"Tradimento" - Italian for Betrayal

The basic facts of this tale were relayed to me by a friend that I trust. My attorney tells me that I have changed the names and circumstances enough in his real life story of woe that no one could ever successfully sue me for defamation or a related cause of action. However I do believe that the "tradimento" – i. e. betrayal – comes through as loud and clear as if I had accurately described the circumstances and used actual names. I tell the tale as my friend's first person account.

*************

Not much background is needed, but the basic facts are crucial to understand what happened after the defining event. I'm Grant Oster. While in graduate school getting my M Sc. degree in chemistry I met Laura. I fell in love immediately; I think it took her six months, until just before she got her M A in art history, before she fell in love with me, but it happened. While I don't think that either of us was especially experienced, as far as I was concerned our sex life was excellent, and she never voiced any complaints and seemed to orgasm regularly, both from oral activities and vaginal penetration. We got married less than a year after she got her M A, and got jobs in the same city, her teaching at a community college, me teaching part time at a state university while also working part time with a science consulting firm.

After three years of marriage I quit the university and worked full time as a consultant. I became an explosives expert and one of the clients I worked for was the Federal Government. About the time that our first daughter, Angela, was born I was doing most of my work for the Government and it involved quite a bit of travel. I know that it was hard on Laura but I did offer to quit and get a full time teaching job at a local college – which had tried to recruit me many times. However, Laura liked the money that my job brought in and the lifestyle that it afforded us, and encouraged me to stick with it. "I can survive, I'm self-sufficient," was her smiling mantra.

My travel had not let up too much by the time of the birth of our second daughter, Grace, two years after Angela was born. I again offered to change professions, but again Laura insisted that I stick with my consulting job since we now had an extra mouth to feed, clothe, and educate.

When the girls were five and seven my schedule let up for a time, and with my help with child care and once the girls went to school, Laura decided to go back to work. She got an administrative job at the local university primarily dealing with the liberal arts college. For reasons that I never really understood – but didn't concern me because it made her happy – Laura developed a keen interest in photography. We have more than a dozen albums chronically our lives with the kids.

Another seemingly odd interest that Laura developed at the time was in other languages, primarily Italian.

There were now times when Laura travelled on her job, especially to Chicago where she had meetings with benefactors, visiting professors, and the Art Institute, and visits with Gina, a friend of hers from college who was an Italian exchange student at the time but was now working in Chicago.

When the kids were eight and ten terrorist activities around the world made my skill set extremely valuable to the Federal Government, and I was recruited to work full time for them for a two year period. I talked it over with Laura many hours before accepting the assignment because it would result in much more travel for that two year – or perhaps longer – period and I would be gone sometimes for more than a month at a time. Laura encouraged me to take it, saying that she and the girls would miss me, but would be fine.

My assignment with the Federal Government caused me to be away for two Christmases in a row, when Grace was nine and ten, and Angela eleven and twelve, which was heartbreaking. Laura took the girls with her to visit Gina in Chicago. I talked to them on the phone every day for their week visit, and they seemed happy enough. Apparently a number of Gina's relatives were visiting, some of whom the girls had met before, and some of whom were kids about our daughters' ages.

Finally, just before Thanksgiving after I had worked on assignment providing my expertise to fight terrorists for more than two years, I went back to full time consulting and rarely travelled. Laura continued to travel occasionally, normally about once a month for two or three days, mostly to Chicago, and I was happy to assume all parental duties for Grace and Angela when she was gone, although sometimes they went with her.

I guess it is to be expected that girls become closer to their mother than their father. While I had a good relationship with Grace and Angela there really never were important things that they confided in me, and they rarely asked my opinion about personal matters, although it seemed that they were always sharing personal information with Laura. It didn't really bother me – much – except for one thing. They never, ever, were their normal chatty selves about their experiences when they went with their mother to Chicago; while they weren't withdrawn about it, they never volunteered information, and oftentimes would laughingly change the subject.

Just before eighteen year old Grace went to college out of state, while Angela was a junior at another out of state college at that time, Laura had a dark period. When I caught her crying on several occasions I asked her what was wrong. She chalked it up to becoming an empty-nester. She said what she needed was to take the girls on a shopping trip to Chicago (they don't have stores in Columbus?). The trip was planned hurriedly, and apparently required several long phone conversations with Gina – in Italian. Since I didn't understand Italian, I just accepted what Laura told me about the details. I had no reason to doubt her even though she had never been as weepy before as she had been the three or four days before she and the girls went to Chicago.

Laura returned from Chicago after three days more sanguine, although still not completely normal. That was not the surprising thing, however; what was surprising were the few purchases that the three of them came back with from their shopping excursion. When I inquired about it I was told that some of the items would be shipped later, including some directly to the girls' college addresses.

I did notice that my sex life – which never was bad, except, of course, when I was away for extended periods of time because I never cheated on Laura – got better once Grace left for school. I attributed this to Laura and I growing closer as empty-nesters, and I greatly enjoyed the increased frequency. Then the defining event of my story "happened."

