“Stay away from us,” she said as they reached the doorway, not bothering to get their coats. He pushed her through.
Nora and Jim stood behind me in the entryway, staring at me in horror.
“I can imagine what you’re thinking right now, and I’m sure it’s the worst-case scenario, but I’ve talked to Noah, and it was pretty innocent stuff. Just kids playing doctor, but he should’ve known better because he’s older. We know that, and he knows that too. He didn’t hurt them, not like you think. I know what you’re imagining.” I talked so fast my words tripped over each other. “I mean, I know it wasn’t okay, and I’m sure it was probably confusing for them. Noah’s confused too, but kids go through things like this all the time. I think if we talk to them and let them know we’re here for them and answer all their questions that they’ll be okay. I’m sure they’re going to have lots of questions. I’m not an expert, so I have no idea how to answer them, but there’s people who are and they can help us.”
Even after I stopped talking, Nora kept bobbing her head up and down, her dark hair flopping forward in her face. Jim looked like he wanted to punch something and if Lucas had been there, I was sure he would’ve.
“So just doctor stuff? Regular kid stuff?” Nora asked.
“Yes, that’s all it was. He didn’t hurt them—I mean, he hurt them, but not like that, just, stuff. Things he shouldn’t have done.”
“We need to talk to Maci,” Jim said.
“Are you sure? I mean, maybe we don’t need to talk to her if Adrianne says it wasn’t a big deal. Don’t you think she would’ve said something to us if it was bothering her? She’s acting perfectly normal.” Her eyes were wide, unblinking.
“Come on. We aren’t having this conversation in front of her.” He glared at me and pulled Nora toward the door.
I hurried to gather their coats from the closet. They looked at them with disgust like they didn’t want anything that had been in our house when I handed them their coats, but they took them anyway. I kept promising we’d get Noah into counseling as I followed them out, assuring them it was a lot for our families to take in all at once, but that we’d be okay and I was sure we could move through it successfully.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I’d never forget the knock on the door that Sunday morning. I had no idea who would be knocking at our door so early. I hurried to the doorway, tying my lavender robe around me. I peeked through the peephole and saw two uniformed police officers standing on the front porch. Terror seized me.
My immediate thought wasn’t of Noah, because I never imagined he’d be arrested. Kids didn’t get arrested unless they committed horrible crimes, and I didn’t view what he’d done as a crime. I thought someone had died. Had Lucas left without me knowing and been killed in a car accident on the way home? Had something happened to my mom?
“Are you the mother of Noah Coates?” The taller one of the two asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t find my voice.
“We’re here for your son,” he said.
“I don’t understand. What’s happening?”
“Ma’am, we have a warrant for his arrest.”
My gut clenched at the word arrest. They burst through the door without waiting for me to invite them in. They stormed up the stairs as if they’d been in my house before. Lucas met them in the hallway in his boxers, his hair sticking up all over his head, still reeking of booze.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Sir, move out of the way. We’re here for your son, Noah.” They pushed past him as if he weighed nothing.
I ran to Katie’s door and blocked it with my body. I didn’t want them to barge into her room and scare her. I pointed across the hallway. “That’s his room.”
They shoved open his door without knocking.
“Noah Coates?”
I waited for his voice, but there was only silence. They pulled him through the door, hands behind his back in cuffs with head down, and his long dark curls falling forward on his face. His body was slack, defeated. He didn’t look back as they pulled him down the stairs.
“Noah, it’s going to be all right. We’re going to figure this out,” I called after him, following him down the stairs as they read him his rights, my heart pounding in my chest. “I love you. It’s going to be okay. I love you, honey.”
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you. You have a right to an attorney...”
Just like that, they were gone. I collapsed in sobs on the foyer floor.
The story leaked throughout town, spreading like wildfire and gaining momentum as it traveled. The case was featured on the local news. They didn’t give Noah’s name because he was a minor, but it didn’t matter. By that time, everyone had heard. The stories stretched further and further from the truth as they traveled from mouth to mouth. At one point, there were rumors he belonged to a cult and had raped everyone in the swim class as part of his initiation.
It was as if we’d been catapulted back to the 1980s and our entire family had AIDS. People were afraid to be in our space or get too close to us like they might catch what we had. They watched us like wolves. They hated Lucas and me as much as Noah because we’d created the monster who hurt their children. The sacred pieces of our beautiful life were stripped from us one by one.
It started with the school. I was secretary of the PTA and received a letter from the president asking me to resign from my position and not attend any of the meetings until further notice. His letter was nice in comparison to the scathing emails I received from the carpool monitor and volunteer coordinator. Venomous hate filled every line. They made it clear I was no longer welcome to participate in any activities with the kids.
We made lots of mistakes in the beginning, and the biggest one was sending Noah to school after he’d been arraigned because we were desperate to return to some form of normalcy. We didn’t know normal no longer existed for us, or that the life we knew was gone.
Noah called me at 11:30 on his first morning back.
“Hi, honey. How’s it going?” I tried to sound chipper, pretending as if I hadn’t been crying since I dropped Katie off.
