Saving Noah

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 1-Interlude 2

Chapters 5-8

Chapter 9-Interlude 6

Chapters 13-16

Chapter 17-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Discussion Questions

Chapter 17-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 17 Summary

Adrianne spends the night with Katie at Noah’s insistence. Noah has noticed a new heaviness in Katie when she visits him at the hospital. Lucas has also told Adrianne that Katie has regressed and is wetting the bed again. Adrianne loves spending time with her daughter, but Noah’s abuse plagues her constantly. She is horrified by what her son underwent. She knows if she reports the rape, no one will take it seriously. In fact, people might think Noah deserved what happened because people are more sympathetic to murderers than they are to pedophiles. Adrianne thinks that though what Noah did was wrong, he never physically hurt the girls. There was no penetration, only touching. The girls had been curious about his body and touched him; he in turn touched them. Adrienne thinks that if they had all been the same age then this would have been akin to playing doctor. To Adrianne’s mind, the girls’ lives weren’t going to be ruined by Noah’s actions, but Noah’s life was in shambles.

Adrianne has begun studying the Death by Dignity Act to consider options for someone like Noah. However, all the available cases were about people with terminal illnesses who’d chosen to die rather than live in pain. Adrianne also knows she could go to jail if it were to be found out she’d assisted Noah. Nevertheless, she decides she will help her son. When she goes over to the hospital and tells Noah, he is overjoyed. Noah thanks her profusely, looking like a happy little boy, but Adrianne is crushed at the bleakness of the situation.

Chapter 18 Summary

Adrianne begins to plan the medication she could administer to Noah for a painless death. Painkillers are out of the question, since people invariably vomit those up, like Noah did with the Percocet. Nembutal, a pre-anesthetic, would be a good choice, as it slows down respiration, but it is illegal to obtain without a prescription. Adrianne decides on a combination of her anti-anxiety meds, sleeping pills, and nausea medication. She explains the combination to an eager Noah. Noah wants to know if it will be painful, but Adrianne assures him that dying will be painless. Noah wants to prepare a playlist that he can listen to while the pills begin to work. His final wish is a family day at Navy Pier, where he can ride the Ferris wheel. That’s how he wants to remember Lucas. Adrianne agrees to plan the day for next weekend.

Noah is released from the hospital. Ironically, he has a renewed look on life, laughing with Adrianne as they cook chicken together. Later, Lucas surprises Adrianne and Noah by showing up for church service with Katie. Katie wants to spend the night at Adrianne’s, but Lucas refuses. That night, Noah tells Adrianne that he knows he will not go to hell, because God has seen his heart, and his heart has no malice. Adrianne feels she has never been prouder of Noah than in this moment.

Chapter 19 Summary

Noah even wants to go swimming at the YMCA and is excited about therapy sessions at the hospital. Adrianne feels a brief spark of hope that Noah may be getting over his suicide ideation, but then she realizes that Noah is so happy because he senses the end is near. Noah can’t wait to die. The thought breaks Adrianne’s heart.

Adrianne asks her doctor to prescribe her Seconal, a strong sedative and anesthetic, claiming she has developed a tolerance to regular sleeping pills. The doctor is unsure this is a good idea with Noah experiencing suicidal ideation, but Adrianne convinces him she will keep the pills locked. He prescribes her the medication, and she brings them home. Noah is so excited that he lifts Adrianne off her feet and spins her around. Later that night, Noah comes into Adrianne’s room to hug her and tell her he is sorry. Adrianne breaks down.

Chapter 20 Summary

Adrianne manages to convince Lucas to come for a family outing to Navy Pier on Saturday. Noah and Katie enjoy themselves hugely during the entire trip, Noah taking in the water and the crowds as if he is out in the world for the first time. His appetite has returned, with him eating enormous quantities of food. The family goes to the museum and combs the beach for shells. Adrianne’s heart melts seeing Noah and Katie together. Sure that Lucas is experiencing the same joy, she looks at him, but Lucas cannot bear to look at Noah. Adrianne wants to shake him and tell him that he has very little time with his son. Katie is far more perceptive. To Adrianne, it seems Katie hugs Noah longer than usual when they part, and with an air of finality.

