Saving Noah

by Berry, Lucinda

  Twenty-seven states had enacted registration laws. There were three tiers of registration based on the type of offense and the person’s likelihood to reoffend. Tier Three was the worst and required lifetime supervision and checking in with the state every ninety days. Noah was a Tier One offender. He’d be listed on the national registry for ten years and had to verify his identity and location once a year with the local sheriff’s department.

  It didn’t matter that I understood why the register was there. I still hated it. Every situation was unique and had to be judged by its own merit. You couldn’t blindly lump Noah into categories and classifications. Every school, college, and job for the next ten years would know he was a sex offender.

  He’d done his time, gone to treatment, and followed through on everything they’d asked him to do, but he was still being punished. What was the point of treatment if he wasn’t going to have the opportunity to do anything they taught him there? The goal on all Marsh’s pamphlets and materials touted success in helping the convicted teen live a prosocial life without further legal involvement. The graduation plan stressed the importance of starting over in the community and family reunification. How was he supposed to do any of it when he wore a scarlet letter branded on his forehead?

  “Do you understand what this means?” It was the first time he’d spoken to Noah.

  “I get it.” Noah stared at his shoes without looking up.

  Sheriff Anderson slid the documents across his desk and handed us pens. Noah didn’t bother to read any of it before signing on the line. I skimmed through it briefly, but it wasn’t anything I hadn’t read before. I added my signature to the required line and provided the sheriff with all our contact information. Just like that, it was over, and Noah’s future was sealed.

  *****

  Katie ran at Noah and threw herself into his arms as soon as we walked through the door of their house. He scooped her up and swung her around wildly as she giggled.

  “That’s enough,” Lucas said from his spot at the kitchen table.

  I shot him a look.

  Noah stopped and plopped her onto the floor, ruffling the hair on top of her hand. She clung to his arm, wrapping herself around him.

  “I’m so glad you’re home. Come on, I want to show you the picture I made for you.” She grabbed his hand and skipped into the living room.

  Lucas followed behind and hovered over them with his chest puffed out and arms crossed as they knelt by the coffee table.

  “See, look, it’s us.” She pointed to a rainbow with two sets of swings hanging from it. One held a blond girl, and the other a larger, brown-haired boy. They were smiling and holding hands as they swung.

  “What’s that?” Noah asked, pointing to a small black dog in the picture.

  “That’s the dog we’re going to get.”

  I laughed. She’d been begging for a dog since she learned how to talk.

  “Really? Since when were you able to talk Dad into getting a dog?” Noah asked.

  Lucas had a strict no-pet policy because of his allergies. The only pets the kids were allowed to have were goldfish, but somehow we managed to kill more than we ever kept. Eventually, we gave up trying.

  “I’ve been reconsidering,” Lucas said.

  “Are you serious?” Noah asked.

  Lucas looked uncomfortable whenever Noah spoke to him, and tonight was no different. I wanted to shake him. Why couldn’t he just try a little bit?

  “Maybe.” He shrugged.

  “But, Daddy, you said it’d help me not miss Noah so much.”

  Lucas turned bright red and worked his jaw. Noah’s momentary light that Katie sparked was extinguished. I stepped into the center of the living room.

  “How about we eat some pizza?” I asked, trying to shift the mood.

  We filed into the kitchen in silence. Katie looked back and forth between Lucas and me, trying her best to read what was going on. She sat in the chair next to Noah.

  “I’m sitting here from now on,” she said.

  She used to sit in the chair across from him. I wanted to cry at how hard she was trying to prove her solidarity. Lucas took his seat at the head of the table, and I brought in the pizza we ordered earlier. I passed around the paper plates. My appetite was gone, but I forced myself to take two pieces. Lucas did the same. Katie dug into hers. The rest of ours sat untouched.

  I pulled my phone out of my pocket and pulled up Lucas’s number.

  For God’s sake, you can at least try. He’s your son.

  I hit send. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. He didn’t bother to look at me as he texted a response, setting it next to him on the table when he was finished. I waited a few minutes before looking at my phone because I didn’t want Noah to figure out we were texting each other.

  I’m doing my best.

  I’d seen him do his best, and this didn’t come close. He wasn’t doing anything. It’d been eighteen months since Noah’s confession. He had a year and a half to get used to things. To adjust. Find a new normal, but he hadn’t changed since the night he found out.

  Noah didn’t want to tell Lucas what he’d done, and begged me to do it for him, but I refused. I told him I’d help him, but he had to be a part of it. I waited until Katie had gone to bed and I was sure she was asleep before I went up to Noah’s room to let him know it was time. We headed into the living room together. Lucas was sitting in the recliner thumbing through the stack of reports he’d brought home from work. I sat on the couch and motioned for Noah to take a seat next to me. He sat next to me, his body stiff and rigid.

  “Noah has something to share with you.” I chose my words carefully. “I want to warn you that this is going to be hard to hear. I want you to take a deep breath and prepare yourself.”

  His eyes filled with fear. “What’s going on? Noah? What’s wrong?”

  Noah shook his head.

  “Noah?” he asked again.

  Noah kept shaking his head.

