The next year the war was over, and Jacob's grocery resurged in business, once again thriving. He began to have dreams of expanding his store and plotted this continually with William, who was considering buying in as a full partner. The family began to go to the movies, thrilling to see them start talking, then flourish the following year in full color, and laughing, wearing silly red and green paper glasses, to view them in 3-D. In a cultural impulse, Jacob bought and read Sinclair Lewis' "Main Street" the day it hit the stands, arguing its import in friendly heated discussions with William. These dialogs were intensified two years later when William located TS Eliot's "The Waste Land" and the two men bent their brains at trying to interpret it, simultaneously completely out of their element, laughing at what they both thought was nonsense, and suffering those few heart stopping moments of clarity when one of the passages made complete and frightening sense.
Cobb started to pull himself up on furniture, and soon was widely roaming the house and yard, walking at an early age, but oddly mute, barren of the babble most babies erupt with by this age. He was tall and thin, with skin so translucent it was traced red and blue with his blood, and his fair baby fine hair grew in a fuzz around his head giving him an ephemeral appearance as out of focus as his deep blue, slightly crossed eyes. Dixie didn't really notice the silence right away, for Victory was full of talk, bending her mother's ear all around the house as Dixie completed her household chores. Victory was nearly hyperactive, always needing to be in motion, and particularly restless in church, always earning "shh" and "settle down" from her father during the services. The lecture bored her, but the piano player fascinated her, and she watched the player's fingers fly over the keyboard, imitating their motions in her lap.
By the time she was four, her parents gave in to her constant requests and started her on piano lessons, given by an infinitely patient woman from the church who taught with a soulful heart and an iron metronome. Victory thrived on these lessons, soon playing "whole songs" to her delight, and the amused attention of her parents as they politely listened to "Mary had a little lamb" and chopsticks. Victory often would lay out a fuzzy baby blanket near the piano and either have her mother put Cobb on it or just go get him herself, arching her back to hold the growing baby, staggering as she walked with him. The music was one of the few diversions that would quiet the fussy Cobb, whether it was scales climbing to the end of the keyboard in monotonous repetition or ominous chords in the lower register, Cobb would lie on his stomach and listen raptly, eventually falling asleep as she practiced. Over time her repertoire became more sophisticated, and she developed a pride and confidence in her playing that extended into the rest of her attitudes in her young life. Stubbornly independent, Victory felt there was nothing beyond her reach or scholarship.
Once Dixie was back into her routine, Sarah gave her a kitten from their old mama cat's recent litter. Opal, a cream and coffee Siamese, tried hard to walk in Sapphire's footsteps, but had a playful streak that continually leapt out to surprise her. She preferred to walk the kitchen counters, driving Dixie crazy when she cooked, sampling anything escaping the bowls. Dixie finally capitulated and grew fond of the beast, dragging her around with her, complaining about the fur showing on her clothing while absentmindedly scratching Opal's head between the ears. As Cobb grew from babyhood and it became noticeable his mental growth was slow, it also became obvious Opal was becoming the true object of Dixie's affections, who even indulged the cat in singing contests in the evening, singing a popular song while Opal howled along and Victory played the melody on the piano. Victory grew to be a confident assistant to her mother in taking care of the frail baby Cobb; her mother indulged the cat and drew within herself to a kinder, gentler world.
Victory took to caring for her brother, often tending to basic needs of food or diapering or simply company, sitting in her window seat with the baby perched in her lap, talking to him about her doll's latest tea party or the bugs she found outside. Sometimes if her growing hands did not have the strength to manipulate a knife to chop carrots or other hard foods for him, she'd chew them herself then spit it out, feeding him the prechewed nutrition. In general she fed him whatever she was eating, reducing it to a mush he could swallow. She'd often put him in her wagon and roll him outside while her mother slept, to show him grass and leaves and rocks and frogs and interesting bugs and the clouds in the sky. As soon as he was able to sit up, she'd sit him on one end of the cool floor of their hall and sit herself on the other end, legs akimbo, rolling a ball on the floor between them, praising him when he made the ball roll all the way back to her, laughing and scrambling for it when it flew wild, to try again. Cobb became her favorite doll, and she dragged him everywhere she went, as far as her mother, if she were paying attention, would allow. The diapers weren't always put on neatly, his shirts sometimes on backwards or inside out, and his food didn't always make it into just his mouth, his ears and hair getting equal doses, but Victory did her best to take care of him, becoming intensely defensive of her precious baby.
