“I could always make out enough of the writing to remember the words and say them aloud, but I can’t even tell which prophet’s story this is.”

Rebekah glanced down at the parchment. It was the first time she had been allowed to read one of the holy writings for herself—and she hadn’t actually been allowed this time, either. Yet she felt no excitement about it, because everything was swallowed up in Isaac’s grief at his blindness. “At the head of the parchment,” Rebekah said, “it says that it’s the book of Enoch, written in his own hand as a testament to and condemnation of the people who for their love of bloodshed have rejected the Lord their God.”

Isaac sat in silence.

Was he angry that she had read from the scripture? “Do you need me to read more?”

He shook his head.

She reached out and took his hand, meaning to comfort him. Instead, he wept again.

She saw how old he had become. His hair was white, his beard speckled like new-broken granite. And with the white splotches on his eyes, he seemed to have lost much of the fire that she had always seen burning in him.

He was going to die.

Not tomorrow or the next day, but his body was aging faster than his father’s had. And with his vision gone, as it nearly was, he would lose much of his hope, much of his reason to live.

She thought of her father then, and how he had raged when he lost his hearing. But his deafness had been caused by an accident and a sickness that followed it. It came on him suddenly, in the robustness of his middle age—and even he had lost much of his vigor because of it, until Laban and Rebekah had restored it to him with their efforts to write to him, to be his ears.

“Isaac, you won’t have to go without reading the holy writings. Let me and Jacob and Esau read them to you.”

“It’s too late,” said Isaac. “I always thought I had more time.”

“More time for what?”

“For copying,” he said. “Father didn’t let me have them during his old age—I think he was more and more afraid that I might lose one or damage it. And after I got them, I copied a few but I knew I’d have plenty of time after my sons took over the work of the camp.”

“So let your sons do the work of copying. It’s their work eventually.” Well, it was Esau’s work, but she knew which son actually had the patience to do it. As for that, why not make the most audacious offer? “I can help. My hand is as clear and clean as this.”

If he even heard her, he gave no sign.

“I’ll never see the words again.”