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Show City Motel herself as she counted the night's take for the third time. The motel was f u l l . Everyone except the Jackson couple in Room 2 had paid in advance. She'd seen their kind before-the ones whose crow's feet wrinkle extra tight when they tell her that they've got some money coming in on a Western Union wire, that the money should've been here by now, that they know i t w i l l be here by morning. She knew how to handle their type. She f e l t for the small key that hung from a silver chain around her neck and rested gently in her cleavage. She patted the key with two fingers. Mrs. Jackson checked her miniature travel clock that folded f l a t in a black naugahyde case. Its glow-in-the-dark hands read 2:00 and the alarm stem pointed to 4:30. She always woke one half hour before her husband in order to study the Gideon Bibles at all of the motels. The food for thought gave her courage as she and Harold snuck off in the pre-sunrise. Her favorite passage came from Ecclesiastes-"To everything there is a season" she was always saying to Mr. Jackson when he got discouraged. "A time to get and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away." She would unclasp her seed-pearl bracelet and pretend to cast i t away out of the window of the speeding car to demonstrate the principle to her husband. Of course, she never did anything other than pretend because that was the last of her jewelry. She was saving i t for the final emergency. In her heart, though, she knew that they didn't have many emergencies l e f t . "Thank God," she whispered to herself, feeling that her exile from her Father in Heaven was soon over. She was resigned, however, to her exile from Idaho which had occurred about three months ago. |