“Pendulum,” by Helen Fremont (Fiction ’91)

Fiction alum Helen Fremont was recently featured in Solstice. Read an excerpt of “Pendulum” below:

Pendulum

Count Giulio Vincenzo Zannini was conspicuously beautiful – when he entered a room, you could feel the air skip a beat.  Almond-brown skin and features so fine they could have been carved by Michelangelo.  He was born in Rome on July 13, 1900, but Mom always said he was better suited to the Renaissance.

I first met Uncle when I was four years old and he was already in his sixties.  He and Mom’s older sister, Aunt Zosia, lived in a penthouse apartment near the catacombs of Sant’Agnese in Rome, one of those grand high-ceilinged affairs that make you feel like you are about three feet tall, as I probably was at the time.  Even in the sizzling heat of summer, the marble floors were always cool and slick on your bare feet, and I stayed close to them, cowed by the enormity of the world around me.

Read the piece in its entirety here: https://solsticelitmag.org/content/pendulum/