The Spaces In Between

Prologue

Jace hated the drive to Dockings from Atlanta. It was over four hours, and after a plane ride she was never able to fall asleep, always ready to do something. There was never something to do besides stare out the window at the passing trees, and even if Alabama had to most diverse flora in all of the United States, it wasn't much to look at after a while.

Her phone died after they passed Auburn, and she was stuck with almost two hours to go with nothing to do besides gaze out the window and listen to NPR. Her mom tried to give her a book, but she got a headache after a few pages and spent the rest of the ride sullenly slouched in her seat.

Soon they turned on the back roads, and shanties and old farmhouses popped up. She played the Cow Game with her dad, both of them racking up points quickly. He had an advantage from being in the front seat, but Jace had a better view and could count more cows before they were out of sight. The game passed the time quickly, and their car passed by the marque for Dockings High School.

Dockings was a small, small town, built in the aftermath of the Civil War on a plantation owner's land. It grew as more tenant farmers came and their families grew. Luckily for all the sharecroppers, the plantation owner's grandson divvied up the land in his will, giving everyone their own place. Dockings proper was confined to two blocks of storefronts, the schools clustered together on a separate block. Crenshaw County spared one bus for the entire town, one of the faded Blue Birds made in the late seventies.

It took a while for the farms to pop up once past the town proper. Before them were trailer homes and small houses, every one of them with a different front. Jace liked the variety compared to the cookie cutter neighborhoods she was used to.

Grandma Brown's house was on a dirt road that turned off the main dirt road. They had to drive under a canopy of oaks to reach it, a dirty white house with a large porch, almost Antebellum, that spoke of the wealth the original owners had. Grandma Brown herself was waiting on the porch, looking younger than her years in worn blue jeans and a paint splattered shirt. She looked like an artist instead of a retired lawyer, a smudge of sea green a stark contrast against the brown of her cheekbone.

Jace ripped the door open as soon as the car was in park, running towards her grandmother. Grandma Brown expected the ferocious hug, and squeezed back just as tightly, fingers pressing indents into Jace's back.

"I've missed you, honey," Grandma Brown says, pulling away and fixing Jace's hair. She just smiles at her grandma, entirely too excited to knock away her hands.

"Is Bubba inside?" She asked, looking into the living room, visible only because the screen door was closed.

Grandma Brown shook her head. "He's out back, watering the glories," she told Jace, and Jace ran around the side of the house.

Morning glories grew all over the Brown's old shed, a rotted structure that Bubba threatened to tear down about once a week. He never did because of the flowers, and because he liked the flowers just as much as his wife did. He was putting away the hose when Jace found him, hugging him from behind.

"Who the"—he stops himself, realizing who has him around the waist—"Jack?"

Jace laughs, nodded her head against his soft plaid shirt. "Bubba, I live with your daughter, I know a couple of curses."

"Don't mean I want your momma to get onto me," he says. She laughs and lets go of him, letting him turn around to properly hug her. "It's been too long, darlin'," he whispers into her hair and she smiles.

"Too long," she agrees, and lets him ruffle her hair when they pull apart. They walk through the back door to get through the front, and Jace's attention is caught by the new things she sees around the living room.

The old quilt that was her bedspread every time she stayed as a kid was hanging over the back of the couch, and the TV was updated, probably to go with the satellite dish mounted to the roof. A new calico was sunbathing in a patch of sunlight, and Jace had to resist the urge to pet the cat.

"What's your cat's name?"

"The lazy one is Cosmos and there's a tabby around named Snowdrop. Snowdrop is Cosmos' lil' girl, the rest of 'em were given away. I reckon those bayou people took most of 'em."

"Bayou people?" Jace asks, opening the screen door. Her parents and Grandma Brown were on the porch, Jace's suitcases on the steps.

Grandma Brown scoffed. "He needs to stop callin' that family 'bayou people,'" she says. "Mrs. Lamontagne came with her grandkids, Miss Marie and little William 'bout four years ago. Took three of those cats, thankfully."

Jace's dad laughed. "Got any left? Jace loves cats."

"Yeah, they have two, Cosmos and Snowdrop," Jace tells him.

"I was cookin' before y'all rolled up, y'all hungry?" Grandma Brown asks.

They sit down at the large dining room table, one suited for more than five people. Grandma Brown sets down plates of food: pan-fried chicken, a huge bowl of mashed potatoes, a smaller one of collard greens, and a basket of cornbread. Jace gets seconds on everything but the greens, and is stuffed by the time her mom is starting on her potatoes.

Jace, Bubba, and her dad retreat to the deck to watch the sun set over the trees. It'll stay light for another hour, but by then the fireflies will have come out. Jace might be a senior in high school, but catching fireflies has always been her favorite thing to do in the summer evenings.

She can see Grandma Brown and her mom cleaning up the kitchen from the big window over the sink, and wonders what they're talking about. They're probably talking about the town, her mom's little hometown that she ran away from that didn't grow in her absence. Or maybe they're talking about Jace, who hasn't spent more than six months in any one place since she was seven.

It doesn't really matter anyways; she's finishing out high school in Dockings.