The Perfect Revenge: The Dragonfly Rises

By WilD

BEST INSPIRATIONAL FICTION, Next Generation Indie Book Awards

BEST WOMEN'S FICTION, BookFest Awards

DISTINGUISHED FAVORITE, NYC Big Book Awards

FINALIST, Independent Author Network Book of the Year Award

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wild Dragonfly Press
• Release date: Oct 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9780983421849

Book preview

Prologue

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I was born on April 1, 1993. Yes, April Fools’ Day—a day marked by deceit that plays on people’s naïveté.

Deceit is a dark dynamic that defined my life for so many years. It sent me careening through extremes, like a frantic New York cab ride from upscale Park Avenue to the crazy carnival of Coney Island. I’ve slept under the confining roof of a pristine mansion and the exposing sky of a muddy gutter. I’ve faced down the demons of dollars and dirt.

Now age twenty-one, I’ve already experienced the euphoria of love, the viciousness of violence, and the heaviness of hate. It’s a potent triad whose elements can sear the most powerful passion and spread the vilest venom. They can ignite your soul to powerful heights or destroy you in the deepest possible way.

And they did all that. Finally, enough was enough, and reached out for a helping hand. Thanks to which, I’m on my way to rebuilding my life. To independence and stability.

When I do ponder my past, it’s with a new and deeper perspective. While I may never burn the painful memories from my mind, I think that maybe, just maybe, I can someday bring purpose to them.

And make those responsible pay.

Part I

The Roots of Revenge

All things truly wicked start from innocence.

—Ernest Hemingway

Chapter 1

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Wednesday, August 20, 2014, 8:00 a.m.

Judging from the smears on this back-row bus window, many who sat here before me slept through their journeys. Hunkered down in this cozy corner of glass and metal, they drifted off to the roar and rocking of the machine.

Not me.

I did bring a small pillow to make the ride more comfortable, but for years I haven’t found true comfort in any bed, let alone in a roving room of forty-plus people, sharing smells, snores, and the occasional sob. So today, I just lean back on my precious padding, gaze out through the grimy glass, and think.

The first time I stared introspectively out a window like this, I was barely eight years old, pulling up in a van to a huge mansion—my new home.

The first time I stared introspectively out a window like this, I was wearing the same baseball cap I am now, slightly tilted on my head, ponytail through the size-adjustment loop in back. But it was a lot less beat-up then.

I guess the same can be said for me.

Back then, I was hoping against hope for my sinking life to change. And it did. The soon-to-be-haunted house on the other side of that window would be the last stop for so many things. The spot from which my descent would escalate into a free fall.

Ironically, I’m returning to the scene of the crime: Connecticut. But to a very different neighborhood than that creepy château.

To Yale University itself.

I am again headed toward unknowns, but without the well-placed apprehension I had back then.

This time around, the view is different.

As I make this epic journey forward, I must acknowledge how far I’ve come. I’ve not only climbed my way up from rock bottom, I’ve ascended all the way to the Ivy League.

So as I look ahead, there is no way I cannot also look back.

Friday, November 10, 2000

My parents were beautiful—individually and especially together.

My mother was a white Polish Catholic and my dad, a handsome Dominican baseball player.

As the starting shortstop on the local minor league team, Dad, in his late twenties, had been trying to work his way into the big leagues. Some scouts and team officials were saying the upcoming 2001 season could be when my father finally realized his dream—our dream.

In the off-season, Dad worked as an assistant football coach at a nearby state college. He may have been a pro in baseball, but he was good at every sport, and his nurturing nature and warm-and-breezy Caribbean charisma made him the perfect teacher for young college guys.

And his work ethic was every manager’s ideal.

Dad’s buckle-down-and-do-it attitude extended to all his daily routines. He kept a strict schedule. His commute to the college was on the minute, especially on Saturday game days. And even more especially for home games.

His schedule was going to be no different tomorrow. What was different was me. I wanted to go with him. I wanted to see the game! I’d seen several of his baseball games, but I’d never seen a football game in person—especially one that he was helping coach.

Please!

Please!

Please!

My dad looked at my mom; she looked at him. Then they both looked at me—and then back at each other.

"Tell you what, mi princesa de ojos azules, my dad said. That’s not a bad idea. Tomorrow is the last home game of the season. How about I take you and Mom, and you can watch the game together?"

Yay! That would be so much fun!

I couldn’t stop smiling. I loved when Dad called me his blue-eyed princess. He told me how special I was to have a mixture of traits from both him and Mom. I had his athleticism and bronze skin tone, but I’d also inherited the Baltic blue eyes that lit my mother’s face.

But here’s the deal, he told me. If we do that, then we’re going to have to leave very, very early. I’ll want time to get you guys settled in before I go to work.