***************

I played hooky from work starting about noon one Thursday without telling Laura, who was at her normal place of employment. I had planned to play nine holes of golf, but rain doused that expectation. However, I was planning for our upcoming anniversary. I wanted to give Laura a surprise party, so I talked with an event planner and started the ball rolling. About 3:00 p. m. a deliveryman came to the door with a wooden crate with "Fragile" markings on it, bringing it up the four front stairs of our house using a dolly. It was addressed to Laura. I signed for it, and with the help of the deliveryman we placed it in the living room in a stable position with the "This Side Up" properly positioned.

I thought that the delivery of the crate was odd. I couldn't imagine what was in it. I looked at the return address and it said "Romano Photography Studios," followed by an address in Chicago which I knew to be in the center city. I called Laura at work and told her about the arrival of the crate. She got quiet at first and then said "Oh, that's work related. They were supposed to send it to me at the office – I guess they screwed up. Just leave it, unopened, and I'll have someone help me bring it to the office tomorrow."

That would normally be a rational explanation except for three things. 1) The complete silence on the other end of the phone for several seconds after I first told her about the crate – a long enough time that I almost asked "are you still there?" since Laura is never at a loss for words. 2) The way that she told me not to open it; it was a command much more than a request and her voice was clearly stressed when she said it. Having worked anti-terrorism for several years I had become, through osmosis, aware of the importance of stress and nuance. 3) Her entire demeanor – not just the command not to open the crate – was uptight.

My curiosity was aroused sufficiently that I took a few photos of the crate, and entered the return address information into my laptop.

A fourth thing making me uneasy occurred as soon as Laura returned from work. With only a perfunctory greeting she raced to the crate, looked it over – obviously she was inspecting it to see if I had tampered with it – and then she was very vague and stand-offish when I asked her what was in it. "Not sure, exactly, but I was expecting some artwork from an organization in Chicago that wanted to set up an exhibition at my school. I'll open it and look at it at work."

"Want me to help and open it now?" I asked, not just to be a good guy, but also to test her reaction.

"Oh, no, no, no – uh – we – need to – uh look at it at work to make sure there was no damage in case an insurance claim – uh – is – needed," the normally glib Laura stammered.

The next morning, even before I left for work, two maintenance guys from the college she worked at showed up and carefully moved the crate to a school van under Laura's careful supervision.

When I said "I can't wait to see the showing at the school when you have everything set up," it wasn't because I was really interested in seeing an exhibition. It was to test Laura's reaction.

Without making eye contact, her response was "Uh, I'm not sure that's what it is, but, uh, of, uh, course I'll...we'll...I'll let you know...uh...if we decide on an exhibition." Two stammers in less than fourteen hours on the same subject by the normally fluent Laura! If that didn't pique my interest, nothing would!

The fifth thing that set me on edge and aroused my suspicions was that Laura never again said anything about the enigmatic crate.

*************

In the two weeks after the arrival of the mysterious package I learned most of what was publicly available about "Romano Photography Studios." It was the business entity in the U S for a worldwide famous photographer – Piero Romano – someone I had probably tangentially heard of at one time or another, but surprisingly someone who I'm sure that Laura never mentioned despite the fact that both as part of her photography hobby, and her work at the university, she often talked about artists and photographers.

Piero had a very distinctive style. Most of his photos had both true photographic realism in parts and "effects" in other parts. He was considered a master of the traditional photographic effects of bokeh (blur), panning, rule of thirds, and long exposure, often combing multiple effects in the same photo. He also was the only practitioner of a unique effect named after him, "Romano abilità artistica," [which I understand loosely translates into "Romano's artistry," but that I never really have seen written in English] which no one else has been able to duplicate and which is difficult to describe in words. My best try would be to say that it makes some features super-realistic while adjacent ones are fuzzy, and with change of color (if the photo is a color one) or shade within the same object; but that description doesn't do it justice.

While much of the information about Piero was intellectually and artistically interesting, there were two facts that blew me away; the person in charge of administration at his studio was his niece, Gina Romano Bianchi (I only knew Laura's friend – who I had only met once, and never in Chicago – by her married name, Gina Bianchi); and he had died in a car crash on September 1st of the previous year, and his memorial service in Chicago (before his body was shipped to his ancestral burial plot in Italy) was on September 6th.

How coincidental that it was around September 2nd that Laura got weepy, supposedly about becoming an empty-nester; and that Laura and the girls were on their "shopping" trip to Chicago September 5th through 8th! While I'm not a rocket scientist I am smart enough to have a Masters in Chemistry from one of the top ten schools in the country, so I was able to figure it out. Despite how crushing it was to me the only logical explanation was that Laura had been having a true love affair with Piero Romano for at least ten years and that my daughters knew all about it.

Another interesting fact – there would be a Chicago exhibition of Piero's most famous and stimulating works – including those owned by private collectors and some of which had never been seen in public before – April 16th – 18th, three weeks away at the time that I found out this information. I was sure that Laura would have a business trip to Chicago around that time – despite the fact that the 18th was my birthday – and would likely have as part of the exhibition the photographs that were in the crate shipped to our house two weeks previously.

