If he’d been their age, it would’ve been labeled innocent fun. Playing doctor. It wasn’t as if he’d forced himself on them. He hadn’t. They’d been the ones to touch first. I didn’t blame the girls, though. It wasn’t their fault. They had no idea what they were doing. None. Their touch and exploration was completely innocent. Nothing sexual about it, but it hadn’t been innocent for Noah, and he wasn’t their age, which made it a crime. I understood that, but their lives weren’t going to be ruined forever. They just weren’t. But, the world wouldn’t be satisfied until they’d annihilated him. He was more of a victim than those girls, but society would never see it that way. They saw it as him getting what he deserved.
I hadn’t slept since he told me. Not one hour. Tonight was no different. I wanted to cry, but couldn’t anymore. I’d been drained of my tears, hollowed out, and a cold numbness had settled over me, leaving me cut off from the rest of the world. In the most private part of myself, I considered doing it together. I pictured us lying side by side on his bed as we drifted toward our death. The images flashed when I didn’t want them to. I tried to push them away, but they refused to be ignored.
I was exhausted. Every shred of fight had dwindled down to nothing. I felt like a shell of a person and couldn’t remember what it felt like to really be alive. Yet, no matter how awful I felt, it didn’t compare to the pain Noah was going through. No wonder he wanted to die.
I spent my sleepless nights scouring the Internet and gathering information on the Death with Dignity Act. At first, I felt like I was going to throw up because helping someone die went against everything I’d been taught. I approached it like I’d done my first year of nursing school, when I overcame fainting at the sight of blood. The fainting episodes almost derailed my dream because no one wants a nurse who ends up on the floor every time they stick a needle in your arm. I started chanting, “I’m not going to faint,” each time I pulled out a needle and rehearsed it silently until the feelings of lightheadedness passed. I changed my mantra to “I’m not going to throw up” until I could read the research without the reaction.
The Death with Dignity Act was based on the premise that we chose how to live our lives and should be able to choose how we wanted to die. Proponents claimed it was a basic right to control when and how you died. It brought up so many questions I’d never thought about. Should people be forced to live when they didn’t want to? Why was I fighting so hard for Noah to stay alive when he so clearly wanted to die? Was it fair to ask him to stay alive so I didn’t have to live without him?
If he was dead, he’d never know if his sexual response system would’ve changed, but as much as I wanted change to be a possibility, I’d always liked boys. My attraction hadn’t veered since I was a nine-year-old girl and had my first crush on Billy Corgin. I still remembered the smell of his green apple bubble gum he snapped all through fourth grade. Nothing was going to change Noah’s attraction either. He couldn’t change his physiological response any more than I could change mine.
He was going to live in continual torture—isolated, stigmatized, and alone. How would it be to live his entire life repressing something that was perfectly normal for most people? How could I ever keep him out of situations where he might be blamed? He’d always look guilty even if he was innocent, and there wasn’t any way to keep people from finding out about him. He was registered, and all you had to do was google his name to find it. His Facebook page was still there despite my continued contacts to Facebook to take it down. There wasn’t any way to protect him when others found out. Never had been. How many more times would he be beaten and raped?
Everything on death with dignity was related to people with terminal illnesses. I was fascinated with their stories and devoured them. I read and watched everything on Brittany Maynard. I hadn’t paid much attention to her case when it happened, but I couldn’t tear myself away from it. She was only twenty-nine when she was diagnosed with a horrible form of brain cancer and given six months to live. Treatments would only diminish her quality of life, and she wanted to enjoy her last moments. But most importantly, she didn’t want to put herself or her family through watching her deteriorate to a point where she was unrecognizable. She and her husband moved to Oregon where it was legal. She spoke so eloquently about her choice to save herself and others from needless suffering. As I scrolled through page after page of her experience and others like her, I had to ask myself the same question Noah asked me: would I help him die if he had terminal cancer? The truth—no matter how much I didn’t want to admit it—was that if Noah was dying of brain cancer and didn’t want to suffer, I would help end his suffering. Was his condition any less vile, debilitating and dignity-robbing than brain cancer?
I would go to jail if anyone found out I helped him. Could I risk not being there for Katie in order to help Noah? Was that fair to her? I could never tell her that I helped her brother die. She’d hate me for it. There was no question about that. I’d have to lie to her for the rest of her life. Could I live with a secret that huge? Was I prepared to live with what I’d done for the rest of my life?
Lucas’s reaction was the only one I didn’t have to worry about. He’d be happy Noah was gone. I blamed him for so much of Noah’s hopelessness and despair. His rejection was as painful as any fist. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was the one who finally pushed him over the edge and put the gun in his hand. I couldn’t wrap my brain around him telling him to leave and disappear from our family forever. In a sense, I was doing the same thing, but I was doing it because I loved him and didn’t want him to continue to suffer, and I never would’ve considered it if he hadn’t been the one to ask. Lucas wanted to get rid of him because he hated him. Period. I didn’t care if our actions might be similar, our intentions were entirely different.
