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Melrose had spent more time in Jury's hospital room than out of it in the past week. For thirty-six hours, Jury had lain in a coma, which he dropped into just after Melrose had found him lying on that dock, as if able to relax his own efforts to hold onto life, now that someone else could do it for him…
~~~
Jury remembered a story from childhood – Hansel and Gretel, and how they had tried to mark their way through the dark, frightening woods with a trail of bread crumbs. Had his mother read it to him? He thought he remembered that she had.
It was a gruesome story to tell any child, as if deliberately calculated to instill fear and distrust of their parents in any youngster who heard it. He had never liked it. Strange it should come to him now. Or, perhaps not; not when he was the one lost in some dark vastness, no landmarks to guide him, and not a crumb in sight.
Only … There was something. A sound; a voice murmuring off in the far distance. He couldn't quite make out the words, but he felt drawn toward it; some gossamer thread of recognition tugging him along.
Time passed – Jury couldn't say how much – and he began to distinguish a word here and there: Trueblood and Diane came up yesterday…Carole-anne brought flowers… Keeping Agatha away… Jury couldn't put faces to those names, not yet, or truly recollect anything about them, but the sound of them was a comfort nonetheless. Was it the names, though, or the voice that spoke them? Calm and warm, welcoming as an old favorite jumper.
All Jury knew was, he missed the voice when he couldn't hear it, and felt a near frantic need to stumble around in this dark desolation, to find it again.
One time, when the voice had gone silent, and Jury almost despaired of losing it forever, a touch on his hand, cool, slim fingers clasping his own and gently squeezing, served to anchor him once again. Somehow he knew the murmur of words and that quiet touch were connected, so that when the voice stopped, it was enough to feel that simple contact, skin against skin, kept him fixed and steady, slowly working his way back.
An endless time later, Jury opened his eyes and stared up at Melrose Plant, sitting beside him, leaning forward to regard him with a somber expression.
"Richard?" Melrose clasped his hand. "Richard?"
Managing the faintest of smiles, barely a twinge of the corners of his mouth, Jury said, voice hoarse and dry, "I'm here."
"Good," Melrose nodded, the most amazing smile beginning to break across his features. "That's good."
"Thanks for the bread crumbs," Jury said, voice weak, but he thought Melrose had heard him.
A puzzled look on his face now, Melrose leaned closer. "Bread crumbs?"
Jury could just about shake his head, move it slightly on the pillow. "Explain … later," he said, fighting the urge to close his eyes again.
Melrose nodded. "Very sensible," he said. "Close your eyes, Richard. I'll be here when you wake up again."
Nothing more certain in the world, Jury thought, right on the edge of sleep, when clarity was suddenly most striking. Melrose would be there. He could rest, knowing that. Knowing he could always find that trail of crumbs now.