From the outside, my faith in God looks just like her faith in Asherah. But I know the difference. I have felt him touch my heart and mind, and there is no possibility of doubt for me.

When her prayer was “answered,” Mother took it to mean that she was chosen by Asherah. Has God chosen me?

Immediately she rejected the vanity implied by the question. Chosen her? What would that mean? Abraham was chosen. He had the birthright. But Rebekah? There were no great promises to her. God had never actually spoken to her, not in words.

No, God has merely answered my prayers from time to time, as he might do for anyone who does her best to serve him.

Except that Father and Laban have never spoken of having that sudden breath of knowledge like those God gave me.

Again she tried to drive the thought from her mind. She was not chosen above her father and brother.

“It is really quite rude,” Mother said, “to suddenly fall silent during what was supposed to be a conversation.”

“I’m sorry,” Rebekah apologized, and offered some excuse about going off into her own thoughts. When Mother asked what those thoughts might be, Rebekah evaded her and, with her newfound skills at conversation, turned the topic to something else. Mother knew what she was doing, of course, but how could she complain when she herself had taught Rebekah how to do this?

The next summer Rebekah got her first suitor in a year, and it wasn’t a real one, just a visit from a traveling merchant who sat down with Father and told him that an up-and-coming young merchant in Byblos had asked him to find out, if he could, whether Rebekah was still unmarried and what it would take, as a bride-price, to win her hand. As Laban reported the scene to Rebekah later, Father was outraged, but he contained his anger and patiently explained that concubines might be bought that way, but his daughter was not for sale. “These merchants,” Laban said, no doubt echoing Father’s sentiments, “they live by buying and selling, so they think everything is for sale.”

When Pillel heard the story, though, he got curious and had one of his men go to Byblos and find out about the young merchant on whose behalf the traveler had made his outrageous inquiry. It was months later that word came back, but Pillel made his report to Father and Father in turn told Laban and Rebekah about it as if it were a huge joke. “Do you know who it turned out to be?” he asked.

They had no idea, of course, since they didn’t know anyone from Byblos.

“Belbai,” said Father.

For a moment Laban’s face was blank, though Rebekah remembered at once. Khaneah’s son, who had been beaten and expelled along with his mother from the camp, because he had written ugly things about Rebekah.

Then it dawned on Laban, and his face filled with rage.