Nemesis

by Cat Bruno

  Nemesis

  A Story of Divine Vengeance

  By Cat Bruno

  Painted Quill Press

  2018

  First Trade Printing, November 2018

  NEMESIS

  ISBN-13: 9781729419007

  Copyright 2018 By Cat Bruno

  Book Art by Stella Begnal

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, no parts of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted without the written consent of the author.

  Painted Quill Publishing

  Contact: paintedquillpress@gmail.com

  www.catbruno.com

  Author’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used factiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Special thanks to Dave Tritinger for his assistance and fact-checking.

  Printed in the USA

  "Nemesis, winged balancer of life, dark-faced goddess, daughter of Justice."

  – Greek poet Mesomedes

  “A clever man builds a city,

  A clever woman lays one low.”

  – The Book of Songs (Shih-Ching)

  A Brief Backstory

  Inever liked my grandmother much, so I suppose I cursed myself to this fate by wearing her jeweled-leaf pendant the day that he proposed. She had died many years before I even met him, and I rarely wore the necklace because it was heavy with fake gems shaded unnatural hues. That morning, however, I had dressed simply in a loose-fitting white blouse and cropped ankle pants and grabbed the piece in hopes of adding some flair to the outfit as I rushed from my apartment. Like most evenings, I was running late and stumbled to my car with my shoes unbuckled and falling from my feet.

  Even two years later, I have kept the pendant, mostly as a reminder of that night when everything changed.

  The ring was beautiful of course and too large to be practical. Yet I accepted it with smiles and tears, both unforced and true. I do not think I will ever be as joyful as I was that evening seated in the corner of the Creole-styled restaurant. Our plates had been cleared and mugs of espresso steamed between us, although neither of us sipped at them. We had shared a bottle of wine, merlot I believe, but I cannot remember what it was that I ordered. He had chosen it, as he always did, but I was so smitten with him in those early days that I never objected.

  If I am to be honest, and why should I not be since this is my story, I never raised my voice to him in the two years that we had dated. Two years. Can you imagine that? I wore silence as a cape, letting it flow across my shoulders and down my back, kin to the blonde-highlighted tresses that he preferred. Memory is all I have left of that night; most pictures has been ripped and burned, the shoes donated, the clothing discarded. And my hair has been cropped and dyed and now falls in straight, black lines to my chin.

  The only thing that remains is my name, and I would have changed that had I had time. He always hated my name because it reminded him that I had been born in poverty to two artists who cared little for money or tradition. My father had been a leather-maker and my mother his muse, or so the tale goes. He crafted bracelets and belts, saddles and purses, all of which my mother modeled with pride. Their love was true, of that I have no doubt, and I do not blame them for abandoning me so often to travel to fairs and craft shows. During the summers, I would tag along, sleeping gleefully in the converted van after midnight and making change for their customers in the morning.

  When I was nine, I was gifted with my first camera, an Olympus that was edged in silver and compact enough for my small fingers to work. It gleamed with the sun’s rays reflected in diamonds when Jakob presented it to me. I had known him for two summers by then, and the photographs that lined his tent had captivated me since first I entered his booth. My parents and he had become friends, and if I was not needed to help them, then I would sit at Jakob’s side and listen as he told me about each picture he took. They were like his children, and every time he sold a print, he did so reluctantly. I asked him once why he did not reprint more to replace what he had sold, and his answer only returned to me when I needed it most.

  “A photograph should never be duplicated, Dani,” he told me. “For we can only see true once.”

  His advice haunts me still, despite forgetting his words for years.

  My name is Dandelion Jackman, and this is the story that made me think of him after so much time had gone by. You must forgive me if my words are rushed or my retelling scrambled. I have little time to myself these days and do not want anyone to know what it is that I have done.

  A few months after Jakob gave me the camera, my parents died. It was an unusually cold night, and they had borrowed a portable heater to use in the van. By the time the sun rose, golden and climbing, they slept in eternal slumber, peaceful and everlasting. The police told my grandmother that the heater had malfunctioned, releasing carbon monoxide and killing them without warning. A silent, painless death, but one so unfitting for two adventurers. My summers would never be the same after that, and I rarely left my grandmother’s house except to attend school.

  She was a mean-hearted woman, although I suppose I should not fault her for the trait; she earned it after losing both her husband and her daughter. My grandfather had died of a heart attack when I was a baby, but his pictures hung on floral-papered walls throughout the small house. She never worked, and we lived on his pension and government assistance, which had not been much. There was never a moment when I did not know that I was poor, yet as long as I had my camera, I felt as rich as any. I suppose I resemble my parents in that respect, although he often tried to cure me of such thoughts.

  To him, money was both trophy and goal, a lesson his father forced him to learn. And one that was his undoing.

