Saving Noah

Adrianne met Lucas in her freshmen year in college, while they were both working for Habitat for Humanity. Bonding over their Midwestern upbringings, they were instantly comfortable with each other. Though there weren’t fireworks between them, they shared a deep sense of belonging. Within six months of their first date, they were engaged, choosing Buffalo Grove in Chicago’s northern suburbs to raise their family. After Noah’s birth, Adrianne happily traded her full-time job as a nurse to become a stay-at-home mom. Ten years later, Katie came along, and life was blissful for Adrianne. Then one day, Noah revealed that he had molested two young girls, and the family fell apart. Now, Adrianne is moving into a dingy two-bedroom apartment and working as a medical transcriptionist to help with the bills.

Adrianne recalls her clueless handling of Noah’s initial confession. She treated the abuse as a collective problem, imagining that if she was honest with the parents of the girls, they would forgive Noah, and the families would heal. She called the Johnsons and the Williams, who attended the same church as her family, over for dinner. Adrianne began the discussion by offering to pay for therapy for the little girls, Maci and Bella, claiming, “[A]ll our kids are going to need help to work through this” (26). When Lucas revealed that the girls would need therapy because Noah molested them during swim practice, the Johnsons and Williams were stunned. Adrianne remembers tripping over her own words and saying things like what Noah did was “pretty innocent stuff” and “just kids playing doctor” (28). The shocked parents walked out, furious with Adrianne.

The parents of the little girls reported Noah to the police. On Sunday morning, the police arrived at their house, with a warrant for Noah’s arrest. The police officers took Noah from his room, as Adrianne wept and told Noah she loved him. News of Noah’s arrest spread quickly, and the Coates were treated as social outcasts. Parents in their community blamed Lucas and Adrianne for the upbringing that contributed to Noah becoming a sex offender.

Noah was briefly released after a one-night stint in the holding pen. Adrianne sent him to school in the aftermath, believing he needed a normal routine. However, Noah was viciously bullied at school. One day, he called Adrianne to pick him up after he was beaten up till he bled, right in front of Coach Hunt, the swimming teacher. The family switched Noah to homeschooling as he awaited his trial. Clients began to withdraw from Lucas’s thriving accountancy firm, and he was forced to work for a pay cut at a firm in downtown Chicago. When someone spray-painted “baby raper” in black across their front door, the Coates sold their house and moved from posh Buffalo Grove to distant Dolton.

Now in Dolton, Adrianne hopes for a new beginning for Noah. She moves Noah’s things from the garage to her new apartment and paints the dull walls a bright white. She arranges Noah’s swim trophies on the shelf in the living room. Adrianne remembers how proud she and Lucas, both unathletic themselves, were of Noah’s swimming prowess. Adrianne hopes Noah will swim again.

An unnamed narrator has been in a facility for five weeks. Each night, he has a panic attack when they lock him in his pitch-dark cell. Since boys used to sneak into cells to beat each other up, the doors are now kept locked. He is determined to change because he cannot return to a facility like this again. Boys, like his cell neighbor Ben, have been placed in facilities several times. Ben is not even one of the bad inmates, like Joe. Joe arrived from juvenile prison, where he was jailed for burning down his grandmother’s house, nearly killing her in the process. He also mutilated his baby sister. Though the narrator says he is different from hardened criminals like Joe, in the facility, they are all treated the same.

Unlike Noah, who is tall like Lucas, Katie has always been petite, in the 25th percentile for height for her age. Katie is sweet and shy, and it breaks Adrianne’s heart to live apart from her. Lucas has told Adrianne that Katie can visit her and Noah, but sleepovers are forbidden. When Lucas and Adrianne tell Katie that they will be living apart till Noah turns 18, Katie cannot understand why. She knows that Noah is in a facility for hurting children, but she knows Noah wouldn’t hurt her. Adrianne agrees but says that the family needs space. Afterward, Lucas is angry at Adrianne for not completely agreeing with him in front of Katie.

The night before Noah’s release, Adrianne has Katie over at the apartment. She cooks Katie’s favorite dish, spaghetti and meatballs, and gives her ice cream. Adrianne reflects on the differences between her children: Noah was an unfussy baby, sleeping through the night; Katie only slept a few hours at a time. Adrianne loved Noah so intensely that she worried she would not be able to love another child deeply. When Katie was born, Adrianne’s doubts were laid to rest: She dotes on both her children equally. She and Lucas had a perfect life with their kids in Buffalo Grove, packed with family game nights and camping trips. Adrianne is still unable to believe what happened. Things like this are not supposed to happen to people like the Coates. Adrianne’s faith in God is shaken.

It was difficult to get Noah tried as a juvenile. Noah himself did not care if he was tried as an adult. Against the advice of their lawyer, Meryl, Noah wanted to plead guilty before his arraignment. Meryl and Adrianne had to convince Noah to wait and plead not guilty to obtain a chance at a trial in a juvenile court. There were many advantages to being tried as a juvenile: Noah would still go on the sex offender registry, but only for a limited time. Noah would be sent to a rehabilitation facility instead of jail.

Noah pleaded not guilty at his arraignment. There, the lawyer appointed by the Williams and Johnsons fought to get Noah tried as an adult, claiming Noah was a risk to society. Adrianne was shocked at the persistence of the lawyer and the parents. Meryl’s defense was that Noah was an ideal candidate for rehabilitation in the juvenile system, as he had disclosed his actions himself, which showed his conscientiousness. The judge had adjudicated Noah a juvenile, and Noah’s trial sentenced him to 18 months in a juvenile sex-offender program. After his release, Noah would be on probation till he turned 18. The conditions of his probation included no internet and no unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 12.

To Adrianne’s relief, Marsh, the rehabilitation facility, was like a beautiful country home. The best thing about the facility had been Dr. Park, the chief psychologist. Adrianne felt that Dr. Park genuinely cared for the inmates and did not view Noah as evil. Dr. Park offered Adrianne hope that Noah could be rehabilitated. Research showed juvenile sex offenders were different from adult sex offenders; many of them committed crimes because of a lack of impulse control rather than outright malice. Only 3% of juvenile offenders went on to re-offend. Over the next months, Adrianne and Dr. Park talked often. It was established that Noah had not experienced sexual abuse at home, and his family life was healthy. Dr. Park reported that Noah was an ideal, easy inmate.

Adrianne worries as she drives up to Marsh to get Noah. During their last conversation, Dr. Park was concerned that Noah wants to write apology letters to Maci and Bella. Dr. Park implied that Noah could have a subconscious ulterior motive in contacting the girls. Adrianne blew up at the suggestion that Noah was a bad kid. Dr. Park tried to explain that sometimes even good kids could be complicated, but Adrianne shut her down. She’d frostily asked Dr. Park to keep Noah ready for his pick-up. Adrianne and Dr. Park haven’t spoken since that call.

They only get seven minutes to shower. The unnamed narrator counts every second in the filthy stall, dreading what is going to happen: Sam, new to the facility, laughed at Joe in the yard, and Joe is bound to come for him. The narrator is down to 362 seconds when he hears Joe’s voice, joking with the guards. The guards like Joe, but everyone else freezes. The narrator can hear Joe approach Sam’s stall, asking him to bend over so he can rape Sam. Sam cries, but the narrator is thankful that he is not screaming like some of the others whom Joe targets. After Joe is done, he slips into the narrator’s booth and warns him against saying anything.