Rebekah let him hold her for a moment longer, until her question was about to burst from her. She pulled away from him, took the stick, and wrote:

“Am I really beautiful?”

Father chuckled, then embraced her again, so that her face was held against his belly as it shook with laughter. “I suppose you don’t want to forget everything he said, do you!”

“You never told me,” she wrote.

“What good does it do for a woman to know she’s beautiful?” asked Father. “Did she cause it to happen? What if you got the pox, or some injury that marred your face? If you never knew you were beautiful, you would not grieve at the loss of that beauty.”

“Did you command everyone else not to tell me?” she wrote.

“It was not their place to tell you,” said Father.

A boy had been beaten and he and his mother had been sent away because he had said something about Rebekah’s beauty. Any servant girl could be pretty and she would know it because everyone would talk about it. But Rebekah was the daughter of Bethuel, so no one could tell her, no one could speak about her.

All these years, and I have not lived in the same world as everyone else. There are things people don’t tell me, because of who my father is. It’s like being blind. When it comes to things I can’t see myself, I only know what people tell me.

Just like Father, in his deafness. Laban and I worked hard to make sure he was told everything. But nobody told me, and I wasn’t even deaf or blind or anything. My whole future will be different than I thought it would be. Men will want to marry me, and not just for my dowry. Maybe a man will want me out of love.

For a moment she felt herself dazzled by the future. Beautiful! I might be mistress of a great house! I might marry a prince, a king!

And then she remembered Belbai, bleeding, staggering, his mother supporting him as she led him away. Belbai could easily have died today. For her. For his desire for her, for his anger at being forbidden even to speak of her. His mother was ruined again, after having once been saved. Father had been generous to Khaneah, but it did not change the fact that she once again was without protection.

Because Rebekah was beautiful.

Rebekah did not want to cry in front of Father. She pulled away from him and fled to her own tent, suddenly ashamed and afraid.

Alone in her tent, Rebekah threw herself onto the rugs and wept. In moments Deborah came in and lay down beside her, covering her with a comforting arm. “My poor baby! Did Uncle Bethuel beat you, too?”

“No, no, I’m all right. Father would never hit me. I’m just sad.”

“Because of Belbai?”