There was only one problem she faced that was real, and that was the fact that she had no child. Yet this real problem was the one that troubled her least, for she knew that the Lord had chosen her to be mother of Isaac’s heir, and she remembered the story of Sarah, so she had no reason at all to doubt that, when the Lord was ready, she would have at least the one son required in order to preserve the birthright. So when Keturah and others offered their kind remarks meant to encourage her that she, too, would have babies, even if she never had as many as Keturah, who now was up to six sons and four daughters, Rebekah accepted their encouragement with a smile and went about her business untroubled. She did not even pester the Lord about it very often, though now and then she offered a prayer like the one she had said the evening that Eliezer came to the well at Haran: “I know you’re going to give me a son, Lord, and it occurs to me that now is as good a time as any.”

Then a month would pass without a child in her womb, and she would sigh and think about something else. And even though she sometimes felt a bit of impatience, she never doubted that eventually she would have a son.

When she wasn’t distracted by these concerns, she spent her days doing the kind of work she had done in her father’s household—but the burden was lighter. The camp at Lahai-roi was only one part of Abraham’s vast holdings, and Rebekah sometimes suspected that Abraham had made sure that the less reliable servants were assigned somewhere else. At other times, though, she thought that the reason Lahai-roi was always peaceful and harmonious was because of Isaac’s way with people. He listened to everyone and was always calm. No one could tell him a tale of some outrage committed against them and get him furious before he heard the other side—a trap that Father had sometimes fallen into. Everyone knew that with Isaac, judgment would be just. There were no favorites. And since Rebekah herself had always tried to be just as even-handed—though she was never able to keep her silence the way Isaac could—the women lived together as harmoniously as the men.