When Rebekah had written out her summary, Bethuel chuckled, too, but rather grimly. “Well, I’m wrong as often as I’m right, and half the time I’m right, I think I’m wrong, and half the time I’m wrong, I think I’m right, so what do you do? Anyway, all that night before she left, I went back and forth in my own mind. I was not too proud to rescind the divorce and take her back. I didn’t want her to go. I loved her desperately.

“But it came down to this: I had to know you would be raised to love and honor God. And with your mother here, I could never be sure. It wouldn’t take much to raise doubts in your hearts—the very fact that she didn’t believe the same things I did would be obvious even if she never said a thing. I realized that it had been a mistake to marry a woman from the city, no matter how much I loved her. You have to choose a wife who will teach the most important things to the children when they’re small. Little children live in their mother’s world, not their father’s.

“So as much as I loved your mother, I did what had to be done. I sent her away. And much as I’ve missed her, as hard as it has been for you and Laban, I still think that was the right thing. Laban’s a good boy, a true servant of the Lord as I’ve tried to be. But you, Rebekah, your faith goes beyond that. I think God speaks to you. I think that’s why you say things that are wiser than you should ever know, at your age.”

Still Mother sat there, not arguing as he declared himself to be right in their ancient, family-wrecking argument.

Mother caught Rebekah’s glance. “He’s right,” she said. “If I had raised you, I would have taught you to serve Asherah while pretending to serve your father’s god, just enough to keep him happy.”

“But you still pray to Asherah.”

“I do,” said Mother. “Because she’s the only god I know. This God of yours and Bethuel’s, I don’t know him. He doesn’t know me.”

“But he does,” said Rebekah. “Don’t you see that he brought you here just now because—”

“Please, let’s not discuss this now,” said Mother. “You’ll have to write everything for your father and we’ll never be done.”

Rebekah sighed and wrote a brief explanation for Father. “You have plenty of time to discuss all that,” said Father. “All of this is just trying to lead up to why I didn’t tell you the truth. That is the sticking place for you, isn’t it? The bone you just can’t chew up.”