Saving Noah

by Berry, Lucinda

  “Please, my son has been beat up. He’s unconscious.”

  “Is he there with you now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he breathing?”

  “Yes.” Despite his unresponsiveness, his chest moved up and down rhythmically, but he was in so much pain, he moaned with each breath. “Please hurry.”

  “What’s your address, ma’am?”

  “2819 West Keystone Avenue.”

  “Mom?” Noah looked up at me with one eye. His other swollen shut.

  I knelt next to him. “Honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out. I’m here. I’m right here,” I whispered, cradling the phone on my shoulder. “The ambulance is coming soon.”

  “I don’t need an ambulance,” he coughed.

  The operator broke in. “Okay, it looks like we can have a unit there in about twenty minutes.”

  “Twenty minutes? What? No. Not twenty minutes. You have to come now.” I’d never heard of such a thing, having to wait for an ambulance. “This is an emergency.”

  “I’m sorry, but that’s the soonest we can have someone to you.”

  There was no way. I wasn’t waiting twenty minutes. I hung up. I scrambled through the house, gathering up things as fast as I could and throwing them into a bag. Noah still hadn’t moved from his spot in front of the door, but at least he was conscious.

  “Noah, honey, we have to get you to the hospital. I don’t want to wait for the ambulance. I’m going to need your help to get you downstairs and in the car. Do you think you can walk?”

  He nodded. I wrapped my arm around him and helped pull him to his feet. We shuffled through our door and down the hallway. I breathed a sigh of relief that none of our neighbors were around. Noah leaned into me for support in the elevator.

  “Who did this?” I asked.

  “You already know,” he said.

  *****

  I held his hand while he slept. He’d been asleep since they wheeled him back from X-rays. His collarbone was broken and so were two of his ribs from where they’d kicked him while he was down. I’d gotten the story out in pieces on the drive to the hospital. Spencer and two of his friends had jumped him two blocks from our house while he was walking to school. One of them had a baseball bat and they’d beaten him with it. He needed twenty-seven stitches to connect his eyebrow back to his skin, five on his chin, and eight on the deep gash on his knee. They’d pumped him full of morphine to help with the pain.

  I was glad he was asleep because I couldn’t stop crying and didn’t want him to see it. Two months. It’d only been two months and here we were again. What was I going to do?

  A knock at the door startled me. I quickly wiped my face with my sleeve and rearranged my face as a short woman walked through the door carrying an iPad. She walked around to the other side of Noah’s bed so she could see my face.

  “I’m Dr. Phillips, but you can call me Lisa,” she said. “I’m one of the clinical psychologists at the hospital. You must be Noah’s mom?”

  She was the opposite of Dr. Park. Whereas she always looked put together, Dr. Phillips’s long hair was haphazardly pulled up in a bun with a pen sticking through it. Her clothes were loose and slung low on her hips. She had a white doctor coat on but was missing the stethoscope.

  I nodded, wrestling with the emotions in my throat. “I’m Adrianne.”

  “I’m so sorry that you’re going through this,” she said. “I know you’ve been through a lot today, but I was wondering if I might be able to talk to Noah alone? It’s standard procedure for whenever a child comes into the hospital with injuries like this.”

  She had to make sure I wasn’t the one who hurt him. I wanted to cry and laugh at the same time. I’d been the one to ask parents to leave so we could assess the situation, but I’d never been on the receiving end. It felt awful even though I knew she was just doing her job.

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Why don’t you step out into the waiting room? See if you can’t get yourself a cup of coffee?” Her voice was kind. Her eyes gentle.

  I got up and headed for the waiting room. Maybe it was better that she questioned him alone. I wasn’t sure I could hear the details of what they’d done to him. I spotted Lucas sitting in a chair in the corner as far away as he could get from the young man throwing up in a plastic bag. He stood when he saw me and shoved his hands in his pockets, looking nervous.

