“I won’t let you do this to him,” Rebekah said, and started to take Jacob away, but Abraham snapped, “Stay!” and she stayed.

“It’s not his fault, if there’s something wrong,” said Rebekah. “He did only what I asked him to do.”

Abraham held up the parchment. “This is false scripture, like the counterfeit scriptures of the Pharaohs in Egypt.”

“It’s a child practicing his writing by setting down his memory of stories he loves.”

“The writings have to be copied letter for letter, word for word, or the plain and precious truth will be replaced by foolish imaginings.”

“We didn’t think we were writing scripture,” said Rebekah. “We’re aware of the difference.”

“Maybe you are,” said Isaac. “But is he?”

“No more arguing with me in front of the boy, woman,” said Abraham. “This is a lesson that has to be learned once and for all time.” He held a corner of the parchment in the fire. Because it was new, it was still somewhat moist and burned only reluctantly. But Abraham burned it all, as Jacob watched, his face unreadably still. “That,” said Abraham when the parchment had turned to ash, “is what will happen, in the end, to all false writings and imitation scriptures.”

“May I take the boy away now?” said Rebekah. “Or do you have any further lessons to teach him?”

“To teach him? No,” said Abraham. “But when you’ve taken him to one of the women to look after him, I’ll expect you to come back here.”

Rebekah looked at Isaac, but his face was unreadable.

Esau, however, was grinning at Jacob, who had tears streaking his cheeks.

She led Jacob away, her fury barely contained. Once she got him inside her tent, he began crying openly, and so did she. She dropped to her knees and hugged him to her, holding him tightly. “You did nothing wrong,” she said to Jacob. “I thought they would be proud, that’s why I showed it to them. If there was a sin, it was my sin.”

“I’ll never remember all the animals again,” said Jacob.

So he did not understand the magnitude of his humiliation. That was good.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Rebekah. “We’ll remember them, together, before you sleep tonight, and then we’ll keep remembering them forever. We just won’t write them down on parchment anymore. How’s that?”

“I’ll forget some. I already forgot some.”

“We’ll do our best,” said Rebekah. “That’s all we can do.”

“Why didn’t papa stop him from burning my writing?” asked Jacob.

“Because . . .” She paused a moment, trying to find a way to say it that wouldn’t diminish Jacob’s father in his eyes. “Because Grandfather is his papa, and so he has to be obedient.”

“I thought when you got big you didn’t have to do everything your papa says.”

“When you get big,” said Rebekah, “you’ll obey all the commandments because you believe they’re right. But when you’re little, you don’t understand everything yet, so you obey the commandments because your papa and mama say so.”