I hadn’t told Noah that I’d decided to help him. There would be no going back once I told him. It would set a plan in motion and make it a reality. I kept waiting to be ready to tell him what I’d decided, but I was never going to be ready. I just had to do it.
*****
The drive to the hospital the next day was similar to how I felt when I was in labor. The moments leading up to it were so surreal because the life you knew was about to be changed forever and never going to look the same. Today was no different. Each mile brought me closer to the inevitable consequences of agreeing to help Noah.
He was sitting in the community room watching an old movie with some of the other patients when I got there. He jumped up to greet me as soon as he saw me in the doorway and led the way down the hallway to his room. He didn’t have to ask permission to go to his room anymore. All his restrictions had been lifted because nobody worried about his safety. They were convinced he was on the road to recovery.
He plopped down on his bed and crossed his legs. “How’d it go with Katie? Did you give her the picture I made for her?”
I nodded. Lately, they’d been working on a comic book together. Each one worked on a page that they traded once they’d finished and then the other continued the story where it left off. Noah had never been the creative type, her illustrations far better than his, but they both loved it, and it kept them connected. I promised her we’d find a way to put it together in a real comic book with binding and laminated pages once it was finished.
“All of this is starting to have an effect on her,” I said, sadness thickening my voice.
His eyes filled with concern. “What’s going on?”
“She’s started to wet the bed at night. Your dad also said her teachers have been saying she seems like she’s having a harder time concentrating.”
“Poor Peanut. This has got to be so tough on her. I’m surprised she’s lasted this long.”
It was only a matter of time until she started suffering from everything going on. I needed to get her into therapy and give her a place to talk about things without having to worry about my feelings. It was hard to imagine my gentle and imaginative seven-year-old needing therapy.
None of this was anything like the life I imagined. It was all wrong.
“I’m going to talk to your dad about getting her some help.” I paused, searching for the strength to go on. “And I want to talk to you about something too ...”
He nodded, waiting for me to continue.
“I’ve been thinking about what you asked me.”
His eyes lit up. He knew exactly what I was referring to. It was the question that had hung in the air expectantly since he posed it.
“Do you still feel the same way?” I asked.
He didn’t have to take time to think about his answer. “Absolutely.”
I took a deep breath, whispering a silent prayer of forgiveness. “I’ve decided I’m going to help you.”
His eyes widened. “Are you serious? Really? Are you serious?”
I nodded, pushing past the lump in my throat. “If you’re convinced this is what you want to do, then I’ll make sure it’s easy for you. I don’t want you to have to do something awful to yourself again, and I don’t want you to be alone during it.”
My words sent shockwaves through my body.
A wide grin spread across his face. He clasped his hands together. “Thank you, Mom. Thank you so much.” He stood to come toward me.
I motioned for him to sit down. “Don’t. Not yet.”
The enormity of what I’d agreed to filled the whole room. It was hard to breathe. My entire world felt like it was crushing me while he looked thrilled. He looked like my little boy again, the one who held my hand as we skipped to the swings and squealed with delight as he begged to be pushed higher.
18
Dr. Park was pleased with his progress. She was excited to work with him again once he was discharged and talked about signing him up for one of the latest research studies on nonviolent sexual offenders. I agreed, and more than once I almost told her what he was planning—what we were planning, since I had become part of his plan. It didn’t feel right, but nothing had felt right in a long time. I’d lost my bearings. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get them back. In the end, I didn’t tell her. It wasn’t like she could stop him. Nobody could.
It wasn’t easy to die painlessly. Most people thought you could take pills and sleep your way into death. It was the mistake Noah made the first time. In reality, most people who popped handfuls of pills ended up violently ill or having a seizure, but rarely dying. Most woke up with permanent brain damage. If he insisted on ending his life, I wanted it to be painless, easy, and successful. He deserved that. No more violent throwing up or hanging himself from the balcony like a savage. Most importantly, I didn’t want him to do it alone. Nobody should have to die alone.
A dose of Nembutal would make him fall asleep and slowly decrease his respirations until he quit breathing. He’d fall asleep and never wake up. It was painless and the drug of choice in assisted suicides. But it was illegal, and no one could ask for Nembutal without raising eyebrows. Even though nurses called in prescriptions for doctors all the time, I’d walk out of the pharmacy in handcuffs if I tried to call in a Nembutal prescription under the name of one of the doctors I transcribed for. Even if I somehow managed to get my hands on a prescription, there was always an autopsy after the death of a child who died outside of a hospital setting, and they’d find it in his system. Everyone would wonder where he’d gotten it, and it wouldn’t take long for them to connect the dots leading to me. I couldn’t go to prison, so I had to make sure I didn’t implicate myself in any way.