  “They told me about his injuries. Sounds pretty rough,” he said, shuffling back and forth on his feet.

  “He doesn’t look good.”

  He reached under his seat, pulled out a Starbucks mug, and handed it to me.

  “Thanks.” I took it and sat in the chair next to his. “There’s a psychologist meeting with him now.”

  “Why’s he meeting with a psychologist?”

  “Don’t pretend you care,” I snapped.

  He balked as if I slapped him in the face.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “You called me,” he huffed.

  “Right. Because I called you. Not because you actually give a shit what happens to him. What are you going to do when he walks out of here? You going to hug him? Ask him if he’s okay? No, you’re going to stare at him like he’s some kind of freak and make him feel worse than he already does.”

  “I ... I ...”

  “Tell me I’m wrong. Go on. Tell me.” I glared at him.

  “I ...” He opened his mouth, then shut it again.

  “You don’t even care if he dies.” I spat out the words.

  “That’s not true.”

  But it was. I could see it in his eyes. He was just like everybody else.

  “Just go.” I pointed toward the exit.

  “Are you serious?” He looked shocked.

  “Yes, go.”

  He didn’t put up a fight or argue to stay. He walked out of the waiting room without looking back. I seethed with anger. All of this was his fault. If he hadn’t made me choose between abandoning Noah and living with them, we never would’ve moved to the new apartment. Noah wouldn’t have been walking to school because even though they only lived a few blocks away, they were zoned within a different school district, and he would’ve had to take the bus. He’d be living in the same house with Katie, the only person who brought him joy in his life right now, but Lucas had taken that away too.

  I’d been on the verge of a breakdown and giving up, but my anger toward Lucas gave me strength. I let it fill me, pulling me away from the devastation threatening to overtake me. I needed someone to hate, or I might fall apart. This time, I didn’t know if I could put myself back together again. I sucked back my tears, set my jaw, and sat up straighter.

  I got up, filled with determination, and walked back into Noah’s room. Dr. Phillips was gone. He was sitting on the bed, his left arm in a strange sling to keep his collarbone in place. He was in a fresh hospital gown. His other arm clutched his stomach as he stared into space, eyes wide and unblinking. I wanted to hug him but didn’t want to hurt him. He’d never looked as fragile as he did at this moment, not even when he was an infant and I’d stared at him in his bassinet while he slept.

  “Hey,” I said softly.

  He didn’t look up, just kept staring straight ahead. He looked like he didn’t hear me.

  “How’d it go with the psychologist?” I asked tentatively.

  Still nothing.

  “Noah?” I stepped in front of him and waved my hand in front of his eyes. Nothing. Not a flinch. “I’m going to see if I can track down the psychologist.”

  I didn’t have to look far. She was hovering at the nurses’ station, writing down orders.

  “Excuse me.” I tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned around. “Sorry to bother you.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “I was just making notes in Noah’s chart.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked.

  “He’s in shock. It’s terrifying to be attacked the way he was. His pupils are
dilated, which suggests he was most likely knocked unconscious during the fight. The doctors have also ordered a CT scan to make sure there isn’t any swelling in his brain. They’re going to keep him in the hospital overnight for observation. The police should be here shortly to take his statement. I’ll be with him during the interview to try to help him through it and keep it from being too overwhelming. You’re welcome to be there too. Do you have any idea why he was attacked?”

  Her eyes were filled with such compassion and care. Her voice was gentle and filled with concern. I didn’t want to tell her. As soon as she knew the reason they beat him, all of it would disappear. She’d look at him the same way everyone else did.

  “I have no idea why they attacked him,” I said.

  10

  “He hasn’t left his room for three days. He just lays in his bed and stares at the ceiling. He won’t eat. He doesn’t sleep. I don’t know what to do,” I cried.

  I swore when I left Marsh I’d never talk to Dr. Park again after the way she handled his discharge, but I had nowhere else to turn.

  “Have you thought about getting in contact with the psychologist at the hospital? Maybe he needs to be institutionalized,” she said.