His voice was barely a whisper. “You have to come get me. Now. I’ll meet you in the back parking lot.”
“Honey, we talked about this. It’s going to be difficult, but you can get through it. It’s going to take a while, but—”
“You have to come get me,” he hissed.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.” I wanted to so badly, but knew the importance of not rescuing my kids from their mistakes.
“Mom, please.” His voice quivered.
“I said no. I ju—”
“I’m all bloody. You have to come get me.”
“What do you mean you’re all bloody?”
“Just get here. You’ll see.”
The call ended.
I raced to the school and pulled into the rear parking lot next to the football field. He limped across the lot with his head down, shoulders slumped, and holding his side. He slid into my car, refusing to look at me.
“Let me see you,” I demanded.
“Mom, no,” he whimpered.
I reached over and lifted his head.
“Oh my God,” I gasped.
Angry purple welts and deep red cuts raked the side of his face as if he’d been dragged. His left eye was swollen shut, and his right one lined in blue. A steady trickle of blood ran from his nose onto his white uniform shirt. His lip bulged, cracked in the middle. I reached out to touch him, and bring him close.
“Don’t.” He scooted against the door, curling into a ball on the seat.
“What happened?”
He shook his head, grimacing in pain with his movements.
“Please, Noah, tell me what happened. Who did this to you?” I couldn’t hide the desperation in my voice.
“It doesn’t matter.”
I shook my head. “It does matter. T
ell me who did this.”
“They jumped me in the locker room,” he said softly.
“The team?”
Noah was captain of the swim team, and they met for a short practice every day during fourth period.
He nodded.
“All of them?”
He nodded again.
“You stay here. I’m going back inside. I’m going to have a talk with Coach Hunt. This is unacceptable.” I reached for my purse.
“Mom, don’t, just don’t, please.”
I shook my head. “This is not okay. Coach Hunt won’t stand for this kind of behavior.”
Noah grabbed my hand with bloodied knuckles. “He was there, Mom. The entire time. He watched from his office window.”
I felt as if I’d been slapped. Coach Hunt was like a second father to Noah. He’d been his primary coach since sixth grade and worked with him privately during the summer at the pool in his backyard. We’d had him and his wife over for dinner numerous times over the years. I gripped the wheel, my hands shaking, thoughts whirling.
He never went back to school, and I started homeschooling him while we waited for his trial, but people refused to leave us alone. A group of students and parents marched through town plastering trees and posts with flyers warning: Beware of this child molester. His picture was blown up underneath—the same photo posted in the sophomore yearbook where he’d been voted most likely to succeed and the one we’d given the Courier after he’d won the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence. There was a phone number for anyone to call if they were one of his victims or had any information about the case. We saw his face everywhere we went.
I couldn’t go to the grocery store without everyone staring holes into me. People moved aside when I passed them in the aisles. Some shook their heads. Others pointed at me and whispered to their friends. The cashiers didn’t want to take my money as if my bills were contaminated and turned their noses up at me like I smelled foul. One Friday while waiting in line for the bank teller, a woman I recognized from the prison ministry at church turned and asked me if I was Noah’s mom. People had stopped speaking to me, so it took me by surprise.
“Y-yes, I am.” I felt the red moving to my cheeks.
She took a step toward me. “What are you doing here? You and your family are disgusting.” She spat at me, her fluid landing on my forehead, dripping down into my left eye.
The bank was filled with people, and everyone watched. The man in front of the woman patted her on the back like she’d scored the winning point in the championship game. It was impossible to hide my shame and humiliation as the tears stung my eyes. I mumbled apologies as I moved through the crowd, turning this way and that as I skirted through them, running for the door. I didn’t even get gas in Buffalo Grove after that and started driving three suburbs away to do my errands.
Lucas was an accountant and he’d built a thriving business over the years. His clients came to him through word of mouth because of the reputation he’d built for being honest and willing to go to any length for them. We never imagined his business would be affected, but his clients started pulling their accounts until even the most loyal were gone. He had no choice but to start looking for work at a new firm in Chicago. He landed a job downtown and had to take a huge pay cut while he built his clientele all over again.
Lucas wanted to move, but I refused. Our house was our sanctuary—every room thoughtfully and lovingly designed, where I’d carried each of my babies home from the hospital, filled with memories of Christmas and holidays, games in the backyard, and home-cooked meals in the kitchen. I desperately hoped people would eventually leave us alone and move on.
My last shred of hope vanished the afternoon we returned from a Cubs game. We’d gone to the game hoping it would provide some relief from the ever-present darkness surrounding us, threatening to devour us whole. It had worked. Noah had even laughed at lunch and spoken more than two words. Katie spotted it first as we stepped out of the car.
“Mom, what’s that say?” she asked, pointing at the house.
I looked up to see the words Baby Raper spray-painted in black across our front door. I clamped my hand over my mouth. Lucas covered Katie’s eyes even though she couldn’t read, as if the hideousness of the words could still reach her. I turned toward Noah, hoping he hadn’t gotten out of the car and I could create a distraction before he saw it, but it was too late. He stood still as a statue, transfixed on the words marking his childhood home. His eyes filled with unyielding sadness and despair.
