Chapter 14
Turo
Rehab has a smell.Bleach. Overcooked vegetables. Carpet that has absorbed too many apologies. Men trying to sweat poison out of their blood and call it redemption.
Court-mandated facility, private wing. Trees around it like a lie. Distance like a promise.
I come every week. Not because I enjoy it. Because he is my son.
Enzo comes with me. He sits beside me in the car like this is just another meeting. Tablet in hand. Calm face. Controlled breathing. The kind of composure that makes other men relax without knowing why.
“You’ve been here daily?” I ask. “Is that what you just said?”
Enzo doesn’t look up. “Almost. As much as I can. He needs consistency.”
“Or you do,” I murmur.
He glances over, just a flicker. “I’m mentoring him.”
Mentoring. A word men use when they’re shaping something that will outlast them.
We pull into the lot. Gravel crunching under tires. Two facility guards at the entrance. Their nod is polite, not deferential. Here, my name has edges.
Inside, the lights are too bright. Fluorescent. Sterile. Designed to make everyone look worse than they are so they’ll accept the version of themselves the counselors sell.
The waiting room is plastic chairs and soft music. A woman wringing her hands into knots. A man staring at a wall like it owes him answers.
Enzo signs us in. The receptionist smiles like routine can sanitize anything.
A counselor walks us back. Hallways. Locked doors. Posters with slogans.
One day at a time.
Choose change.
People love simple sentences. They make the mess feel manageable.
The visitation room is small. Neutral. A couch bolted to the floor like trust is something that has to be anchored. A box of tissues in the center of the table like a pre-approved weakness.
Marco is already there. He stands when I enter. That’s new. He looks… clearer. Not good. Not safe. But less bloated. Less wild. Eyes that are not completely black. His hair cut. Hands steadier. A man who has been forced to sit still long enough to hear himself.
“Dad,” he says. The word lands without venom.
I study him the way I study a room before violence. Exit points. Weak spots. The angle of his shoulders. The tension in his jaw.
“How are you?” I say.
He huffs a laugh. Not cruel. Not even bitter. Just tired. “I’m in rehab.”
The first honest thing he’s said in years.
Enzo takes the chair in the corner like it belongs to him. Supportive. Observant. Quiet power placed where no one can accuse it of being loud.
Marco sits again, posture unsure. He doesn’t know how to be a man without performing dominance.
“I’ve been going to groups,” he says. “Therapy, too.”
I don’t praise him. Praise is sugar. Marco has lived on sugar and rage and attention. It rotted him.
