And if she couldn’t, she became a problem to be solved.
Her family’s farm was failing. The drought had been ruthless for three seasons. Crops had withered in rows like they were bowing to defeat. Creditors had started circling. There were whispers about taking their land, about their farmhouse being sold out from under them.
Then a man arrived with gold coins and a proposition.
A rancher from farther west, from a place where the sky was wider and the towns were smaller, needed help on his land. Needed a woman to keep house. Needed… companionship, the way the trader phrased it, with a shrug that made Eliza’s stomach twist.
Her father had hesitated exactly one night.
The next morning, Eliza overheard her mother in the kitchen, voice low and frantic.
“She’s no good for marriage now,” her mother said, as if Eliza weren’t standing just outside the door. “No man will take her. This is… this is the only way we keep the boys fed.”
Eliza pressed her forehead to the wood, eyes burning, and realized something sharp and cold:
Her family didn’t just believe the doctor.
They believed the doctor had ruined her, and they were selling the ruin to save themselves.