  I was able to attend Elysian – a small, private college in central Ohio – on a scholarship that my school counselor had obtained for me, and, despite my grandmother’s objections, I studied photography. She did not live to see me graduate, but it mattered little, for she would not have come anyway. Her depression had culminated into a hermit’s life by then. Nor did she care when I received awards for my work and a highly prized exhibit featuring a series of pictures from local cemeteries. I was barely twenty when those accolades had come. One of the few photographs I have framed is of her tombstone, gray under a stormy sky, dotted with raindrops, and surrounded by dandelions. If you are thinking that shot was too easy, I agree. Yet I snapped it with irony nonetheless.

  Soon after I graduated, I began working for the Columbus Gazette as a staff photographer. The work was dull and repetitive, but I stayed, saving what I could and traveling as often as possible. During a trip to Greece, I began working on my first book, one that was filled with images of crumbling and broken sculptures. I liked marble best, but peppered the book with photographs of bronze and stone. In truth, I was quite proud of my efforts and even sold one of the photographs for use in a calendar, which had been distributed internationally. The publisher had paid me decently, yet I still needed the modest salary that the Gazette offered.

  Which is how I met William.

  He was a rising attorney who worked as a Franklin County prosecutor, and I was assigned to cover a trial he was leading. By its conclusion, he had secured an important conviction and I had captured his attention. A week later, we met for drinks. William arrived in a newly washed luxury sedan; its white paint sparkled with specks of silver as he handed the keys to the valet beneath a setting Midwestern sun. I was already seated at the bar and watched him enter as if he was a politician. Several people reached for his hand and a few others called out to him in deferential greeting. To each, he offered a smile and a few words, like friends r
euniting.

  When he found me cupping a tumbler of whiskey gleaming gold against blocks of ice, William eyed it curiously before kissing my cheek. A bartender approached him swiftly and soon two glasses of wine stood tall between us. Unsurprisingly, William questioned me frequently that first night, asking about my unusual moniker and offering condolences when he learned about my parents. Each word he spoke caused my skin to warm and my cheeks to redden. When he touched my hand, I trembled and spilled wine onto his fingers; small rivers of red streamed onto the bar and across his nails. But William only laughed and ordered another round.

  I daresay he was the most handsome man in the bar that day, or at least that is how I remember it. His dark hair was always neatly parted, crisply divided near the right and brushed back to calm his waves. Like most days we met for drinks, he still wore his suit, tightly fitted and falling short enough to reveal his polished shoes. His tie had been loosened and hung from his neck, but not with weariness or disarray. Nothing about William would ever stink of fatigue or vulgarity.

  Not yet, anyway. That would come later.

  Six months later, I began meeting his family and colleagues. My hair had lightened by then in a series of descending shades of gold, and I often wore it in loose waves against my shoulders. William was more generous than anyone I had met before, or even since, and often presented me with certificates and gift cards to salons and spas, usually accompanied by a suggestion on how I looked best. When I glance back at the pictures of us from those early days, it is as if I am gazing at some other woman. One with sun-streaked hair, rosy cheeks, and peach-tinted lips, as if I was some social media starlet or budding celebrity. In truth, I have always been an actress of sorts, and my time with William was just another role, despite his writing the script.

  After that first meeting for drinks, our lives entwined at a quickened pace. The Gazette had wanted to do a feature on our engagement – a request that I had not shared with William. However, I pleaded shyness and a longing for privacy, which my editors respected. Being on the other side of the lens was never something I desired, and, frankly, was much like a nightmare for me. I chose to observe, not be observed. The skill has served me far better than any other lesson that I have learned throughout the strange road that I have weaved. Watch and listen. If you’re still reading, let that be your mantra.

  Are you wondering where things went wrong? (After the affair, of course, which I realize that I have forgotten to mention, so much changed following that unsolicited discovery.) Looking back, I understand William more and can almost rationalize how his regret sliced him in half. One half was the piece he gave to me: his wife-to-be and the woman who would be at his side as he climbed the political ladder. The other half he saved for his whore, the woman he loved. Had he met her before me, I have no doubt our lives would have unfolded differently. His bitterness would not have infected our time together and would not have caused him to hate me so. William is not entirely to blame for what the Moirae have etched into their stone tablets.

  January 19, 2015

  “Should you be walking to work today?” he asked with the answer peeking out from his words.

  Dressed neatly in a delicately striped suit, William stood at the door of my apartment with his keys shining bright as they dangled from his fingers. It was not usual for him to sleep at my place, but the evening’s snowfall had forced him to abandon his plans to drive home. Always organized and meticulous, he had readied for such a situation by stashing some of his clothing in my tiny spare room, and the suit was not one that he wore often.

  “By now I have learned to layer myself against the cold,” I sighed as I rolled from bed.

