Rachel by Jill Smith

cries. Jacob should be here, pacing by the fire, but he had not come home from the fields the night before, and Rachel had chosen not to send someone to find him.
    She closed her eyes, fighting the familiar guilt that heatedher skin like unwanted wool. Why did she feel such a need to keep Leah in her place, to remind her of her past sins? Jacob did not love Leah, and Rachel did nothing to help change those feelings. And now God had given Leah a child. How could He, after what she’d done to them?
    The spindle and distaff grew heavy in her hands, like the bitterness that felt like a weight in her heart. She pressed a hand to her middle to quell the uneasiness, the fear. Nearly a year had passed since her wedding night, and Jacob had been more than attentive to her. Leah rarely spent a night alone with him, yet it was Leah who was blessed and Rachel who suffered from what could only be a barren womb.
    Was she barren? Tears stung her eyes. What other explanation could there be?
    Why? Oh, Adonai, why have You blessed her and not me?
    Did Jacob’s God even hear her? Did the same God Jacob had met at Bethel in his dream of the angels hear prayer? Perhaps the God of Jacob did not hear the longings of a woman’s heart.
    Or perhaps He did.
    God had surely heard Leah’s prayers. The babe’s lusty cries a few moments before were proof enough of that. Then why not hers?
    She stood at the sound of voices and looked toward Leah’s tent to see her mother emerge, looking haggard and relieved. She met her halfway, in front of Jacob’s tent.
    “How is she?” It was the polite thing to ask.
    “Leah is resting. She gave birth quickly once I arrived. Quicker than most.” Her mother walked to the fire pit and lifted a handful of ashes to scrub the blood from her hands.
    Rachel turned and hurried to her tent to retrieve the jar of water she had drawn at the well that morning and poured it over her mother’s hands.
    “A boy,” her mother said. “Perfect and strong.”
    “How nice.” Though Rachel did not find the news the leastbit satisfying. “What will she name him?” She spoke, though the words did not seem like her own.
    Her mother straightened, her dark eyes so similar to Rachel’s, though her once beautiful black hair was now streaked with thick strands of silver. She touched Rachel’s shoulder. “She named him Reuben.”
    Rachel winced at the name. “‘He has seen my misery.’” So God really had blessed Leah instead of her.
    “When she named him, Leah also said, ‘Surely my husband will love me now.’”
    Would he? Rachel looked away from her mother’s searching gaze. To name him thus would be a constant reminder to Jacob of how Leah felt. He could not call his son’s name without realizing that the son’s mother was miserable, that she wanted his love. Would he give it now, leaving Rachel with nothing? Jacob’s love was all she had.
    “Jacob will be pleased,” she said, wishing the words weren’t true.
    “Will he?” Her mother glanced in the direction Jacob would take when he returned.
    “Of course. What man isn’t pleased to see his son safely born?” She said the words to placate, fighting the rebellion, the hurt stirring in her heart.
    “Has anyone told him that Leah’s time was so close?”
    Rachel shook her head. “I do not know. Leah might have sent a servant. It was not my place to tell.” Nor did she want to. “Leah did not want me at the birth. She can tell Jacob when he returns.”
    Suri stood as if in indecision, her beautiful face lined with concern. “How many days has he been in the fields?”
    “Three.”
    “How long does he stay away?”
    “Sometimes a day. Sometimes a week. It depends.”
    “On?”
    “On how much fighting and strife there is between us all.” To admit such a thing made her guilt loom larger. She sounded petty and childish.
    “Oh, dear child.” Suri placed an arm around Rachel’s shoulders and walked her toward her tent. “Do you still harbor so much