“I thought it was Keturah’s hovering that had you worried.”

“Maybe you’ve forgotten, but I haven’t. Your father thinks he’s going to take charge of the rearing of our son.”

“He’s a very wise old man. And a good one.”

“But he has his children, and we have ours. I didn’t notice him handing you over to old Terah to raise.”

“Because Terah was an idolater who once colluded with men who were plotting to kill my father.”

“So if he hadn’t done those things, Abraham would have been right up there in Haran to hand over the baby.”

Isaac laughed. “All right, of course he wouldn’t. But it’s different in our case.”

“Isaac, it’s not different. I can’t believe you don’t see it. The reason your father wants to supervise the raising of this baby is because he doesn’t think either of us can do it right. Especially not me. He thinks I’m going to treat the baby like . . . like a baby. Which is precisely what I’m going to do, when you stop and think about it, and it’s none of his business. I’ll bet somebody treated him like a baby, too.”

Isaac grew very still, and when he spoke he was almost inaudibly quiet. “Well, you see, he’s afraid that if he doesn’t intervene, our son will turn out to be just like me.”

Rebekah was relieved that Isaac understood the situation without having to have it spelled out for him. “Yes! And that’s just . . . unbelievably stupid! I want our boy to be as much like you as possible. I would be thrilled if he was just like you.”

Isaac looked at her as if she were an idiot. “Why?”

“Because—because you’re a wonderful man. A man of God. A good ruler of a household, a perfect husband, a . . .”

The look on his face turned sadder and sadder with everything she said.

“What?” she demanded. “What’s wrong with having a son who’s like you? I love you!”

“Only because you’re a woman,” said Isaac.

“Well excuse me, Isaac, but I think having me be a woman was one of the primary instructions your father gave Eliezer when he sent him off to find me.”

“Yes, that was pretty much the minimum. Whomever he brought back, she definitely had to be a woman.”

“And our son will probably marry a woman, too, don’t you think?”

“That would be my choice for him, yes,” said Isaac. “It’s been a long tradition in our family, extending all the way back to Adam, I believe.”

“So maybe that woman will think he’s just as wonderful as I think you are.”

Isaac turned away from her then. “Pleasing women,” he said, “is not how a man is measured.”

“It’s how women measure men!”

“No it’s not,” said Isaac.