“If we make fun of their gods, people in the towns will shut us out,” Laban reminded her. It was one of the rules learned by those who moved from place to place, following green grass and searching for ample water.

Rebekah knew the rule. “I was making fun of the priests.” She looked again at Laban’s drawings in the dirt. “Let’s show Father as much as we’ve figured out about writing.”

“I don’t want to show him until we have it right.”

“Maybe he can help us get it right.  Maybe he knows how Uncle Abraham does it.”

“And in the meantime, how will I draw a picture of us not knowing how to draw pictures of things we can’t draw pictures of?”

“If you draw something and he doesn’t understand, then at least he’ll understand that we don’t know how to make him understand, and that’s what we’re trying to make him understand.”

Laban grinned. “Now you’re sounding like a priest.”

Rebekah laughed. “The Lord is not made of stone, he is in the stone. The Lord is not confined by the stone, he is expressed by the stone. Since the Lord was in the stonecutter who shaped the image, the idol is both man’s gift to the Lord and the Lord’s gift to man.”

Laban whistled. “You listen to that stuff?”

“I listen to everything,” said Rebekah. Her own words made her think of Father, who could never listen to anything again.

“I listen to everything, too,” said Laban. “But you remember it.”

“That has to be the worst thing for Father,” said Rebekah. “That he remembers being able to hear. Being at the center of everything.”

“What, you think it would have been better if he had always been deaf? Who would have married him, then? Who would be our father?”

“Father would,” said Rebekah. “Because Mother would have loved him anyway.”

“But Mother’s father would never have given her to a deaf man in marriage.”

“She would have married him anyway!”

“Now you’re just being silly,” said Laban. “Would you marry a . . . a blind man? A cripple? A simpleton?”

“I would if I loved him,” said Rebekah.

“That’s why fathers decide these things, and don’t leave them up to silly girls who would go off and marry blind, deaf, staggering fools.”

Laban said this so loftily that she had to poke him. “But Laban, someday Father will have to find a wife for you.”

“I’m not a . . . I don’t . . . I refuse to let you goad me.”

Rebekah laughed at his dignity. “Let’s go show Father as much writing as we’ve got.”

“I don’t want him to see how bad we are at it.”

“The only way to get better is to do it wrong till we get it right. Like you with sheep shearing.”

Laban blushed. “You really do remember everything.”