Free Daisy (Suitors of Seattle) by Kirsten Osbourne

clothes while she waited for her cake to bake, deciding to top it with whipped cream, because she didn’t have anything else to use for icing.
    She doubled his wardrobe that day by mending the things he’d stacked into a corner and stopped wearing.  She finished the clothes just as he walked into the house at the end of the day.  After serving them both, Daisy took her spot across the table from him. 
    He said a brief prayer for them both, and they ate their supper.  Eli didn’t have much to say throughout the meal, and she didn’t press him.  When she brought out the cake , his eyes lit up.  She cut him a large piece and topped it with the whipped cream, placing it in front of him.
    “This looks delicious,” he told her.
    “I hope it tastes good.  I’ve made a few cakes on my own, but Mrs. Higgins was always watching me.”  She watched as he cut into the piece with his fork, hoping he’d like it.  She held her breath until he smiled as he took the first bite, obviously content.
    “Who’s Mrs. Higgins?”
    “I’ve done a lot of volunteer work at a women’s shelter in Seattle, and she and her husband ran it.”
    “What’s a women’s shelter?”   Eli made a face, because he’d never heard of such a thing.  What would a woman need shelter from?
    “That’s a fair question,” Daisy told him.  “It’s a place where a woman who is being treated unkindly by her husband can go to live with her children and not have to worry about being hurt any longer.”
    “So it’s a place where women are hidden from their husbands?” He seemed very annoyed at the idea.
    “Yes, but only if their husbands have hurt them.  Many of the women there have broken bones and bruises all over them from their husbands.”
    He seemed to take that in for a moment.  “Are there a lot of places like that?”
    Daisy shrugged.  “The one in Seattle is the only shelter I’ve ever heard of, but I think they should be all over.  Women shouldn’t have to stay in a situation where they’re being hurt.”
    He shook his head.  “No.  Men shouldn’t ever use their strength against women.  I know they do it, though.”  As much as he hated the idea of her having a place to run to, he knew that women needed to be able to go to a place where they were safe.
    “Mrs. Higgins was in one of those marriages.  After her husband died, she married my aunt’s former butler, and they now run the women’s shelter.  There’s so much to do there with all the women coming in that we’ve all taken turns volunteering there.  The women help out when they can, but so many of them are so mentally hurt by the time they get away from their husbands that they need time to just heal.”
    “So what did you do there?”
    “I cooked and cleaned,” she said with a grin.  “I wouldn’t know how to do either of those things if it weren’t for the shelter.  We had servants to do all that for us as I was growing up.”
    He sighed.  “I worked my whole life, and you had servants.”  He couldn’t help but wonder if the disparity in their childhoods bothered her.
    She reached across the table and took his hand in hers.  “It doesn’t bother me.  I like working.”
    He shrugged and ate the last few bites of his cake.  “I need to see to the cow.  I think there’s something wrong with her.”  He stood up and left the house, leaving her sitting at the table.
    Daisy watched him go, wondering what could be wrong.  She’d never seen him act so distant before, and she had no idea what she’d done to upset him.  She had tried to be a good wife.
    While washing the dishes, she stared out the window into the darkness feeling very alone.  Her sisters had annoyed her a great deal of the time, but there was always noise and activity around her.  Here, she was alone most of the time.  She knew that would change after children came, but only God knew when that would happen.  Maybe she could spend some time with Clara.  She wondered