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Chapter 9 - Pepto Italiano
Her first morning in Rome, Barbara woke before the summer sunrise and took a long, hot shower. She entered the dining room before anyone from Transatlantic-Worldwide was awake. She drank a half cup of coffee and ate a half piece of bread, declining the American breakfast offered her, included in the room fee. She left the dining room before Michael entered.
In her room, sitting at the little brown desk, leaning over a piece of complimentary stationary, she began a letter to her Mother explaining the situation with Chuck. She couldn’t write that there would be a divorce filed at any specific time. She wrote “Chuck and I have had some trouble over here in Europe and there will be at least a temporary separation.” Barbara lifted her pen, telling herself, “Mother knows nothing about Chuck’s infidelities.” He was a charming man with Mother, she thought, and he showed embarrassingly great affection for me in front of her. But what if Mother does know about his affairs. I canceled that Christmas trip. That may have tipped her off.
Barbara was certain her Mother knew everything. She put down her pen. She couldn’t write anything more. She would have to at least write about Sonya. She couldn’t. She couldn’t even explain why she was still with the tour after her husband had left her. She should be in some kind of rest home or with her children. Suddenly she was undecided even about a separation.
How could she explain everything to her Mother? She put the stationary back into the drawer of the little brown desk and closed the drawer. Maybe Chuck would still come back, we could go on with our sham marriage and I would not have to tell Mother anything, Barbara thought, standing up. She took off all her clothes, dropped them into a pile on the bright tile floor and stepped towards the bathroom for another shower.