We go back to Joan’s part of the story in The Space Between Section 4. It’s time to learn more about her life.
Joan McKimmie is one of those characters we’ve seen or heard little about. It makes this part of the story so interesting, as it’s clear that she’s lived a much bigger life than anyone realizes. She hasn’t even been able to talk to her own family about her life.
Breaking down The Space Between Section 4
It’s getting cold, so Joan and Michael move their conversation below deck. With Joan in a bed, Michael is able to speak to a woman on the ship. As Michael speaks in French, Joan is horrified to realize that she doesn’t know the language.
It makes sense that Joan wouldn’t know French. She isn’t well-learned like Jamie and his family would have been. While Jamie would have helped to raise Joan, he wouldn’t have had a hand in teaching her other languages necessarily.
So, Joan listens to the conversation and tries to figure out some of the words. She wants to learn, and I commend her for that. It is the only way she’ll succeed in France, after all.
Movement catches her eye. She sees a man in a grey shawl, and she knows that this is a sign of death. There have been two instances of this in her past, and one of them involved a child who died from an accident days later. This is something that has stuck in Joan’s mind since it happened, as she has always wondered if she could have changed the child’s fate by saying something.
We know what life would have been like for her, though. Had she said something, she would have been called a witch. There’s no doubt that her mother would have doubted things and may have even put some blame on Jamie because of Claire once being in his life. Joan did the right thing in hiding it from her mother, but I do wish she could have said something to Jamie at some point.
Joan doesn’t understand why she has had visions like this, though. She hopes that the convent will change that. I find it interesting that we get this understanding of why Joan wants to be a nun.
Could this chapter be used in a TV adaptation?
If we did see this short story adapted into a TV episode, I think this section would be needed. It explains Joan’s reasoning for becoming a nun.
This would need to play out a little differently, though. I could see her mentioning something to the man she sees, and we then get a flashback of the other times that she has seen this figure. It’s important to be shown this, and since Joan isn’t describing it to anyone else, this would be the best way to handle the situation.
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