My only choice was to do something with the medications we already had. Normally, that would’ve consisted of Tylenol, Midol, cough syrup, and allergy pills, but I had a small pharmacy in my medicine cabinet given all the stress and turmoil of the last few years. I had a three-month prescription for Ambien and plenty of Xanax. I even had the anti-nausea medication he’d need to keep him from throwing up. I hadn’t refilled my Xanax in over a year because I didn’t like the way it made me feel, so I’d just learned to live with perpetual anxiety instead. But Ambien and Xanax weren’t a strong enough combination to shut down his system without him waking up or getting sick. I was going to have to call my doctor and ask for something stronger than Ambien to help me sleep. It’d be relatively easy to talk him into prescribing something stronger, like Seconal, especially with everything that’d happened recently. They would find all the pills in his bloodstream, but no one would suspect I’d given them to him.
His last few days in the hospital dragged. We’d run out of things to say and spent most of our time sitting silence. I didn’t know who I was anymore. What would happen to my insides after I helped end his life? Would I be too wrecked to function? There was nothing but uncertainty in front of me, and I had no idea how to feel.
Noah, on the other hand, looked more peaceful than he had in years. He was giddy and full of excitement the day he was released. He practically bounced as he walked out of the hospital.
“Okay, so what are we going to do?” His eyes were wild with anticipation on the drive home. “I can’t believe the day is finally here. Ugh, you have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this.”
“What are you hungry for? Chinese? Thai?” I wasn’t hungry, but we hadn’t eaten since breakfast since all the discharge paperwork took longer than expected.
“I just want to get home. I don’t care about eating.”
“You’ve got to be starved. Aren’t you sick of hospital food?”
He laughed. “Yeah, but who cares about food now? I can’t wait to get home and do it.”
I swerved into the other lane of traffic, nearly missing another car. “Noah, we’re not doing it today.” I gripped the wheel, forcing myself to stay focused on the road.
His face fell. “We’re not?”
I shook my head.
“But I don’t get it. I thought you agreed. What are we waiting for?”
I wrestled with my emotions, forcing myself to keep them at bay. “Well, there’s a few pretty important things we need to take care of. We have to get your medication, and we have to do it in a way that keeps me out of it. I can’t go to jail.”
I pretended he was one of my patients rather than my son and launched into a clinical explanation of the combination of sleeping pills, anxiety medication, and anti-nausea medication that he’d need to be sure he fell asleep without getting sick beforehand or having a seizure. I explained what I’d get and how I’d get it, the way he’d have to take it, and the things we’d need to do leading up to it to make sure nothing we did raised any red flags.
“Wow, Mom. You thought of everything,” he said after I finished.
I shuddered. It was nothing to be proud of.
“So, after I take everything, it’ll be like an hour, and it’s over?”
His eagerness was almost more than I can bear.
“It should be as long as everything goes according to plan.” Our plan had to work. I refused to consider the alternative.
“Will I be aware of anything going on or am I going to be totally knocked out?”
“It’s hard to say what it’ll feel like. You might be able to hear things, but you’ll be too messed up to move or open your eyes.”
“So, I might be able to hear?”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“I’m totally working on a playlist.”
He started rattling off the different types of music and songs he was going to put on his iPod, but I quit paying attention. It was too painful listening to him select the songs he thought would be most appropriate to die to. How could he think about the music to accompany the moment? We were supposed to be planning the music for his high school graduation. The food we’d prepare. The guests we’d invite. Not this.
“How long until you can get the prescription?” He had the wild-eyed look of a drug addict who could barely wait to get their next fix. I stopped looking at him. It hurt too much.
“I’ll call it in on Monday while you’re at the hospital.” I didn’t know why I said Monday. It didn’t reall
y matter what day. He didn’t push further. “Don’t you think we should tell your dad?”
“Why would we tell Dad?” He looked at me like I suggested he stab himself in the eye.
“Don’t you want to explain things to him?” Despite my feelings toward Lucas, it seemed like the right thing to do.
He shook his head. “Dad already knows. He always has.”
“What about telling him good-bye?”
He thought about it for a moment. “You know what I want?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “I want one final family day at the Navy Pier. I want to walk along the water and ride the Ferris wheel like we used to do. We haven’t done that in so long. I loved our day trips there, and Katie probably doesn’t remember them since we haven’t been there in so long. That’s how I want to remember Dad.”
I always loved our trips to the pier, especially during the summer. The views of Lake Michigan were some of the best in the state. Noah’s favorite attraction was the maze with all its tunnels and obstacles, and Katie loved digging in the dinosaur sand pits inside the Children’s Museum. I loved the Crystal Gardens. They’d always been special because Lucas took me there on one of our first dates.
“How about we go next weekend?” I asked.
“Sure. That sounds good. And then we can do it? Like that Monday?”
“You don’t want any more time?” It was only nine days.
He grimaced. “That’s like over a week away.”
“I think you can make it until then.”
“I guess if I have to.”
I wasn’t sure if I could. I didn’t know if I could make it through any of this.
*****
I was worried being back at the apartment would be hard for him, but he was happy. He helped me make dinner, and we joked and laughed as we prepared my famous fried chicken. It was a secret recipe that’d been in my family for years. He ate ferociously as if he’d been starving for years. He gobbled up the chocolate cake we made for dessert.
Saving Noah Page 17