I nodded and went to my bed. where I just
flopped on my back.
"At least none of us are as bad as Steven," Rose
said.
"He is going. to feel it more in the morning,"
Ice said. "I remember how my mother was sometimes,
many times. She would go drinking with her
girlfriends and suffer the next day, but it didn't stop
her," she pointed out.
"Your father let her?" Rose asked.
"He worked as a security guard, often at night,
and she just was frustrated. She's a beautiful woman,
and thinks she messed up her life by marrying and
having me."
"My mother went through something like that.
too." Rose said. "She wanted to regain her youth, but
she was being influenced, poisoned by someone else." She looked at us when we gave her expressions of
confusion.
"Who poisoned her?" Cinnamon asked. "The sister of the woman with whom my father
had his affair and other child. Her name is Charlotte
Alden Curtis. She's rich and has a house nearly as big
as this."
"Why did she do that to your mother?" Ice
asked.
"Her sister died in a terrible car accident on the
way to meet with my father. and Charlotte blamed
him and wanted to unload his sins on us. She trapped
us by inviting us to come live with her and help her
care for my half-brother Evan because he was
disabled and in a wheelchair. My mother was an easy