At fourteen, the seed of Jacob the Fatherless stirred in her.

Jacob held a glass of clear liquid in one hand, and in another he clutched a small bundle he unwrapped to expose a mound of flesh she could not identify.

She bent closer. Was this another gift? She sprang back at the offensive odor of stale blood.

“Foreskins!” He chuckled.

A surge of bile stung her throat. She clamped her palm to her mouth, afraid to vomit on the treasure her husband so proudly offered. What was she to do with foreskins?

“Is your stomach empty?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

He held up the glass. “Warm castor oil!” He thrust a foreskin deep into her mouth, “Wash it down with oil and don’t you dare vomit.”

Rebekah’s translucent skin turned crimson, and her eyes a deep purple as she fought the bitterness that poisoned her while the foreskins of other women’s sons made their way into her entrails.

“Now my beautiful wife will give birth to a virile boy,” he announced, sustaining the kiln with scraps of metal. “My son will be born into a world of gold.”

Rebekah begged God to come to her rescue. She had cursed, pleaded, threatened, and surrendered to no avail. Maybe if she became more pious He would listen. Although she had never before thought of lighting the Sabbath candles, now she transformed every sundown into her own private Sabbath. If her mother’s God granted wishes on the holy day, she would will every evening into one. Facing the candles, a veil thrown over her curls, she prayed for a boy, so that Jacob would have pity on her and not dispatch her to hell.

Rebekah went into labor at noon. Her husband was out melting iron.

The midwife, who visited at dawn, noon, and dusk, murmured incantations under her breath, boiled a pot of water, cut strips of calico, and examined Rebekah. “Child, if you don’t stop trembling, your baby will be afraid to enter the world. What are you scared of?”

She was terrified of her prayers coming true, of giving birth to a boy, of dying, of being thrust into the unknown. She should not have pleaded for a son, a boy would be nothing but an extension of Jacob the Fatherless, following in his steps, melting, burning, and destroying everything in his path. In her dreams, she had given birth with ease to a girl, but the pain of delivering a boy had split her in half. Rebekah shut her eyes to blot out Jacob’s demons.

The midwife rested her hand on Rebekah’s forehead. “It won’t take long. The mouth of your cervix is as open as the face of a large coin. Now take a deep breath and push hard.”

Calling upon Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the midwife thrust her hand into Rebekah to turn the baby around and facilitate its delivery. Rebekah bore down hard, feeling herself widen, a pain far worse than the one she had experienced in her dreams. She was giving birth to a boy.