  “Last night Noah and I talked about what’s been going on with him. He told me about a problem he’s having.” I couldn’t believe I was going to have to say it out loud. I was praying he’d handle it better than I did. “We’re a family and no matter what, we’ll get through this.” I turned to look at Noah, hoping he believed me. “Remember that he’s our son. We love him—”

  Lucas cut me off. “What’s going on?”

  “I—”

  “Adrianne, what is going on?”

  “Noah molested two of the girls on the pee-wee league.” My voice came out almost a whisper. It was the first time I’d said it.

  The color drained from Lucas’s face. His eyes bulged. He clamped his hand over his mouth, jumped up from his spot, and sprinted to the bathroom in the hallway. I heard the sound of his vomit splattering on the tiled floor. My stomach turned over at the sounds of him retching violently. The putrid smell of acidic vomit filled the room.

  He stepped out of the bathroom looking like a madman. Puke crusted the front of his shirt. His eyes were still wide and unblinking, but now they were bright red from popped blood vessels. His entire body shook.

  “Lucas, sit down. Just sit back down,” I said softly.

  He didn’t move or speak, just looked right through me like he wasn’t seeing me. I stood, taking cautious steps toward him. He turned and bolted for the kitchen. I followed him just as the door slammed shut behind him. Noah whimpered in the living room. I rushed back to him. I took him in my arms and rocked him.

  “He’s just in shock. It’s really hard to hear. We’ve got to give him a minute to get himself together.” I kept rocking him back and forth like I’d done when he was a baby. His rigid body slowly went limp in my arms. “I’m so sorry for how I handled things last night. I wish—”

  He lifted his head. “Mom, don’t. I get it. I totally understand.” He lay back against me.

  Lucas wasn’t gone long before he walked through the living room. He didn’t even glance in our direction before
he headed upstairs. Soon, we heard banging above us.

  “Stay here,” I instructed Noah.

  I found Lucas in the hallway outside of Katie’s room with his toolbox spread open beside him. He was tugging and jerking at her doorknob, trying to pull it out of the circular hole. Sweat poured from his forehead.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  He didn’t speak, just pointed to the packaging laying at his feet—a new doorknob. I picked it up. It had a lock. None of our kids’ bedrooms had locks because we didn’t want to take the chance of them accidentally getting locked inside.

  “Mommy?” Katie called out.

  “Go back to sleep, sweetie. Daddy’s fixing your door.”

  I went slack against the wall next to him. I sat while he worked. It didn’t take him long to install the new doorknob.

  “You have to go down there and talk to him,” I said.

  “I’m not talking to him.” He moved past me in the hallway and into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

  He slept on the floor of Katie’s bedroom that night on the same air mattress I used now. He slept there until Noah went to treatment. He’d never talked to him. Not that night or the next. He quit speaking to him except when Katie was around. He left whenever he came into the room. He spoke around him, but never to him. He looked over him instead of at him. Even during all the meetings with the lawyer and trial, he sat in silence, unmoved.

  I understood his shock and the horror. What Noah did was abhorrent, but he was our son. No matter what he’d done, he was still our son. I couldn’t sever my love for him any more than I could cut off my arm.

  I’d given up trying to talk to Lucas about Noah. It only increased his frustration with me. We moved around the topic of him like skilled dancers performing a beautiful ballet. But we weren’t going to be able to ignore it any longer. He was out. He was here, sitting at our kitchen table eating pizza.

  HIM (THEN)

  My shirt is plastered against me with sweat. It’s my turn now, and I know how this goes. I hate this part of therapy. I keep telling myself it will be different—that this time it’s going to work, and I’m not going to react.

  The electrodes are strapped to my head. I think that’s why they shave our heads, because how would we ever get the sticky glue off if they didn’t? I don’t even bother trying to get all of it off anymore. Pieces of it are permanently stuck to my pillows.

  They never talk about this part with our parents. Does Mom know what they do to me? What these sessions consist of? She can’t because she’d never allow it if she did. But I can’t tell her. It’s another secret I have to keep. There’s so many secrets about this place and I can’t tell any of them because I don’t want to cause trouble or have any marks against me. Not with staff or the other kids. So far I have a flawless record, and I plan on keeping it that way. I’ll do what they say. Everything. All of it. Not just because I want to get out, but because I want to get better. More than anything.

  It’s why this is so hard. Every time we have one of these sessions I hope I won’t react. That their pictures will mean nothing, and I’ll come through the session without any shocks. But I never do. It’s only a matter of time before my body responds. It rarely happens when I look at the first few pictures, but after a while it does. I can’t help myself. I have no control over it, and I hate myself for it.

  The shocks are supposed to train my brain. Help me think and respond differently. They keep promising me that it will work if I do it long enough. Eventually my brain will look at a picture of a young girl and remember the shock instead of the arousal.

  I have to believe them. They’re doctors, so they’ve got to know what they’re doing, and they have to fix me. It’s what they’re trained to do. I can’t stay this way. I just can’t. Most of the other boys don’t even care, but I do. All I want is to get better and be normal.

