Dark Desire: Love At The Edge

Hello Virginia

When you move as much as I do, you learn to live like a ghost. It is hard to grow roots when someone is always pulling you out of the dirt. By the time I finally felt comfortable in a classroom, Mom would say we were leaving. By the time I learned the names of the kids on the block, we were packing cardboard boxes again. So, I stopped trying. It felt safer to keep people at arm’s length.

My mom, however, is a professional dreamer. Each city we left didn’t shake her faith. She moved to the next town without a single regret—or at least, that is what she wanted me to think. She packed our life like we were just going on a fun weekend trip, neatly folding thrift-store clothes and humming low gospel songs under her breath. I used to watch her and wonder if she was just pretending or if she genuinely believed the next place would save us. Now, I think it was both.

My name is Josephine White. Ironically, I am Black.

I still wonder what kind of ancestor left me with that surname. Back in my old schools, kids loved to make jokes about it. They made me feel like I was wearing someone else’s history. But here we are, in a wealthy Virginia neighborhood dominated by white families.

The standard of living here is ridiculous. The houses are massive, with front lawns that look like they were ironed flat by a professional maid. The cars are shiny and new; they don’t make coughing sounds in the morning like our old station wagon. Walking down the sidewalk felt like stepping onto a Hollywood movie set.

"We are here for your future, Jo," Mom said as we unpacked. She had this look in her eyes, the one she gets when she is trying to force herself to be strong. "I want you to get a decent education. I want you to be different from our folks back home. You need options I never had."

I understood her plan, but a part of me hated it. It felt like she was trying to pull me out of my own skin, as if being Black and poor was a disease I needed to escape from. But complaining would make me look ungrateful. So, I kept it all to myself. I told myself I would understand later, when I was older.

Apart from being a woman of hope, my mom believed deeply in Jesus. She had to. Raising a plus-size teenage girl all by herself—after a husband ran away because he didn't want a child—is enough to break anyone down. I never met my dad. I only knew his face from one faded, blurry photo. In it, he and Mom were young, smiling in a way that made it look like they owned the world. That photo lived in the bottom of Mom's purse. I think her faith and that picture were the only things keeping her afloat.

She would pray quietly at night, and in the morning she would be up before the sun, making sure I had hot tea and bread, even if it was the last loaf we had.

This new Virginia neighborhood was completely different from our past stops. The streets were wide, the sidewalks were spotless, and the air smelled like expensive flowers. They even had doorstep milk delivery. I truly thought that only existed in black-and-white films. The first time I saw those glass bottles sitting on a neighbor's porch, I stared at them like they were a magic trick.

The town had plenty of fancy spots, too. There was a bakery that smelled of warm cinnamon from two blocks away, a bookstore with leather couches where you could read for hours, and a park with a massive marble fountain that changed colors at night. In the autumn, they held community carnivals. The events attracted crowds from all over, offering free food and displays of different cultures. I liked the carnivals, even if I always stayed on the dark edges of the crowd. The loud music, the laughter, the way people let themselves breathe—it felt like a temporary escape.

When we arrived, we had no money and no contacts. Mom just trusted that God would provide. She knocked on a few random doors until a kind lady referred her to a church down the road. We walked there on a Sunday morning and met Pastor Amos. He was an elderly man in his early sixties with kind, tired eyes and a soft voice that made you feel safe, even if the world was falling apart.

He looked at our tired faces and immediately offered us accommodation in the church relief home. It was a small, hidden building attached to the back of the main church. It only had two tiny rooms, a cramped kitchenette, and a bathroom with a door that actually locked.

I was grateful for a roof, but I already knew what it meant for my school life. High school kids are like detectives; they notice everything. They notice when you don’t live in a real house. They notice when your green school uniform is clean but clearly old, and they notice when you don't talk about weekend shopping trips to the mall. I already made a promise to myself: keep your head down, sit in the back row, and do not make a sound.

On our first night, Mom and I spent hours scrubbing the church room. Dust came off the windows in thick clouds, and the smell of old, damp wood filled the air. Right in the middle of cleaning, a small gray rat scrambled across the floor. I screamed, but Mom just stopped and smiled. She cut a small piece of our bread and tossed it toward the corner.

"Don't cry, Jo," Mom said, wiping her brow. "She is a mother. She has children hiding somewhere in those walls. She's just trying to feed them."

I wondered how she knew things like that. Most of the time, her instincts were terrifyingly correct. She could scent rain in the air hours before a storm, and sure enough, twenty minutes later, a heavy downpour hit the tin roof. She said her own mother taught her how to read the weather. Mom always spoke highly of her mother, and I deeply wished I had any memory of her. Mom said she passed away a year after I was born, but she had stayed just long enough to hold me in her arms.

My mom did so many things that shocked me. If I came home upset, she somehow knew exactly what I needed without me saying a word. If I was quiet, she made herbal tea. If I was angry, she handed me a broom and made me sweep the floor until my arms were too tired to be mad. I once jokingly called her my doctor, and she really was. She didn't have a college degree, but she understood human hearts better than anyone. She was my best friend.

We finished the kitchen, and Mom sat down at the small wooden table, wiping her hands on her apron. She looked at me, her smile fading into something much more serious.

"Pastor Amos finished the paperwork today, Josephine," she said softly, leaning forward. "You start at Virginia Private High School tomorrow morning. The bus comes at exactly seven-fifteen."

Ugh, God. I hated it when she brought up schooling. My stomach instantly tied itself into a tight, painful knot. I looked down at my round hips, thinking about how much space I took up and how easily I would stand out in a room full of wealthy, elite teenagers.

"I'll be fine, Mom," I lied, keeping my voice flat.

"I know you will," she said, but her voice sounded incredibly distant.

She stood up to clear the tea mugs, but as she reached for the counter, her hand trembled violently. The ceramic mug slipped from her fingers, shattering into a dozen pieces against the hard floor.

I jumped up, but before I could ask her what happened, Mom swayed on her feet. Her face went completely pale, and she collapsed against the cabinets, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.

"Mom!" I screamed, lunging forward to catch her before she hit the glass shards. Her body was completely limp, her breathing shallow and uneven.

As I held her shaking body in the middle of our dusty kitchen, a small white card slipped out of her apron pocket and landed face-up in the spill of cold tea.

Written in bold, black letters across the top was the name of the city hospital, followed by a handwritten note: Oncology Department — Urgent Follow-up.