Adrianne and Noah spend the next day in comfortable silence, like any other lazy Sunday. On Monday, the day they’ve chosen for Noah’s death, Adrianne puts up fresh flowers from Trader Joe’s in Noah’s room. Noah seems more subdued today as he enters his room and sits up in his bed. Adrianne has crushed up the pills in saucers and plans to dissolve them in water before administering them to Noah. She asks Noah one final time if he is absolutely sure that he wants to go ahead. Noah agrees fervently. Adrianne gives Noah anti-nausea medication so he won’t throw up the medication. She then slowly gives him the crushed medication, dissolved in water. Soon, Noah lies back with a relaxed mind. Adrianne prays to God to ease his passing as the medication takes hold. Noah drowsily tells Adrianne he loves her and reminds her to give Katie and Lucas the two sealed letters he left them. Adrianne plays Noah’s chosen songs and strokes his hair, whispering, “It’s okay, honey. You can go now” (246). Noah’s breaths grow further spaced apart, and he passes away.

Interlude 8 Summary: “Him (Now)”

The narrator of the “Him” sections, revealed to be Lucas, is not sorry that Noah is dead. He cannot help his sense of relief that Noah is gone, as Noah reminded him too much of himself. When Lucas was 16, he repeatedly molested his Uncle Shawn’s daughters, one eight and the other 10. His father caught him rubbing himself against one of the girls one afternoon and whipped him with a belt till Lucas passed out. Shawn had wanted Lucas reported to the police, but Lucas’s mother begged him not to go to the authorities. Instead, Lucas was sent to Reuters for reformation. Shawn moved away from Michigan and never spoke to their family again. After being released from Reuters, Lucas did everything he could to be a part of society and make amends, including volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, where he met Adrianne. He moved away from his family and began a life with Adrianne, loving life as a husband and a father until Noah’s confession messed everything up. Being with Noah was now like looking into a mirror, bringing up vile memories of his time at Reuters. Now that Noah is gone, Lucas can go back to pretending he is normal.

Epilogue Summary

A year after Noah’s death, Adrianne is back in Lucas’s house. Though they have agreed to live together for Katie’s sake, their marriage is over. She and Lucas don’t talk, their hearts hardened against each other. Katie was desolate over Noah’s death—reported as a suicide—and carried the letter he’d left her everywhere she went. She didn’t want to go to school at all, clinging to Adrianne. Katie underwent therapy, and she and Adrianne made remembrance necklaces for Noah, touching the beads whenever they felt sad. Gradually, Katie began easing back into school. She seems better now, though she misses Noah terribly. The bedwetting has stopped. Adrianne is still constantly surprised by her immense grief. Anything can trigger the memory of Noah, and she finds herself collapsed and sobbing. She replays memories of his last days on a loop and is happy at the intimacy they shared as “death was intensely private, and I’d never felt so close to another human being as I did when I held him during his final minutes” (256). Noah had said Adrianne would get her life back after she was gone, but Adrianne now knows that is impossible. She and her life are both irrevocably changed; there is no past self to recover.

Adrianne has turned to God again. She needs to believe God exists because if he doesn’t, Adrianne will never see Noah again. Adrianne needs to trust that Noah is with God in heaven, waiting for her, and one day, when her time comes, Noah will guide her home.

Chapter 17-Epilogue Analysis

The final section evokes a bittersweet mood, filled with tenderness between Noah, Adrianne, and Katie, but also ends on an ominous note, with Lucas moving around as a respectable member of society, living with his now eight-year-old daughter, and finding relief in his son’s death. The last interlude contains the text’s big reveal: Lucas is the narrator who has been through a reform home and emerged from it supposedly retrained. It is the sort of reveal, which gives a different color to all of Lucas’s previous actions and spells out his threat to his son and daughter. Lucas confesses that he has never really gotten over his attraction for children, which means becoming a father was an irresponsible choice for him. Ethical pedophiles often opt to, or are required to, stay far away from children. Lucas deliberately allowed himself to have two young children in his care. This means it is possible he sexually abused Noah. Further, in Chapter 17, Noah notes that Katie appears to have regressed recently, appearing quieter and clingier, and wetting her bed again. Adrianne thinks this a sign Katie is missing her, but regression in children is also a red flag that they may have experienced trauma such as sexual abuse. Thus, the text raises the possibility that Lucas, living alone with Katie, might have molested her.

