For All Time

Chapter 8-Her Secret Is Revealed!

           I stood in the hallway next to Susanne's office. I held the journal tightly against my chest. A part of was telling me not to ask her but then the other half was telling me that I needed to. I had every right to know. It was like my feet was glued to the wooden floors. I couldn't move. After what I had read in my mother part of the journal last night I couldn't even act right at all. I'm starting to act all panicky about everything. I just don't know why. but there was one part of the entry that didn't make any sense to me. The part where she says. I'm getting help now. What the hell did that mean? I remember my mother being a great mother. She didn't seem to have any issues. But i was too young to even notice it. If i was alot older I probably would've picked up on it. I needed answers, and I had a feeling that all the answers that I needed was in that journal but i just couldn't bring my self to read the rest of them. I guess I thought that maybe it would be easier if somebody told me, other then me reading it myself. But I don't know why, it's not like I would get the full truth especially from Susanne, but it was wroth the try.................I guess.

I took a deep breath and walked in front of the doorway. She sat her desk writing down something in a pad. I guess she brought her work home with her.I lifted my hand up to knock on the door, but then I started hesitating. What if she doesn't know, this is just gonna be a waist of my time.I thought. Then I just knocked.

"Yes, Aaliyah?"she asked. She didn't even look up from her pad.

"Umm.."I said as I walked in."Can I talk to you?" I asked, staring down at my feet.

"What is it?"

I sat down in the leather chair that she had sitting in front of her desk.I looked down at the picture and back up at Susanne.I took deep breath."Okay so, I went to the cabin the other day and-"

"You want to the Cabin?"She asked, cutting me off."Why did you-"

"Susanne, just let me finish please."I said. I hated it when she cut me off.

She held her hands up."Okay, carry on." she said.

"Any ways. I went to the cabin because I was tired of sitting in the house, and sense You told the driver that  I  can't go any where near Hayvenhurst, i decided that I'd just go there."I knew I was lying, but it was the only way i could ask her about this situation and not get in trouble at the same time."So, when I got there I was looking at the pictures that mother had of me and her above the fire place from all the times that we went there. And you know that there is this African vase that she has next to them, right?" 

She placed her pen down and looked up at suspicously."Yes..."She made the whole word into one long syllable.

   "Well, I picked it up to look at it and I found this behind it."I handed her the picture.

She grabbed it and looked at it. Her eyes got wide at the exact same moment as her mouth drooped.She looked up at me as she didn't know what to say.

   "My question to you is do I have a brother or not?"She looked at me, I could tell be the look she had in her eyes that she didn't want to answer it."And don't lie to me, Susanne."I said, harshly.

She sighed and placed the picture down."I knew this day would come." She said, mostly to herself.She set aside her work and the looked up at me.She stared at me for a long moment. Then shrugged."Your mother had another baby before you."

  "And your just now telling me this because........"

   "Because, Aaliyah, When your mother died he you didn't even know who he was, you didm't even know what was going on, and plus by the time you were ten you pretty much had alot of fame and I was in the middle of not only raising you but teaching everything there is to fame life."

   "So what does that have to do with you not telling me I had a brother?"I asked.

    "Aaliyah, I really didn't think you need to know."

   "What?" My voice accelerated to another higher level, which mean't I was getting irritated."Why didn't I need to know?"

    "Look Aaliyah, I don't really have a real reason as to why but I can tell you this, the reason why Rashad's father took him away from her was because of two reasons."She said

   "And what are they?"I asked.

   "One was because his father did not think she should be taking care of a child with the career she had, Two, because your mother had a  problem."She said the last words in a whisper.

  "What problem did she have?:I ask anxiously.I wondered if this was the answer to the question I had earlier. Because in the diary entry she did say she had a problem but I don't know what problem it was. It couldn't anything that bad.

I could tell the Susanne was hesitating. She looked like she was debating on whether or not she should tell me.

  "What problem did she have, Susanne?" I asked again, now getting really impatient.

She took a deep breath.Then reached across the desk where my hand layed. She looked me in the eyes and said to softly."During the first few years of your brothers life and the first year of yours, your mother.....she, well......."

  "Susanne."I whined.

  "She had a drug problem."

My mouth dropped, I couldn't believe what I just heard.