  I never knew there was something wrong with me. There weren’t any clues. One day it just happened. It was like a switch went on and once it’d been turned on, I couldn’t turn it off no matter how hard I tried. And I really did try. I never wanted to hurt anyone. But I did, and now it’s my job to make sure I never do it again.

  The door opens and the nurse walks in carrying the machine with all the weird wires coming out of it. My doctor is next to her.

  “Are you ready?” the nurse asks, smiling at me.

  I nod, too nervous to speak. Maybe today will be the day.

  7

  I wasn’t sure who was more nervous for his first day at school. Him or me. I barely slept the night before and by the sounds of Noah’s tossing and turning, he hadn’t either.

  “What do you want me to fix you?” I asked in the morning.

  “Just coffee.”

  I whipped around. “Coffee? When did you start drinking coffee?”

  “At Marsh.”

  “You—” I shut my mouth. I was going to say he was too young to drink coffee, but it seemed childish now after everything he’d been through. I filled him a cup.

  “Do you take cream or sugar?”

  “Just black.”

  “Whoa. You’re hardcore.” I handed him his mug and took a seat at the table. He clasped his hands around it like a pro, sipping it slowly. “I can’t believe you’re a senior.”

  “Never thought my senior year would go down like this, huh?” Somehow his situation worked its way into all of our conversations.

  I nodded. “Does it feel weird to wear regular clothes?”

  He’d never gone to a public school before, not even in preschool. He didn’t know what it was like to pick out an outfit for school since he’d only worn uniforms.

  “It’s kind of strange.” He looked down at his white t-shirt and jeans. His jeans were a little too short, but they’d suffice for the next few days until I could take him shopping and let him pick out his own clothes.

  “Are you nervous?”

  He shrugged.

  “I’m sorry about how your dad acted last night.”

  We hadn’t talked about it yet. He was sullen and quiet on the drive home. His silence was a welcome relief because I didn’t know what to say about Lucas and refused to justify his behavior. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for Noah. He and his dad used to be so close.

  He stared into his coffee mug.

  “I want you to know I don’t agree with or support how he treats you,” I said.

  Lucas and I decided early on always to maintain a united front in front of our kids. It didn’t matter if we agreed with the other person or not, we would support them in front of the kids. It wasn’t like we’d never disagreed before. We disagreed on a lot of things. Lucas claimed I was too easy on them, and I thought he was too hard. We argued about how much money we spent all the time. Lucas wanted to keep a tighter rein on our finances, but I never agreed. However, our kids had no idea about our differences. We waged our parenting wars behind closed doors.

  This was the first time I hadn’t sided with Lucas in front of the kids. I was betraying our agreement, but I couldn’t support the way he treated Noah. He needed us more now than he ever had. I wasn’t okay Lucas treating him with indifference. I’d seen him treat strangers in our home better than he treated Noah last night. He stood by Katie’s side the entire time like he was her bodyguard and at any moment, Noah would attack her. When she clung to him during their good-bye hug, Lucas pulled her away long before she was ready. I was going to have a talk with Katie the next time we were alone just like I was doing with Noah. I didn’t care about our agreement anymore.

  “I can’t imagine how he must make you feel,” I said. His head was down, but I could see his lip quivering.

  “I miss my dad,” he said, swallowing the lump of emotions in his throat.

  I knew what it was like to lose your dad. Mine died five years ago, and there was still a hollowness in my heart from his absence. “I know you do. I miss him too.”

  “Do you think he’ll ever forgive me?” He lifted h
is head. His eyes were filled with so much sadness, I felt it. Nothing cut deeper than seeing one of my children in pain.

  “I hope so. I think maybe once he gets used to seeing you again, it might make it easier for him. Hopefully...”

  “I don’t know how to talk to him.”

  I got up and knelt beside him at eye level. “It’s not your job to figure out how to get him to talk to you. He’s your dad. It’s his job to figure out how to make things right. I want you to understand that. It’s not your fault.”

  “But it is. I—”

  I pushed my finger against his lips. “Shh, don’t say it. Noah, you did something awful. You know that, I know that, and your dad knows it too. But, you took responsibility. You’ve made things right, and eventually your dad is going to have to accept that. There isn’t any going backward. What’s done is done. None of us can change it. We’ve got to figure out a way to move forward. Put it behind us. Do you understand?”

  He nodded. Tears spilled down his cheeks.

  “We’ll get through this.” I hoped if I said it enough times it would become a reality. “Do you want me to walk to school with you?”

  He wiped his nose and picked up his backpack, filled with his lunch and new notebooks. “Nah, I’m okay.”

  I stood and hugged him, pulling him close. The smell of soap wafted into my nose. I didn’t want to let him go. My mama bear instincts kicked in, and I had a fierce desire to protect him from the day, to walk him through it like I walked him through his first day of preschool and kindergarten, but I couldn’t. I had to let him go.

  “Have a good day,” I said.

  The vastness of the day stretched out in front of me. I sat down to work on my transcripts, but couldn’t concentrate. I kept rewinding the player again and again. After a while, I gave up trying to get any work done. I stared at the clock as the minutes inched by, holding my breath, and waiting for the phone to buzz and tell me something terrible had happened to him. My stomach turned in on itself.