  It was not yet 7:00 am, but William liked to visit a coffee shop near the courthouse before work each morning. He would sip on a single, unsweetened coffee and be at his desk before most of the other attorneys began their commute. My mornings were a much different affair; had he not woken me, I would have dozed a few more hours before groggily climbing out from a pile of blankets. Now, I stumbled over to kiss his cheek before scanning a pile of shirts for my favorite sweater. Once he left, I made my way to the shower, one that he begged me to have remodeled. The tiles were sun-yellow bricks, which matched in hue to the tub and sink. Admittedly, the room had not changed much in decades, but the boxy angles and unnatural shades appealed to me in a way that I could not explain to him. My lease would be up soon, and I would move in with him across town, so I often ignored his taunts and agreed with a silent nod, certain that nothing would change.

  Nearly an hour later, as my boots kicked at a path along the uneven pavement, my phone rang. I struggled to remove my glove fast enough, and I feared that when I finally said hello, I would be greeted by empty humming.

  “Ms. Jackman,” a voice purred with a French lilt. “I have splendid news for you.”

  By the call’s conclusion, I neared the Gazette’s office, but did not enter. Instead, I dialed William’s office line. Had he answered, I suspect things might not be what they now are.

  It was not until lunchtime that I had some time to visit him, and the nomination was not news that merited a text. Despite a meeting with the managing editor, I had told no one of the call. But the honor was one that any photographer would covet. To be considered for an Omni Award – created to highlight photography achievements – had surprised me so greatly that I had only mumbled in gratitude before Noemie Banks laughed at my response. By the time I stepped into William’s office, my hands had stopped trembling and my head fluttered with excitement. In the spring, we would fly to Paris for the ceremony, and I had hoped to convince him to travel to Portugal with me so that I could photograph a series of newly discovered standing stones.

  His secretary recognized me and waved me in while she chatted on the phone. My camera bag hung across my back, protected in a lined and padded satchel. William was not seated at his desk, but his computer buzzed softly as I strolled around his desk. Nothing was out of place; even his overpriced pens were lined neatly beside a legal notepad that glowed a pale yellow against a winter-grayed room.

  What made me examine his computer screen baffles me still. Curiosity, I suppose, although he talked to me about his cases so often that I did not need to search for more details. At times, our professional worlds collided; an image I had taken might be used during his trials. But it was not his work email account that lit up with reminders or messages. In truth, what shined before me like some sort of flashing billboard along a country road was an online messaging system that I did not recognize. And so I continued to read.

  Within minutes, I had discovered that William was having an affair, and not just one that amounted to an online dalliance. There were messages exchanged about hotel numbers, excitement about seeing one another again, and all sorts of pictures (you know the type). I could think of nothing except the camera heavy against my shoulder and pulled it free with quivering hands. After a glance toward the door, I began snapping, recording each bit of deceit with my professional tool, one that allowed me to examine the moment with a temporary detachment.

  Her name was Elizabeth, and she was a young law student. Even now, I do not blame her. Well, maybe that is not the full truth. I do blame her some. Although, it was never my intention to cause her harm.

  By the time William returned, I had closed out of the program and turned off his computer. I greeted him fondly, kissing his cheek and rambling about the phone call from the French woman. He feigned pride and interest, although I suspect that he feared what I might have discovered. However, I gave no indication that anything had occurred and begged him to come to lunch with me as a celebration.

  For nearly thirty years, I would never have characterized myself as an actress or manipulator. But if I am nothing else, I am a quick study. That is what I became that day: a starlet in my own show, one that only I would know the ending to.

  We dined in comfort, and I spoke on Paris and Lisbon. William agreed to use his vacation time to accompany me, and I b
elieved him as his eyes met straight with my own. When he professed that he had an afternoon meeting to attend, I did not protest or complain. Instead, I smiled softly and allowed him to kiss me in farewell. I do not remember how long I stayed in the restaurant that day, but it could not have been less than several hours. Some might have sobbed, some might have argued. Some might have confided in a close friend. Most would have ended the engagement.

  Not me, though. I began to plan.

  If you are reading my story, then perhaps you can identify with the betrayal. Or you are waiting to see if William is still with his young whore. Maybe you have found yourself just where I once was and are seeking advice. For the latter, I can offer no advice or guidance on how to mend a broken heart or repair a damaged relationship. No platitudes about how your life will greatly improve. How you will meet someone new and better. No, none of that will be found between these pages. Instead, I will tell you how I murdered William.

  The Days Following the Discovery

  Inearly canceled the dinner plans we had made for the next night, but I had vowed to act as if nothing was amiss, so I showered twice before William came home. The shock of the discovery had begun to subside, replaced with anger hotter than any I had known before. To my surprise, I had cried on and off for hours. In spots, my face blotched red, although my overpriced foundation evened out my skin with little added effort. William preferred that I employ a natural look, one without blackened lines darkening my lids. But that night, I replaced my soft brown pencil with a kohl paste and painted rebellion around my stare.

  You might think such a move childish or petulant, but it was the first attempt at loosening the invisible chains that all of William’s suggestions had shackled me with. I could not stop looking at myself in the mirror as I readied and had even reached for a camera to immortalize the slight change. However, my fingers slid from the canvas strap into empty air as I reminded myself that I must not do anything out of the ordinary.