“Didn’t Jolene used to handle all that?”
The room goes quiet.
Not dramatically.
Not the kind of silence that announces itself.
Just a subtle shift—a held breath, a redirected glance, the careful non-reaction of men who know a name that shouldn’t have been said out loud.
Spur realizes his mistake about two seconds too late, his face going red.
“I’ll handle it,” Phantom says. His voice is even. Controlled. His hand on the table doesn’t move, but I see his fingers tighten around the gavel.
Just barely. A fraction of a squeeze that nobody else catches because nobody else is looking.
I’m looking.
Jolene. Phantom’s ex.
His ol’ lady—former ol’ lady—the woman who used to sit at the end of the table at every club dinner, who organized every event, who held this club together in ways most of the brothers never appreciated until she was gone, even though they were broken up for years.
I don’t know the full story.
Nobody does, except maybe Phantom, and he’s not talking.
All I know is one day she was here and the next she wasn’t, and now there’s a gap at every gathering that everyone walks around like furniture they’ve agreed not to notice.
I notice.
I notice because I recognize the architecture.
The way a man holds himself when he’s keeping something painful at arm’s length.
The careful neutrality that takes more energy than most people realize.
The way Phantom’s eyes track to the empty space beside him at the table sometimes—a micro-glance, gone before it registers, but I catch it because I’ve been making the same glance at empty spaces for five and a half years.
After church, I pass him in the hallway.
He’s standing by the back door, looking out at the compound, coffee in hand.
Not drinking it. Just holding it.
I stop. Don’t say anything.
I just stand beside him for a minute, two men looking out at nothing in particular.
He doesn’t speak. Neither do I.
That’s the thing about grief—it has its own language, and the men who speak it fluently don’t need words.
We just need someone to stand in the silence with us and not try to fill it.
The rest of the day runs the way my days always run.
Routes for the weekend ride.
Feed orders.
