Saving Noah

by Lucinda Berry

Noah being charged as a sex offender sucker punched our entire suburban community. Child molesters were adults—dirty old men who lured children into their cars with promises of candy and treats. They weren’t A-honor roll students who ran varsity track and went to mass every Sunday.

“He stopped being my son when he raped those girls.” His lips were set in a straight line. “He didn’t rape them, don’t say that,” I snapped.

I loved being a nurse, but as soon as the pregnancy stick showed two red lines, I started planning my career as a stay-at-home mom.

“Our son molested your daughters during swim practice,” Lucas announced.

Kids didn’t get arrested unless they committed horrible crimes, and I didn’t view what he’d done as a crime.

I burst out laughing. “Maybe I’ll start peeing in a bucket in my room.”

Ok...

If you did everything right and it still turned out wrong, then what was the point?

“Was he abused? Is that what made him this way?” It was awful and I would never admit it to anyone else, but I wanted Noah to have been sexually abused. It would’ve provided a reason for him doing what he’d done and made sense of something so senseless.

??????

It’s almost been too easy. I’m wondering if we missed something.”

“We are not our loved ones’ crimes,”

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

“He hurt those little girls. He touched them on their private parts. I don’t care if he touches me on my private parts.”

Yikes

My love for him wasn’t enough. He needed his dad.

“What am I supposed to do?” I asked. “I wish I knew or had answers to give you, but nobody knows what to do about pedophiles.”

“You love who you think I am. Not who I really am.”

“I’m going to do it again. You can’t stop me,” he said. Was he talking about killing himself or hurting kids? Did it matter?

“But then, I started having all these weird thoughts on the bus. I’d be sitting in the back and find myself staring at the elementary girls as they got on. I couldn’t stop staring or thinking about them. I was obsessed. None of it was sexual at first. I don’t know how to explain it, but I wanted to be their friends. They looked so precious and adorable.”

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’m not sorry Noah’s dead.

Ohhhhhhhh