**************

I was never more motivated in my life in coming up with a plan for dealing with my slut wife and traitorous daughters. Because of my initial rage – which I would have to quell in order to pull off what I wanted to – I had to arrange a "business trip" for the night of the day that I found out the incriminating information, and two nights hence. I profusely apologized to Laura in the message that I left on her work phone after packing what I needed from our house for a three night stay in a local hotel, promising to "make it up to you."

Part I of my plan was to get all the necessary divorce papers ready to serve and file once I had the proof that I expected. Part II was to find a way to get someone to visit and film the Chicago exhibition on the first day it opened – the 16th – which was by invitation only. Part III was to get my ducks in a row to come out of the divorce with as many material goods and money as possible – I no longer cared about my relationship with Laura and was very, very close to having the same feelings about Grace and Angela. Part IV was ultimate revenge, including after the divorce was final.

Part I was no problem. I got a recommendation for a good divorce attorney, Gail Schiff. She advised me of everything that I needed to do, and despite the fact that she recommended that the grounds be "irreconcilable differences" she was willing to go along with "long standing adultery." Gail just needed a modicum of proof before she could file the papers – which I expected to have for her the morning of the 17th – and she could arrange for service on Laura by a law enforcement agent other than the county sheriff and with a private process server to record the events – at the last night of the exhibition on the 18th.

For Part II I gathered as much information as I could about art appraisers having any relation to Chicago. I found a young appraiser named Roberto Milan who was trying to build his business. I actually went to see him in Chicago and talked with him almost a full day.

Roberto was familiar in general with Piero's work, was certain that he could get an invitation to the opening on the 16th, was not adverse to filming what I thought would be the photos that would interest me using a small, expensive, easily hidden HD camera that I gave him, and he thought that he could make a good and "high" appraisal of what the photos I expected to be there were worth.

"Some really experienced appraiser may be able to tear down my analysis, but I would welcome the challenge since it would help establish me as a real player in the art appraisal world," were the final words that got me to hire Roberto.

For a segment of Parts III and IV I cashed in two bearer bonds that we had had in our safe deposit box for at least twelve years. I didn't remember if Laura ever really knew about them, and she certainly wouldn't remember them now. They were now worth, together, about $25,000.

For another segment of Part III I provided my attorney with a complete list of all of our assets, including an appraisal of our house. I took photographs of all of Laura's jewelry and all contents of our safe deposit box (minus the bearer bonds, of course), and provided my attorney with updated bank statements, credit card numbers and outstanding purchases, retirement plans, and brokerage accounts.

As a small segment of Part IV the last day that I was supposedly out of town I snuck into the house while Laura was at work and with a magic marker obliterated my face on every single photograph in the dozen or so albums that Laura had made over the years. Never having reviewed them in their entireties before, I was surprised at the low percentage of photos that I was in – no more than 15%. I also found two photos I had never seen before that even if I had I probably would have considered innocent – they had Laura, Gina, Grace, Angela, and – drumroll – Piero in them. These photos I made high quality scans and photocopies of before returning them to the album with black marker across them and an arrow to Piero and a legend "the love of Laura's life."

Laura had told me two days after I got back from my "business trip" that she had to go to Chicago from the morning of the 15th to the afternoon of the 19th. When I expressed disappointment that she wouldn't be with me on my birthday and suggested that I accompany her she smoothly – apparently she had planned on my reaction – demurred saying that it was "all business" but that she would take me to a resort the following weekend and "Make it up to you in a way that you haven't ever experienced before!" She followed that statement with a passionate kiss, and then pulled down my zipper. Laura rarely gave blow jobs but she did then, with a passion that I hadn't seen before. At that point in time I looked upon her as a three dollar whore so I just enjoyed myself as I held her head to make sure she couldn't pull away as I ejaculated what seemed to be a liter of cum into her mouth. She gagged a little and obviously wasn't pleased, but pretended that she was and that "That was only a sample of what's to come, darling!"

For all of Parts I, III, and IV there was a particularly risky part of my plan. The rest – especially after getting comfortable with and hiring the art appraiser – I was quite confident would fall into place. The risky part was talking to Grace.

I decided that I needed a face-to-face with Grace, so as soon as I dropped Laura off at the airport the morning of the 15th I drove the 180 or so miles from Columbus to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where Grace was studying Chemical Engineering.

Why Grace and not Angela?

While both girls were much more their mother than me, Grace was by far more me – at least as far as how her brain worked – than Angela. Neither Angela nor Laura could ever conceive of a course of study in chemical engineering, of course very close to my degrees in chemistry. Also, Grace had a harder time lying than either Angela or Laura, and although her failure to advise me of Laura's love affair with Piero indicated otherwise (or maybe not) was more concerned with a nuclear family than Angela was.

I called ahead to Grace's cellphone when I was about half way there. She actually seemed excited to meet. I told her I'd take her to a late lunch at a real restaurant. We met at the eatery of her choosing – about a mile from campus – and got a secluded booth. After we ate I said "There's something very serious I need to talk with you about, Gracie."