Filled out. Clear-eyed.
There's gray in his hair that wasn't there before, and lines on his face that speak to hard years, but he looks... healthy. Present.
He looks like a man who's found some kind of peace.
I think about all the times I found Vanna half-dead in trap houses, needle still in her arm.
All the times I carried her to the hospital, praying she'd make it.
All the times I wondered if she'd inherited more than just her father's eyes.
And now I'm sitting across from the man who started it all.
"Bloodhound." He says my road name like he's testing it out, seeing how it feels in his mouth. "Didn't expect to ever see you here."
"Makes two of us."
He sits down across from me, folding his hands on the table.
His movements are careful, deliberate—the movements of a man who's learned to be still. "How's my daughter?"
Straight to it. No small talk. I can respect that.
"She's in rehab. Pennsylvania. Been there about five weeks now."
Something flickers across his face. Hope, maybe. Or fear. Hard to tell. "She go willingly?"
"Yeah. Almost died first, but yeah. She went willingly."
Rick closes his eyes for a moment, and I watch his jaw clench.
When he opens them again, they're wet. "How many times has she almost died?"
"Too many to count."
He nods slowly, like this doesn't surprise him. Like he expected nothing less. "She's like me. Same demons. Same weakness." He pauses. "Same strength, too, if she can find it."
"That's why I'm here." I lean forward, resting my forearms on the table. "I need to know if it's possible. If someone like you—like her—can actually get clean and stay clean."
"Are you asking if recovery is real?"
"I'm asking if I should hope."
Rick is quiet for a long moment.
The noise of the visiting room fades into background static as he considers my question.
When he finally speaks, his voice is rough.
"I've been clean for nearly twelve years now. Not because I wanted to be—because I didn't have a choice. When I was in lesser security jails, I could still access heroin. Prison took the drugs away, and at first, I thought it would kill me. The withdrawal, the cravings, the endless fucking need..." He shakes his head. "But it didn't kill me. And somewhere along the way, I started to realize I didn't want to die anymore."
"What changed?"
"Structure. Routine. Having someone tell me when to wake up and when to eat and when to sleep. My whole life, I was chasing the next high, and everything else fell apart around me. In here, I don't have to chase anything. I just have to exist."
It's not the answer I was hoping for. "So, you're only clean because you're locked up."
"That's not what I said." Rick leans forward, matching my posture. "I'm saying the structure helped me find the strength I didn't know I had. Vanna's in rehab—she's got structure too. Doctors, counselors, people watching her every move. That's nota cage, son. That's a scaffold. Something to hold her up while she rebuilds."