No problem! I said. I’ll get up as early as you want me to. I can even stay up all night!

That won’t be necessary, my mom said with a huge grin. In fact, let’s get ready for bed right now so we can get up nice and early.

Saturday, November 11, 2000

I was up before the sun but bright with anticipation. I was the happiest, most excited little girl on the planet! I gulped down a bowl of cereal and got dressed in a hurry, trying to snug my way-too-big baseball cap around my head.

My dad had given me the cap the day his team won their way into the local league playoffs. I smiled at the memory. That day was magical—better than a movie. Because it was real!

Two teams in his division had tied win-loss records, so this game would bring one of them to the playoffs—a giant step for all the players trying to get into the major leagues.

The scene was set. It was the bottom of the ninth, and my dad’s team was down by three runs. And just like a movie, they had two outs and my dad was at bat. The pressure was intense.

The pitcher threw what looked to me like the fastest ball ever. No one could hit that. But my dad did! And it topped the centerfield wall by a good six feet!

The crowd went insane. The loyal locals in the stands were crying and hugging each other as they screamed in victory.

I was so proud!

As soon as my dad crossed home plate, his teammates mobbed him and lifted him up on their shoulders. But his eyes were searching the stands—for me! He motioned for one of the guys to bring me to him. So now I was on the team’s shoulders, too!

And right then, as we were all yelling and laughing, my dad took off his cap and reached over to put it on my head. I felt like a princess with a crown.

I was a princess—his princesa de ojos azules.

I pulled my ponytail through the back of the cap and never wanted to take it off.

Never!

And I seldom did. Especially not today.

Most minor league teams have really creative names and mascots—Yard Goats, Rock Cats, Wind Surge. Dad’s team was called the Wild Dragonflies. His royal blue cap had this bright-white dragonfly on the front with a body and tail that looked like a good ol’ Louisville Slugger bat.

I was so proud…

Although Dad would be coaching football instead of playing baseball, this day promised to be filled with more proud moments.

We jumped into the car and were gone in no time. But halfway there, I panicked. I had forgotten my teddy bear, Zinka, at home! She had to be with us to enjoy the day! I asked my dad to go back for her.

"I’m sorry, mi princesa, he said, twisting to me in the back seat, if we turn back now, it might make us late."

I begged and pleaded, as all little seven-year-old girls do when they want something, but it didn’t work. Dad gently repeated that we had no time to turn around. So…I did the next thing that little seven-year-old girls do when they really want something: I threw a tantrum.

That worked. We went back to get my beloved fuzzy best friend.

When we headed out from home again, my dad assured me, Don’t worry, Zoey; we’ll be fine. I had wanted to be extra early, but now I’m on the same schedule I always keep. So we’ll just have to hustle a bit to get you two settled into good seats before I get going with the team.

I loved him so much.

He made me feel so safe.

We were just about back to the spot where I’d realized I had forgotten Zinka when we were hit. A giant truck came speeding out of nowhere, grinding into the left side of the car, tearing it apart from back to front. It happened so fast, my dad couldn’t have seen it coming.

None of us did.

I’ve heard that during a trauma, the human brain can trigger selective amnesia as a coping mechanism. I guess that’s what happened, because I have only scattered memories of the accident and aftermath, even though I reportedly remained cognizant throughout most of the grisly mess. So although I saw, heard, and felt everything, my mind decided to spare me the replaying of that monstrous moment. At least consciously.

According to the news coverage, even the well-seasoned paramedics who arrived to help us were stunned.

The driver’s side of the car looked as if it had exploded outward. The glass and metal was shredded, with shrapnel scattered everywhere.

Zinka was on the pavement with the rest of the debris.

So was my dad.

Seat belts and airbags weren’t strong enough for this. He had been thrown out of the car—ripped from it. Mom remained strapped in and could be heard moaning inside the vehicle. Or what was left of it. She was in really bad shape.

I was in the back seat on the passenger side. I’d worn my seat belt, but car seats for kids my age were still sitting in a gray area of new laws and old habits. I was crushed against the bulging metal of what used to be the right rear door.

The report said I was in shock. I didn’t utter a sound. I didn’t complain of pain from the gash in my forehead. I didn’t react to the warm blood pouring down my face. In fact, blood covered everything.

The whole scene was like outtake censored from a slasher movie, scarring scenes no one should ever see.

They say the shock finally caught up with my psyche and I blacked out as I was loaded into the ambulance.

I came to in a hospital bed, feeling the binding casts of broken bones, a forehead stinging from stitches, and skin scored with deep abrasions.

I may not have known how I got there, but I did know I wanted—or at least needed—some answers.

