Page 43 of Past Due

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means that there’s a long history between us. Things came to a head after I had my heart fixed.” Embarrassed by how negligent my mother could be, I confessed, “She knew I had my heart condition. Like—I was diagnosed as a toddler but she never took me to any of the follow-up appointments and never told me that I had this ticking time bomb in my chest. I had mentioned the racing heart stuff to her before, but she always told me it was just anxiety and tried to get me to take some new essential oil concoction or drink some crazy anti-anxiety shake she was selling.”

Besian’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. I could feel the waves of anger radiating from him in furious bursts. “I take it back. She’s not invited.”

I smiled sadly. “She wouldn’t come even if we asked.”

“She’s your mother. Of course, she would.”

“We don’t have the kind of relationship most mothers and daughters have,” I explained, deciding to get it all out now. “When I was younger, we were very close, but she changed when I got older. She stopped cooking, stopped cleaning, stopped caring. She started spending money, buying shit she didn’t need, filling up the house with piles of clothing and jewelry and collectibles that weren’t worth what she paid for them.”

“So, she’s a hoarder? Like on that awful TV show?”

“Not to that extreme level, but yes.” I grimaced at the memory of how filthy her house was the last time I had visited. “I wish I knew what happened. One day, she was the best mom ever, and the next, she barely noticed I existed.” I shrugged. “It’s some kind of mental illness, but I don’t know what caused it. Some trauma most likely,” I murmured. “Something terrible.”

“You can’t help her if she doesn’t want to help herself. I’ve seen it with my dancers. They get hooked on pills or meth or coke, and it doesn’t matter how hard I push them to get clean. They have to be ready to do it for themselves, for their kids, their families. Whatever your mother is dealing with, that’s on her. You can’t carry around that burden.”

“I know that, but knowing doesn’t make it any easier. It’s hard to watch her make so many bad decisions.”

“I’m sorry, Marley.”

We lapsed into silence as he navigated the busy highway snaking through Tirana. There seemed to be a mix of residential and commercial, and I noticed they tended to build vertically instead of horizontally, making use of every bit of space on their crowded streets. Ultra-modern buildings looked out of place in the skyline, but I sensed the city would continue to morph and grow to match the newer structures.

“Has Tirana changed a lot since you were a kid?”

“Yes.”

“In a good or bad way?”

“Both, but more good than bad,” he decided. “After communism ended, it was difficult here.”

Difficult seemed like an understatement considering what I had read in a couple of Wikipedia articles during my travels. “Did you grow up here in Tirana?”

“I was born in a little village up north. We didn’t come to Tirana until I was eleven.”

“With your parents?”

“No.” He cleared his throat. “Our father was killed when I was eight. My mother took me to live with her parents until she died. After that, I came to Tirana to live sigh my brothers and the uncle who had taken them in.”

“That must have been difficult.” I tried imagine a very young Besian losing his mother and grandparents and moving to a big city. “You and your brothers must have been close.”

“We were.” He seemed unnaturally focused on the traffic, as if he didn’t trust himself to look at me. “Baki, Ben’s father was more of a parent to me than my mother or father ever were. Pali, my middle brother, was the same, always looking out for me.”

He gestured to a road sign that I missed. “The American embassy,” he said. “When Luka called this morning, he said there are forms you need to sign and notarize there.”

“Will you go with me?”

“Of course.”

The mention of the embassy brought another question to mind. “Are you a citizen?”

“No.” He eased on the brake as a taxi cut off another car in front of us. “I have a green card.” He glanced at me as we waited for the small traffic jam to clear. “Is that a problem?”

“I don’t think so.” Not wanting to get into the what-ifs that might come up in the future, I asked, “Do you want citizenship?”

“Not particularly,” he said, turning his attention back to the road. “It’s better for me, financially, if I remain an Albanian citizen.”

“Legally, also, I imagine,” I remarked without thinking.

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