SIN and HONEY: Seven Years of Longing

Chapter 10: Rachel

Rachel stepped back. "Kill me? Why would he do that?"

Jacob sighed. "You're blind where your father is concerned, Rachel. It isn't just about pride for him. He wants to marry Leah off to a rich merchant because the camp is in trouble."

"In trouble?" Rachel felt like a child repeating her mother's words over and over again. But then she remembered what her father said this morning. Bleeding shekels that I don't have on this wedding!

"How bad is it?"

"The drought has dried up the grass and the livestock are sickly. Even the Perath is getting quite low. Without that bride-price, I don't know if the camp will survive the summer. Laban will disband the camp, leaving families to wander until they find more fruitful land, losing even more livestock on the journey."

"But the honey trade ...If Levi went to Abī and had a plan ..."

Jacob shook his head, urging her to understand."Rachel, if we lose the livestock we can't feed twenty families from Levi's honey trade. It will help for a while, but it isn't enough. There's enough tension already between the merchants and your father—"

"What are you saying about your father?"a rough voice called out.

Rachel jumped at the sound and turned to see her father standing in her tent.

"Abī! I didn't hear you come in,"she said, her eyes flitting nervously to Jacob.

Laban looked between them suspiciously. "What's going on here? Nothing improper, I hope, with a mere two days before your wedding."

 I will not be afraid of my own father. She steeled herself to speak, but her expression must have betrayed her anguish, for Jacob jumped in instead. 

"Rachel was just saying she needed to tell you something about Leah."He looked to her for confirmation.

            Rachel nodded, intending to tell him about Leah's plans to run away before her forced marriage, but the words she spoke were markedly different.

            "Is it true? About Ummī?"

            It was the first time in memory that Rachel mentioned her mother. Laban's eyebrow twitched, but he barely moved. Rachel feared Leah had been right.

"Let me guess. Your sister had something to do with this," he sneered. Rachel did not deny it.

            "I just want to know the truth, Abī. Did you do it? Were you responsible for Ummī's death?"

Laban stood straight, and any tenderness she once saw in him was gone. "If it was true, it behooves you to keep silent and obey. I could still cancel your wedding and send you far away from here, to a place where you'd never see Jacob again."

"No!"Jacob stepped forward as he spoke. "Laban, please—"

The threat rang throughout her body like the sound of a shattered pot. She wanted to put the shards back together: Leah in the woods with Levi, the silent image of their bodies crashing together, her sad eyes begging her to keep the secret. Jacob's hands around her at the well as she ached for the sweetness of his lips ...

He said that if she told the truth, it would save Leah. To lie would be to lose them both. To lose herself. She couldn't do it.

 Forgive me, Leah.

Rachel's mouth opened of its own accord, and she told her father everything.

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