One question was answered as soon as I opened my eyes. A nurse handed me Zinka along with my dad’s cap, both of which the paramedics had picked up amongst the debris. I started weeping. I grabbed Zinka and hugged her to me and then pulled on the cap, tugging it down as far as it would go, wishing I could completely hide inside it.

Because I knew what had to come next. I asked about my mom and dad.

The nurse broke the news as gently as possible, but the next few moments remain the worst and most painful of my life. Which says a lot, considering the barbs and hooks that would rip into my future.

Because right then, in that horrific moment, is when I learned that my mom was in surgery and that my dad…well, my dad was gone.

At first, I couldn’t respond. Outside myself, I heard the nurse trying to console me, lamely trying to fit a silver lining into a bloodied shroud by telling me I had escaped the worst of the maiming that had killed my dad and would affect my mom’s health forever.

That was true, but what I hadn’t escaped was knowing in my heart that this entire tragedy was my fault. If I hadn’t forgotten Zinka and if I hadn’t insisted we go back for her, my dad would still be alive.

I didn’t even know that nurse’s name, but I flung my one good arm around her and, with Zinka smooshed between us, held on to her for dear life as I cried.

And cried.

And cried.

Chapter 2

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8:31 a.m.

I lift my head off my pillow, snapping back into the reality of the rocking of the bus and the people around me. How long have I been looking out this window without seeing anything?

I shake my head at my own question. I’ve actually been seeing so much. As this box of humanity rolls north on I-95, I’ve been looking back upon my life. And the subconscious show is far from over.

The few months following the car accident—the winter of 2000 into the new year and millennium—felt like a decade. Most kids aren’t aware of time in the sense of its everyday demands and pressures, but I felt confused and overwhelmed by every stabbing second.

Like the new experience of attending a wake and a funeral—my dad’s.

Like being passed from one friend, acquaintance, or social worker to another while my mother spent weeks in the hospital.

Like leaving our nice, comfortable family home forever for a Section 8 unfinished basement apartment near Chapel and Church.

Like changing schools, missing my old friends and bucking the brutality of elementary school kids instinctively drawn to teasing the new girl dressed in not the newest of clothes.

I had to learn things fast.

I learned that the man who hit us was what the police call an ex-con. He was caught trying to flee the scene—probably because the truck he hit us with was stolen.

I learned that any money we had was gone. Mom tearfully tried to explain how our medical bills were no match for the work benefits of a minor leaguer. And why the insurance company of the business that owned the stolen truck was not libel for any money. And that we sure weren’t going to get a dime out of the bad man who hit us.

We had just enough to bury your father, she told me, and now the state will have to take on my care and…

With that, she broke down completely.

As did our lifestyle, taking giant steps backward while my mother could take few literal steps at all.

Finally, the doctors had done all they could for her. She would never work again or fully be herself. Walking, talking, and everyday living would be a chore. Ultimately, my chore.

My mother’s older sister, my Aunt Agnes, did what she could, but she lived fifty miles away in upscale Greenwich under what my mom called the heavy thumb of her husband, Maxmilian Dante König.

I wasn’t really sure what that meant. And I had no clue just how heavy that thumb was.

Aunt Agnes was the one who set us up in the New Haven basement and arranged for some good church soul—a Mrs. Bakowski, a seventy-something Polish woman from the Saint Stanislaus Parish—to check in on us every couple of days. Mrs. Bakowski would get my mother’s disability payments and the occasional check from Aunt Agnes, dole out some money for groceries and medicines, and hopefully be able to pay the rent with what was left. But as 2000 into 2001 marched on, I was the one to prepare the food, run errands at the nearby strip mall, and tend to all of my mother’s needs—from bathing to bedpans to meals—all the while trying to do at least passably well in school.

But what would have made those bad days even worse would have been if I couldn’t help my mother, if I couldn’t somehow show her how much I loved her.

The underground lair my mom and I now called home didn’t have any real windows. It did have a thin metal flap up at street level, which could be cracked open to allow air to flow inside. Its purpose was to fight humidity, but it would’ve taken a lot more to win that battle. Still, it let some light to come through.

The bathroom was twenty-three steps from my bed, down a dark narrow hallway. When venturing down it, I had to remember to leap forward at step nineteen to avoid the puddle made by an ever-leaking pipe. I pretended it was a game. If I counted right, my reward was not being splashed with dirty water!

I dreaded going to bed. That would be normal for a kid my age, except my reason wasn’t the typical desire for more playtime. I just didn’t want to have that horrible dream again.

The brain can trick itself to forget a trauma, but your mind plays other games with you, too. As soon as I’d fall asleep, I’d hear an explosion followed by screams that would go on and on. Then I’d see my dad lying on the ground, staring at me, with blood flowing out of his mouth. I’d try to call to him, but I couldn’t utter a sound. And he’d just stare at me, both of us now surrounded by complete silence.