That was enough to get Rebekah on her feet, quickly brushing out her hair so it hung thick and wavy and unadorned, as if she were a little girl. In a moment she was outside the tent with Laban, hurrying to Father’s tent.

“Laban, this makes no sense. Mother already decided I was staying, and when it comes to that sort of thing, she doesn’t change her mind.”

“You think she didn’t argue? I tell you, she tried everything. Her laugh. Her smile. Her famous frown. That sarcastic snippy sound that unrams a man in six words. The whole arsenal. And he only smiled and said, ‘My master is old. He hopes to see his son married before he dies.’ He had Mother bargaining with him. If not a month, then ten days. Then a week. How can we make dresses for her—and he says, don’t you think my master has dressmakers as fine as any in Haran? An answer for everything. And I was arguing too, you can be sure of that, but he says to me, ‘Please don’t hinder me, seeing how the Lord has blessed my errand and made it prosper. Send me away so I may go to my master.’ The same thing, over and over, as if we hadn’t spoken, and I guess we got so excited we stopped writing things for Father, until he finally roars for everybody to be still, and he says, ‘We’ll call Rebekah and see what she says,’ and Mother is just speechless that Father would even suggest leaving it up to you—”

“Speechless? Mother?”

“Well, for a moment, but when she starts to write some kind of argument, Father takes the stick out of her hand—you know how he does that, to make us stop talking—”

“Oh, yes. I’ve had welts on my palms, he rips the stick away so fast sometimes.”

“And so there I went to fetch you, and now here we are, and isn’t this completely mad? Of course you’ll—”

But she didn’t wait for him to finish his sentence. Instead she walked into the tent and found the same group that had been there for the betrothal yesterday, except that this time Pillel was with them.

Mother was the first to speak. “This . . . man . . . thinks that his master is at the point of death and expects you to go, today, with no chance for farewells, no clothing, no parting gifts, no chance for me to say good-bye to the daughter I have only had for the past year—”

And with those words Mother burst into tears.

Another weapon in her arsenal?