Lucas’s negative portrayal throws Noah’s conscientiousness into relief. In fact, Lucas can be said to be a foil to Noah. Adrianne has often noted the similarities between father and son, with their looks and mannerisms close to each other. The novel shows they experience the same pedophilic attraction. However, they are also very different, with Lucas’s cruelty and sadism in sharp contrast to Noah’s compassion. Ironically, though Lucas is the one whose behavior toward Noah is monstrous, he views Noah as evil, thinking of him as “the part of me that was vile and repulsive” (249). Lucas’s exaggerated, extreme reaction to the discovery of Noah’s sexual offense illustrates the thematic element of The Complexities of Mental Health and Human Nature. Noah reminds Lucas so much of Reuters—an experience that has scarred Lucas for life—that Lucas begins to abhor Noah.

Another example of bleak irony in the text is Noah’s renewed zeal for life now that he knows death is certain. Noah has been described by Adrianne as subdued and sad for most of the novel; now he acts like a “kid during the last two weeks leading up to Christmas” (234). He even twirls Adrianne around when she tells him she has planned his assisted death for the next Monday. The irony only enhances the pathos and tragedy of Noah and Adrianne. Noah’s death, told by Adrianne in slow but measured detail, is presented as deeply sad and showcases the textual element of the extremes of parental love. One of the interesting features of the description of Noah’s passing is that Adrianne frames it as an “intimate” act between mother and son. Just as it was just Adrianne and Noah when she brought him into the world, it is again the two of them at the end of Noah’s life.

Adrianne’s peculiar framing of Noah’s assisted death ties in with the novel’s subtle Christian symbolism. Central to Christian, and specifically Catholic, belief is the image of Mary and Jesus, Mother and Child. Often, Mary is presented as witnessing Jesus’s crucifixion or cradling his body in her lap. Like Mary, Adrianne watches her son suffer and die, and like Mary, her son is also a sacrificial lamb. Another symbol the last set of chapters highlights is water. With Noah being an expert swimmer, water symbolizes life and comfort. After he molests Maci and Bella, Noah begins to avoid the water, which symbolizes his fall from grace. In the final section, he returns to the water, signaling a full-circle moment for him. He goes swimming and has a beautiful outing at the pier, collecting seashells. This foreshadows what the text presents as a state of redemption; his transformation into a reformed pedophile who knows the danger he poses and decides it is unlivable.

Adrianne’s decision to help Noah die by suicide highlights the prominent textual motif of impossible choices. Further, Adrianne’s choice is also ethically questionable. Though some states in the US do allow some terminally ill patients to request medicines to end their lives, the patient must be a legal adult. Further, the drugs have to be specifically requested for the purpose from medical providers. Neither is Noah an adult, nor is he terminally ill. Adrianne also procures the drugs under false pretext so Noah’s death can be framed as an overdose. At the same time, Adrianne truly feels this is her greatest act of love for Noah. She believes she can redeem herself by helping Noah out, her actions illustrating the important theme of The Search for Redemption. The novel contains a detailed description of the method Adrianne uses to euthanize Noah, a choice some readers may find controversial, as it provides unnecessary “how-to” information to a vulnerable population. This, like juvenile sex offenders and their reintegration into society, is presented as an opening for honest discourse on complex topics rather than a guide or instructive text.

Adrianne’s decision to return to Lucas’s house is another example of an impossible choice. She knows her marriage is over, but thinks she needs to stay with Lucas to avoid further traumatizing the bereaved Katie. However, the ominous truth is that Katie is most at risk from Lucas himself. Adrianne’s failure to pick up on Lucas’s threat toward Katie is an example of the shortsightedness her character sometimes displays. The decision also questions the myth of the intact family. While society thinks keeping a family together is the best thing for children, the truth is sometimes families need to be split up. Further, families come in many forms and do not have to follow the standard ideal of married parents staying together.

The novel ends with Adrianne’s return to her Christian faith, another full circle moment, and her hope that she will be reunited with Noah in heaven. This shows that Adrianne’s love for Noah transcends the barriers of life and death. In its own circuitous way, the plot showcases the extreme power of maternal and familial love.