We put our house on the market a week later. Three weeks after Noah was locked up, we moved to Dolton, as far south as we could get without crossing over to the proverbial other side of the tracks. Our downtown laced with thriving specialty restaurants, designer clothing boutiques, and seasonal festivals was gone. It’d been replaced with a chicken factory and chemical plant. Our new house was much smaller than our house in Buffalo Grove, but it was all we could afford since Noah’s trial drained all our savings and most of our retirement funds. We had to practically give our house away to the only person who made an offer because nobody local would touch it.
We enrolled Katie in kindergarten at the local public school. It was a sharp contrast to the expensive private school they were used to. There were over thirty kids in each classroom. Unlike their old school, where each kid had their own iPad to take home for their homework, there weren’t enough textbooks for each child to have one, and they had to share. Their school had been filled with extracurricular activities, but Katie’s new school didn’t have music, arts, or a physical education teacher. I threw myself into improving the school. It helped to have a project and gave me something to focus on besides Noah.
I organized a group of parents and began hosting monthly meetings in the library. Our meetings had to be in the evenings because unlike Buffalo Grove, most kids came from households where both parents worked. Fundraising was our first priority. We hosted car washes, had bake sales, and sold gift wrap from catalogues. By the end of the year, we’d raised enough money to hire an art teacher to come in once a week the following year.
We’d found anonymity in Dolton. The people were too busy trying to survive to care about anyone else’s problems but their own. I hoped our anonymity extended to Noah and gave him the second chance he needed. I desperately wanted the opportunity for a fresh start and to move forward. Not just for him, but for all of us.
HIM (THEN)
I sink my teeth into the blanket to stifle my cries and will myself to breathe. It’s been five weeks and nothing has changed. It hasn’t gotten any easier. I panic every night when they lock me in and turn down the lights. There’s no way to know if there’s anyone on the other side of the steel door. There’s no windows. No lights. It’s like being in a black box. They could leave me here for days if they wanted to, and no one would ever know.
They used to leave the doors unlocked at night but kids snuck into other rooms and beat each other. I heard a rumor someone got killed but I’m not sure if it’s true. I never know what to believe around here because people lie just as much as they tell the truth. We used to have roommates but they don’t allow that anymore either.
I didn’t sleep at all my first week. I couldn’t even make myself lay in the bed. I paced back and forth like a caged animal listening to the sounds around me. The old building moaned and creaked all night long. Nobody cries during the day, but everything changes when the lights go out. Some of the kids screamed like they were being tortured, and I was afraid I’d be next. The walls are so thin you can hear everything except if you’re in the quiet room. The quiet room is where they send you when you’re bad, and you can’t hear anything in there.
Ben is in the room on my left, and he falls asleep within minutes. I always know when he’s out because he snores so loud. I don’t know how he does it. Maybe it’s because he’s used to being locked up. He’s been locked up in over nine different placements. Almost everyone here has been locked up before. The
y brag about it like it’s something to be proud of.
Not me. I’m never coming back. This has to work. It has to fix me. I’m not cut out to live like this. I’m scared all the time. I worry the others will smell my fear, and I’ve seen what they do to the kids who are afraid. So far I’ve been left alone, but I’m not sure how much longer it’ll last.
I focus on staying out of everyone’s way. I don’t look people in the eyes. Not even in any of the groups. I stare at the floor, trying to create designs in the carpet. I speak if someone talks to me, but I don’t strike up conversations myself. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I don’t know how to talk to these kinds of kids. I’ve never hung out with bad kids, and now I’m surrounded by them. Most of them are proud of what they did, and it makes me sick. I throw up after group when they share their stories about the people they’ve hurt. I’ve learned to throw up quietly so no one knows I’m doing it.
Ben isn’t one of the bad ones. He wants to be but he’s not. He’s too nerdy. His face is covered in pimples, and you can see the dandruff in his greasy hair because he never washes it. He hates taking showers, so he always smells like dirty socks. One of his treatment goals is to take a shower every day, but he still refuses. He’s my treatment buddy, and I don’t say anything about his smell because I’d rather be paired up with someone like him than get stuck with someone like Joe.
Joe terrifies me, but it’s not just me. He terrifies everyone, even the counselors. They pretend like they’re not scared of him, but they are. I see it in their eyes when they look at him. He came from juvenile prison, where he served four years for burning his grandmother’s house down and almost killing her. Half of her body is covered with burns and she lives in a nursing home now because she can’t take care of herself. He’s been in trouble since he was a toddler. When he was five, his parents brought home a new puppy and he broke all the dog’s legs. Just snapped them like twigs. He laughs every time he tells the story. He got locked up for the first time when he was seven because he cut his baby sister with a knife. Sliced her whole arm. He said he did it because he wanted to see what blood looked like. He has to be locked up until he’s twenty-one.
Saving Noah Page 3