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connected, the view looking over the lake. Just off from the big room was the dining room.
    Stairs descended from the living room into the basement level. On this floor there was only a large office and an even bigger master suite.
    “Sal?” I called at the door as I knocked. After waiting a few seconds I let myself into her bedroom.
    The furniture in Sal’s room was elegant and grand, looking fit to be in a kings quarters. There were beautiful, elegant curtains that hung from the windows that looked over the lake. A large painting of Sal in her younger days hung above the bed. A sheet had been pinned over the picture though but I noticed it had been drawn back, as if she was trying to peek at it. But all this was marred by the things that littered the room. Heaps of clothes, waiting for the housekeeper to come, most of them probably still clean.
    Piles of books, neatly stacked, but everywhere.
    “Sal?” I whispered as I listened for any signs of life.
    After a moment I heard what I was listening for and followed it to the grand master bathroom. The bathroom matched the rest of the house, elegant in every detail. And there she was, sleeping in the claw foot tub, a towel under her head for a pillow.
    She looked so peaceful, her face so much more relaxed than it was when she was awake. Her hair was blonde and even though she was only thirty-five it was starting to grey slightly. Her skin at one time had been perfect and beautiful but now was in sad need of some TLC. Wrinkles were already spreading on her forehead but this was more from the concerned look that crossed her face constantly.
    “Sal,” I said softly as I put a hand on her shoulder.
    “Wake up, Sal.”
    She immediately opened her eyes and a confused expression crossed her face. She looked around her and the expression of confusion deepened at her surroundings.
    When her eyes landed back on my face she relaxed just a bit.
    “Is it done?” she asked.
    “Is what done?” I asked as I helped her out of the tub.
    Without answering me, she walked back into the bedroom and I followed her up the stairs. She went directly to the oven and opened the door. As I followed her, I could hear her sniffing at something, her head halfway inside the oven.
    “I don’t understand,” she said with a confused voice as she shut the door. “I put it in hours ago.” Without asking what in the world she was talking about, I opened the oven door and saw what was on the rack.
    There was a frozen lasagna sitting on the top rack but the oven was stone cold.
    “Did you turn the oven on?” I asked her as I searched around for the box it came in.
    “Oh,” she said, dragging the word out. “I forgot about that part I guess.”
    I found the box in the cupboard that contained the dinnerware, shoved on the highest shelf. She was trying to hide it from the housekeeper so it wouldn’t be thrown out.
    After reading the instructions, I pulled the lasagna out and set the oven to pre-heat, not even thinking twice about why Sal wanted to have lasagna at ten-thirty in the morning.

    “I got you some new books today,” I said as I picked them up off the counter and handed them to her.
    Sal’s eyes grew wide and excited as she grabbed them from my hands and walked to the couch in the living room.
    I followed her in and took my own seat.
    Sally Thomas had once been a beautiful, perfectly normal woman. She married her husband when she was twenty-four and the marriage had been fairly happy for a few years. As her husband began making more and more money he became a very selfish and unkind person. He also took to drinking, a lot of drinking. And when he was drunk he became violent.
    Sal happened to come home one day to find her husband in a drunken rage and she got in his way. He beat her silly. She should have left him then but like so many other women she was in denial that he truly had a problem and he promised that it would never happen again. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to make