Preview Time!

So, since I am unemployed and have nothing to do all day/night aside from dealing with my schooling, I have been writing. Now, I have never in my life felt a pull to write like I do now. One day in Italy I had a writing idea and I decided to go with it. This is taking me forever because I can actually see, clearly, what I am writing about and I have tried my hardest to put in as much detail as I possibly can. My protagonist is an old woman at the end of her life and what I am writing is slowly evolving into her life story, which flashes back and forth between past and present. Now, I have one problem: I want this story set in a foreign country, not the states, and I'm not sure how to use some language without actually defining which country she is from. For instance: If I was basing this in the states I would say mom, mother, mama, etc. But for another country? I don't want Mum. Ideas?

I.
She kneels in glow of the candle light that flickers across the aged walls with peeling paint, the virgin, the son, and the cross. In the shadowy creases of her wrinkled face, years of wisdom and wrong doings leak out of every pore, filling the rough and used pews and ancient hymn books with confessions of mistakes. Arthritic hands grasp each other as knuckles turn white and the lips- dry and cracked- rustle against each other as whispered words quickly leave her mouth, pushed out by the lash of her tongue. Silvery hair with touches of black hangs on either side of a long and narrow face, disheveled and wind-blown on a no-wind night. Eyelids closed so tightly they wrinkle and the eyeballs underneath can be seen darting back and forth as if reading a line of confessions that spew from her mouth. A sudden gasp of air, eyes snap open and pierce the dark touched by candle light with eyes the color of ice- blind, but seeing. Shudders escape her and the tiny frail body shakes. Collapsing at the altar, she stares into darkness, into blind faith.

II.
She stands up feeling the joints in her knees start to move, groaning from the pain, the joints bracing themselves for the weight of the frail woman’s body. As her back straightens and her hand instantly and instinctively reaches around to grasp her lower back, her other hand adjusts her dark shawl- velvet?- and she turns. As she crosses herself during her first few steps away from the altar, she pauses and turns around. Bending her head towards the virgin, she slowly raises her eyes, brow furrowed, and a single tear falls from the outside corner of her eye, soon followed by many more. One weak, unsteady step after the other, using the pews as her canes, she makes her way towards the door. Tears stream down her wrinkled and weathered face; as they drip, hands as old as the Church grasp the pew backs- blue veins creating maps of her life cover her hands and knuckles protrude from the almost transparent skin. As she makes her way towards me, the door, she stops at the last pew, straightens, and walks towards me, a look of sadness, cool reserve, and time lost covering her once beautiful face.

III.
The cold of her fingertips as they brush against the outside of my cold, hard, yet embracing wood would send shivers up and down each crack and each sliver of me if I could shiver. I can almost feel the rigidness and hardened shell she puts on as she enters the world of hardship and suffering, leaving the safety of the Church. With the brush of those fingertips is the loss of hope and trust and faith left behind, one last time. She stops just short of the first step and pulls the dark shawl tighter around her frail body, ties a dark gray veil around her head, and braces with the little bit of strength left, her against the wind. The last day of summer passed long ago, taking with it the greens and sunny skies, leaving in its wake instead the reds and oranges and browns, the clouds, and the cool days. Her first step onto the stairs is unsteady, staggering, weak. But as each step is taken, the veiled head slowly rises, the slender, slightly crooked with time shoulders pull back, and by the last step just before the sidewalk lined with gas lamps shining small circles of yellowish light on the cobblestone streets, she has pulled all her remaining strength from the depths inside of her ancient and stolen body. She turns to the right and slowly makes her way down the uneven sidewalk, looking up only once when a gentleman walks by and tips his hat her way.

***
“Mama! Mama! Look at what I caught, Mama! Look! A firefly. Isn’t it beautiful, Mama?”
“Hush, child. The baby is sleeping. Now run along with your little lighted bugs, do not bother me with such insolent things. Go!”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Slowly making her way out of what was once a happy room for both her and her mother, the child’s face is rigid and cold, steeled against any emotion. As soon as she closes the heavy wooden door with a click she lets her tears fall. As tiny tanned fingers with nails outlined in a few days’ dirt quickly and harshly rub the almond shaped brown eyes, a tight curl of black hair falls out of place. Frustrated with the new baby, hatred boiling inside of her, the young child feels a tinge of guilt and once she is outside the rickety old house with a slanted roof and missing floorboards, dust and the musky smell of time are behind her, she falls to her knees in the dirt, a little cloud of dust lightly jumping into the air around her torn woolen skirt. Praying to the Father to forgive for her hatred of an innocent child that does not know better, the child allows herself to ask for one selfish favor: “Please Father, let my mother love me once again.” Standing up and dusting off what little dirt she can from the woven fabric, the little girl runs out into the prairie which surrounds her little shack. With wind blowing and the moon shining brightly above her, the child forgets her rough life for just a few moments and enjoys the feel of the breeze as it lightly caresses her untamed, curly hair, pulling more curls loose of the braid she daily wore.

***