  “Like put in the psych ward?”

  “Yes, it might help stabilize him.”

  “I’m afraid that it would make him worse.” Locking him up in a hospital with no access to the outside world was too much, and he’d spent enough of his adolescence institutionalized.

  “Have you thought about moving?” she asked.

  “We just moved and even if we moved again, what difference will it make? This will follow him to the next school. What are we supposed to do? Keep running from place to place?”

  There was no escaping what he did. It was attached to us like a malignant tumor. Noah told the police he didn’t know his attackers, but I knew he wasn’t telling the truth. He’d told me in the car that it was Spencer and his friends. He also said he didn’t remember much of the assault because he hit his head and was knocked out for most of it. I hoped that part was true, that he’d been unconscious while they broke his bones.

  I felt stupid for believing no one would find out about him. I don’t know why I hadn’t done it before, but I googled his name while we were in the hospital. It wasn’t difficult to find him. He was listed as a sex offender on the third page of results, but that wasn’t the most disturbing thing I found. Someone had created a Facebook page in his name: Noah Coates (Baby Raper). It’d been created around the time he got convicted, back when we lived in Buffalo Grove. Recently, it’d sprung back to life with a vengeance. I had stayed away from reading any of the comments in the media during his trial but couldn’t stop myself this time. I scrolled through hundreds and hundreds of hate-filled comments, many of them coupled with death threats. I couldn’t believe it was happening again. Not again.

  The police must’ve found it too, which explained why they didn’t follow up after the hospital despite how concerned they were initially. They had bombarded him with questions. What did he remember about the attack? What was he doing in the moments before it happened? Did he know of anyone who would want to hurt him? They’d promised to get to the bottom of it. Find out who did it and arrest them. We hadn’t heard a peep from them since. Nothing.

  He’d been beaten and broken. Not once, but twice. He’d been ridiculed, shamed, chased out of his home, and school. Lost all his friends. His dad. Anything he ever cared about. He’d served time, registered as a sex offender, and followed all their rules. When was enough going to be enough?

  The first time around, I was devastated as our lives were destroyed and filled with so much shame and guilt I couldn’t do anything except heap their hate on my shoulders. But it was different now. There wasn’t anything left for them to take. They couldn’t destroy anything else. It was all gone.

  *****

  “What about homeschooling?” Dr. Park asked on our daily check-in call. I’d gone to her for help but she had the same grasping-for-straws tone in her voice that I had in my gut.

  “How am I supposed to homeschool him when he can’t use the Internet?”

  “Sometimes the law will make an exception, and this is certainly one of the cases where they should. I can contact his probation officer and let him know about his situation. Maybe if I talk to them, they’ll allow it. There will be strict rules for his use and you’ll have to monitor him closely, but I’ve had other clients who were able to do it. There are all kinds of online programs available through the school district.”

  I gave her all the information she needed, and she promised to start working on it as soon as we hung up. I was pacing the living room when there was a knock at the door. It took me off guard. Nobody visited us. I opened it to find Lucas standing on our welcome mat. I hadn’t seen or talked to him since our argument in the hospital waiting room.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, not bothering to invite him in.

  “I wanted to see how you guys are doing.” He rubbed his hands through his hair.

  “We’re fine,” I said, my voice clipped.

  “Can I see him?”

  “Why?” I put my hands on my hips.

  He shrugged. “I want to know if he’s okay.”

  “Well, he’s not. Not even close.” I glared at him.

  He let out a deep sigh. “Adrianne, please, let me in. Don’t do this.”

  “Seeing you is only going to hurt him. I’m not going to let you keep hurting him.”

  I was done letting people hurt my son. He’d been punished enough.

  “I’m trying.” He looked down at his feet.

  “No, you’re not.” I kept my voice low so Noah wouldn’t hear. I stepped out into the hallway with him, shutting the door closed behind me. “You’ve done nothing.”

