.

I don’t remember the exact count, but I remember that the American flags won—just by a few.

Most people in Shaw probably know people from both camps. I do.

In fact, as opposite as it gets—polar extremes.

My next-door neighbor was a tall guy, athletic build, a beard, a classic manly man. Republican. He was a few years older than me, with a son and daughter just a few years older than my girls, who were three and four at the time.

He and his wife had an amicable divorce. He’d visit the kids, sometimes stay over at his ex-wife’s house, and I’d hear them talking, laughing on the patio. I’d step outside and joke,

“Are you two sure you’re divorced?”
“Oh yeah,” they’d assure me.

He’d toss a ball with his kids on the street. For Halloween, he went all in—fire pit going, hot dogs sizzling, handing them out to neighborhood kids as they trick-or-treated.

Our street was a cul-de-sac, closed off from South Grand Ave, where traffic hummed and life could be violent and messy—not just in crime reports, but in the sirens and gunshots we heard. We didn’t own guns, but the Manly Man did.

During the BLM protests, when riots spilled onto South Grand and stores were getting smashed, the mom across the street and I came up with a plan. If things got out of control—if windows started breaking—we’d grab the kids and head straight to the manly man’s house, leaving our husbands behind. Our husbands were the kind of guys who debated the news. But the manly man — he was the kind who would stand in the street, ready to defend our homes.

Even outside of the protests, our cul-de-sac had its moments. A few times, cars sped into the dead end. The second he heard them, he’d storm out of his house, plant himself in the middle of the street, and wait. As the driver turned, trying to slip away guilt-free, the Manly Man would block his path—arm outstretched, standing his ground, unmoving as the car approached. The car would stop.

He’d slam his hands on the hood, circle around, and lean into the window.

“There’s a sign, you idiot! There are kids on this street.”

The rest of the neighborhood watched from porches and windows, silent but approving. The sheer audacity of it—standing in front of a moving car, refusing to flinch.

It was admirable.

Our kids went to the same woke school, where teachers were required—and parents were strongly encouraged—to take Anti-Bias, Anti-Racist (ABAR) training. There was a teacher there with painted nails, long dyed blond hair, and some makeup. He didn’t like him.

“I don’t think he should be working in that school,” he told me.

I mentioned that once, while waiting in the school lobby, I saw him at the whiteboard, explaining compound interest to a few seventh graders.

“He was all in, held their attention, did a great job,” I said.

He still didn’t like him. He was a commercial refrigeration guy, fixing walk-in coolers and ice machines for businesses. He dabbled in HVAC work on the side. Sometimes, when the school needed a repair, he’d volunteer to take a look before they had to pay someone. He bounced between jobs—sometimes working for a small refrigeration company, sometimes trying to make his own business work. He was great at his trade but not at running a business.

Over time, his work started drying up. The economy was shifting in ways that didn’t favor independent tradesmen. And then COVID happened.

He was working, but it weighed on him—he wanted to keep everyone else healthy, especially since his ex-wife and their kids were living with her parents at the time, between homes. His time with the kids became less and less. They never returned to an even split.

Life kept moving, though, in its uneven way. The neighborhood settled back into its usual rhythm, people carried on.

One warm, sunny day a friend of mine came to visit. She’s from Bosnia, like me. But she suffered more loss in the war, including a parent who was killed by the ethnic group my husband and I are associated with. It’s something we rarely talk about, but when we do, it lingers. Apologizing is strange. But silence is stranger.

She’s the Earth Mother type—kumbaya incarnate. Tattoos, loose, flowy clothes, artsy, deeply spiritual, into body-and-soul healing. She fosters animals, does yoga, wishes she could afford a therapist—and thinks those of us who can are crazy for not having one. She doesn’t like Trump—Elon Musk, even less.

She is an ally to all—Black people, immigrants, LGBTQ+, Native Americans, women, Mother Nature. She hates capitalism, distrusts the police, and speaks out against brutality. If there’s a protest in St. Louis for a marginalized group, she’s there.

She has one child in a private school with a philosophy that rejects mainstream education—hands-on, nature-focused, free from screens and standardized testing. A place they can barely afford. She would go hungry before pulling her kid out of that school.

She doesn’t just critique the patriarchy—she moves through its weight, feeling it in every institution. Education, policing, finance, even parenting norms. She’s not performatively woke; she embodies her ideology, down to barefoot shoes and a refusal to engage in structured work.

As Earth Mother was leaving my house, she saw the Manly Man outside. They started talking while I watched from the window, frozen—two planets colliding.
I tried to read lips, trace body language, waiting for something—anything—to shift. But it was just murmurs. A few minutes passed. Then she got in her car and left.

At the time, I thought it was nothing. But it stayed with me. In some parallel universe, that moment plays out differently. They stand there, still speaking in low voices, the air heavy, thick. I am at the window, watching. Then, suddenly, as if pulled by some unseen force, they both turn. Their heads move in eerie unison. Their eyes lock onto mine.

The line is redrawn. It’s not between the two of them anymore. It’s between me — hidden behind the glass — and them.

I shrink back. They saw me. They know what I do. They know how I make my money.

They look back at each other. Disappointed. And as it settles—while she drives home—it grows. Not just disappointed. Pissed. They realized they had more in common with each other than either of them did with me.

Their houses were under $200K; I owned a few. One had an American flag, the other a BLM sign. I had neither. He was underemployed, she was unemployed, and I was overemployed.

Not because of merit, or effort, but because of how the economy is wired.

But their struggles mirrored each other more than either mirrored mine.

They worried about the tangible, the immediate. Earth Mother’s son had several surgeries after an accident—bills piling up, the slow grind of recovery. He wrestled with depression, the instability of his work, and property taxes that kept climbing as the neighborhood’s value outpaced his income.

I worried too, but at a different altitude. Not about food, rent, or medical debt. Not about immediate family, not about myself.

My worries stretched across borders, across time zones—extended family, currency fluctuations, tragic stories of people I once knew but wasn’t close to, contract renewals, missed appointments, kids glued to their phones. They taped their windows and disconnected radiators to save on heating bills. I carved out a month in Vail, sipping mulled wine under patio heaters.

They spent their summers in St. Louis; I spent mine in Europe. I built presentations so an executive could nod and say ‘cool,’ while he was in some attic fixing the actual cooling system for an entire school.

She tried to join the system, but it never had a place for her. He fought to stay afloat, but scarcity kept pulling him under.

I picture them both in a Mastercard conference room. Laptops open. Corporate theater unfolding. The Manly Man wouldn’t last a day. He’d stand up and leave—no explanation, no hesitation.

The Earth Mother might try. She’d want to blend in, play along just long enough to keep affording the private school. But her nature would betray her.

Eventually, she’d say something too blunt, refuse to parrot the script, roll her eyes at the wrong moment. She wouldn’t just quit. She’d rage quit. Like last time.

That was few years ago. Where are they now?

He’s gone.
He killed himself two years ago.
He was loved. He was needed.
He just couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t see it.

She’s grown more radical.

She said it's not out of defeat. It's out of clarity.