“I’m sorry he and his mother have to suffer so much because of what he did.”

“He shouldn’t have made mean pictures of you.”

“No, he shouldn’t,” said Rebekah. She patted Deborah’s arm. “See? I’m all right now.”

“No you’re not,” said Deborah. “You just want me to leave you alone, but I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to go out there. What if Uncle Bethuel sends me away?”

“He’ll never do that. As long as I’m here, you’re my nurse.”

“But the other women say you’ll soon get married and go away and then I won’t have any work to do and I eat too much, everybody says so. Uncle Bethuel can’t afford to feed people who don’t work.”

Which was a common thing for Pillel to say. How could Deborah know that it didn’t apply to her?

“Deborah, you’re family, not a servant. You’re my cousin.”

“What if he sends me home? I don’t want to go home. My papa is angry with me.”

“No, he’s not.”

“He’s angry because of the baby. I wasn’t supposed to have a baby.”

“You don’t have a baby,” said Rebekah.

“I know,” said Deborah. “He died.”

She said it so simply, as if it made her only a little sad. “I never knew you were married,” said Rebekah.

And then she realized how stupid a thing that was to say. Who was the simple one? Deborah had never been married. Simple as she was, some man in her father’s household—or perhaps some stranger—prevailed upon her when she was very young and begot a child on her. How could Deborah even have understood what was happening?

“I’ll never get married,” said Deborah. “Men don’t want ugly stupid girls. They want pretty smart girls like you.”

Suddenly Rebekah understood what it meant that all her life Deborah had told her how pretty and smart she was. Deborah was saying, without even realizing it, How unlike me you are. I’m ugly and stupid, you’re pretty and smart.

“Deborah, don’t you know? I don’t want to be pretty. I didn’t even know I was pretty.”

“I always told you,” said Deborah. “You’re so pretty all the time.”

“I wish I weren’t,” said Rebekah, her whole heart in the words. “I should take my knife and cut a deep scar right across my face and then nobody would be troubled about me.” She even reached for her knife, though she had no intention of actually cutting herself.

Deborah did not know that, however, and clutched at her hand, clung to it, refusing to let Rebekah take the knife. “No, no, you can’t, you can’t! Not my little Bekah baby! Nobody can ever hurt you, not even you!”  Deborah wept furiously.