  “Really? Nothing? I didn’t sell my house? Move to this shitty-ass part of town? I don’t drive an hour each way just to go to work? I didn’t give up my entire life so he wouldn’t have to go to jail? I haven’t drained my retirement or rearranged my whole world so he could have a life? But, you’re right—you’ve done it all.” His nose flared in and out.

  Anger surged through me. “You didn’t have a choice. Don’t act like you did any of it because you wanted to. You did it out of obligation.” I took my finger and plunged it into his chest, pushing him backward. “You haven’t told him you loved him since it happened. Not once have you uttered those words. You took away your love the minute he didn’t fit into the box you’d put him in.”

  “Didn’t fit into a box? Christ, you act like he failed a test at school. He’s a fuckin’ child molester.” He spat out the word.

  “It doesn’t mean he’s a monster. He has a problem.” My voice shook.

  “Stop saying that!” he yelled. “Do you know how many times you’ve said, that like somehow I don’t get it? I’m the one who gets it. You’re the one that doesn’t understand.”

  “What? Enlighten me. What exactly is it that I don’t understand?” My rage consumed me. I wanted to claw his eyes out, pummel him with my fists, anything to make him hurt.

  He shook his head wildly. “You don’t want to hear it. You act like you do, but you don’t. You don’t want to talk about it for real. You talk about what he did like he robbed some bank and went off to treatment to learn how not to steal again. You’re in la-la land about it. Always have been.”

  “That’s not true. Just because I still love him doesn’t mean I’m not in reality.”

  Loving him wasn’t something to be ashamed of. I’d never apologize for it.

  “Bullshit. You can tell that to yourself all you want, but it doesn’t make it true.” He gestured at the door behind me. “What he’s got, what’s wrong with him—it doesn’t go away. There’s something broken inside him. Something you can’t fix. Even if you want to. Even if he wants to.”

  “You can’t say that. How do you know that? You don’t know that.”

  “You want to know ho
w I know?” He leaned into me, his face inches from mine. “Because I’m a man, and men aren’t supposed to have thoughts or fantasies about touching little girls. It’s sick and disgusting.” His eyes were on fire.

  The wind in my fight left me. The lights in the hallway were too bright. Lucas’s face too close.

  “Just leave. Go away. I don’t want you here.”

  He raised his voice. “See, that’s what I mean. You say you want to talk about things, but you don’t. You want to talk about the delusion you’ve created rather than reality. You run away anytime it gets close to the truth.”

  “I’m not running away. I just don’t think we should be having this conversation in the hallway.” I was spent. My fury was gone and replaced with tears.

  “Where would you like to have it, then?”

  “In our house. The one you kicked me and your son out of.” I stepped back and shut the door in his face.

  HIM (THEN)

  I wish Mom wouldn’t visit. I shouldn’t feel that way, but I do. She makes me remember home and life out there. It’s too dangerous to think about the world outside these walls because it makes it harder to be here. I have to pretend like nothing else exists to survive. It’s the only way to make it through. I want to tell her not to come anymore but it would devastate her, and I’ve already caused her enough pain. It hurts to even look at her.

  She smiles through every visit, but the smile on her face is a lie. There’s no hiding the pain etched on her face, and her eyes look like she hasn’t slept in years. She loses more weight every time I see her. She never stops talking when she’s here. It’s like she’s afraid of the silence.

  Everything is different when the parents visit. Staff lets us go outside and walk around the yard without the guards. Our parents eat lunch with us, and it’s the meal I look forward to every week because it’s the only one resembling real food. Most of our meals are slop—scoops of goo that they plop on our plates like dog food. But when the parents are here we get burgers or pizza. It still tastes like cafeteria food but it’s a thousand times better than what we usually get. Most of the parents don’t eat but we scarf it down. They even let us have seconds, and we never get seconds. Everyone’s happy during lunch, even the kids who don’t have parents visiting because they still get to eat with us.