Father rose to embrace her. For a moment she almost cried herself, wishing with all her heart that she could speak to him as she had spoken to the others, that just this once God would give him the gift of hearing. But as she embraced him, she spoke anyway, loudly enough that Mother and Laban and Pillel could hear her, so one of them could tell him later what she said. “You raised me to be the true servant of the God of Bethuel. Now see how he blesses me because I had you for my father.” She kissed him and embraced him and now she did weep into his shoulder, not really for parting from him now, but rather for the memory of all the hours she had spent at that shoulder when she was a toddler and he carried her everywhere. It was her childhood, and the father of her childhood, that she mourned for. It was the songs she sang for him, and even if she stayed now, he would hear no singing from her.

Finally she pulled away from her weeping father and turned to Pillel. She offered him her hand, but when he reached to take it, she pulled him, too, into an embrace. “You are a man of honor,” she said, “and you have deserved the perfect trust we all have had in you.”

She did not look to see whether there were any tears in his eyes. She wasn’t sure which would be worse—to see that there weren’t any, or that there were.

Now she was face to face with Eliezer. “I packed last night,” she said. “So did my nurse, Deborah. I’ll show your men which sacks and boxes to take.”

Eliezer nodded gravely, his eyes never leaving hers.

“What?” she asked him.

“You,” he said. “I don’t know if Isaac is ready for you.”

“Do you think the Lord chose the wrong bride after all?” she asked.

“Of course he doesn’t think that,” said Mother, her voice husky. “He thinks you’re a marvel. Because you are. And I can tell you right now, no man on earth is ready for this girl, but he’ll never realize it because she’ll never let him see it, because that’s the kind of perfect wife she’ll be, and don’t you forget it.”

The words seemed aimed at Eliezer, but it was Father and Laban and Pillel she looked at when she spoke.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive any of you,” said Father, “that I haven’t been told a word of this since she said, ‘I’ll go.’”