"Sit down," I say again. Not louder. I don't need to be loud. I've never needed to be loud.
She sits. Perches on the edge of the other chair—the one that's been empty for years because nobody takes the seat next to the president unless they're invited.
Jolene used to sit there every night, then she didn't.
Then she'd show up at club dinners and sit there anyway, even after the divorce, even after the papers were signed, the ring was off, and there was nothing left between us but habit and history.
That's why we're here.
"This needs to stop," I say.
She doesn't flinch. "What needs to stop?"
"You know what."
"Say it."
I look out at the land. My land. My father's land. The land my grandfather cleared with a mule team and a grudge against God.
I've made every hard call a man can make on this property. Ordered things done that most men couldn't stomach. Buried secrets in this dirt that will never see daylight.
This should be nothing compared to that.
"You can't keep coming around, Jolene. Not to the clubhouse. Not to dinners. Not to events. Not to this porch." I say it even. Flat. The way I deliver verdicts at church—no heat, no negotiation, just the facts of what's been decided. "We've been done for a long time. It's time to act like it."
The silence that follows has weight.
I can feel her absorbing it—feel the moment it lands, the way a bullet lands.
Not the impact. The half-second before the impact, when the body knows what's coming but hasn't caught up yet.
Then she laughs. Short, sharp, nothing funny about it.
"You called me out here forthis? You called me out to the ranch—toourranch—to tell me I'm not welcome anymore?"
"It's not our ranch. It hasn't been our ranch in a long time."
"The hell it hasn't." She's on her feet. Fast. The poise cracks and underneath it is something raw. "I lived here for twenty years, Harlan. I raised your children in that house. I hosted every club dinner, every party, every goddamn barbecue. I held this family together while you ran your club and played president and?—"
"Jolene."
"—and now you're sitting in your daddy's chair telling me I'm notwelcome?" Her voice climbs. Not a scream—Jolene doesn't scream—but the control is slipping. "I dedicated mylifeto you. I gave you everything. Shiver, Grace, Dakota—I gave youthree children. I stayed when other women would have walked out the goddamn door. I stayed because I loved you and I believed?—"
She stops. Swallows. The Texas heat is pressing down on both of us and I can see the sweat at her hairline, the place where the careful maintenance meets the reality of a woman falling apart.
"You believed what?" I ask. Quiet.
"That it would be enough." Her voice breaks on the last word. "That staying would be enough. That showing up every day and loving you and holding this family together would eventually beenough."
I don't say anything for a while, because she's not wrong.
That's the part that makes this hard. She's not wrong about any of it.
She did stay. She did love me. She did hold things together when I was too deep in club shit to see what was breaking at home.
She sat in that chair and smiled at brothers' wives and organized fundraisers and kept the house running and never once let anyone see the cracks.
She did everything right by the rules she understood.