Dixie was not a model mother during these years. She was fighting mood swings from the morphine withdrawal the first year, then was in the grips of a growing inexplicable apathy and aversion to Cobb combined with a fierce overprotectiveness when she did notice his presence. She totally disregarded Victory once Cobb occupied her time, but this placed Victory on the hot seat if her childish mothering skills were inadequate. There were many times Victory and Cobb found themselves hungry and their mother taking an uncommonly long nap, leaving them to fend for their own devices. Equally many were times Dixie viciously snatched Cobb away from Victory when she woke up from these naps and found the preschooler struggling to diaper or feed him. Never a word of praise, never a word of thanks fell on Victory's shoulders - only the tonnage of responsibility without authority that falls on older children left to raise their siblings when their caretaking parent is absent or dysfunctional.
Cobb took three years to begin talking, and then in cryptic phrases, fully formed and grammatically beyond his age, but whose meanings were known exclusively to him, a developmental delay baffling and frustrating Dixie. She, too, felt the guilt of his condition, blaming herself for being cocky and trying to fight the man rather than simply giving him the money or calling for help or pushing past him to run away. William was the first to notice Cobb had mathematical ability, watching him sitting in the dusty front yard, still in diapers, arranging pebbles in a logarithmic scale. William excitedly ran to Jacob to tell him his disabled son may be a special genius. Unlearned in higher mathematics, Jacob didn't understand what William was trying to explain, but took his friend's remark at face value and started to work with Cobb on simple math when he came home in the evenings, coercing Victory to help him get Cobb's attention by including her in the games.
It soon became clearly evident William was right, for once Cobb learned how to write numbers, there was not a column he could not add or multiplication he could not achieve. Shortly after that Victory taught him to read, and Jacob found himself fighting with his tiny son for the daily paper. Jacob felt a leap of hope that maybe his babbling child had a place in the world after all, but Dixie, weary of trying over the years to communicate with the silent then obtuse child, found meager light in the mathematical discoveries. She acknowledged the gifts, but thought to herself even if he could add, it would not land him work if he did not communicate as well. She had a nightmarish vision of taking care of Cobb for the rest of her life, and it frightened her to her marrow. What bothered her most was Cobb did not look anybody in the eye, a trait that also haunted Jacob, remembering his first moment with his son and the infant's direct and open gaze.
Somehow Victory communicated with him, for he did anything she asked him to while turning a blank eye and deaf ear to his parent's requests. Other than the math games, he was unresponsive to either Dixie's or Jacob's attention, at times suddenly screaming for no apparent reason or sitting in a corner, repeatedly "washing" his hands in the air. Victory ran to him when he screamed and hugged him tightly then, holding him despite his fighting her until he settled back down. She alone could do this - when Dixie tried, he bit her; when Jacob tried, Cobb kicked him then ran from him. Victory was acutely aware she was the one hold her brother had on the outside world, and took pride in that connection while at the same time resented it, for it bound her like an anchor to her brother, granting her no peace or freedom from his silent torments. If she were to even leave the room he was in he screamed.
As a result, Cobb became a permanent appendage to Victory, following her everywhere, often echoing whatever she said. Victory alone could understand when he spoke spontaneously. Cobb had his own language of metaphor, in which "apple talk" meant he was hungry, associating the crunch of biting into it with eating, but "apple big" meant he was full, equating his full stomach with the weight of food inside him. Over time Victory translated his expressions, from "tink doggie" to tell her he was passing gas, stunk like a dog and needed to go to the potty, to "Bickie blankie," a plea for her to hold him, to be his blanket. Victory was not a prodigy in language, nor did she ever have similar speech growing up - she just took the time to watch her brother, seeing what he said and learning from experience what action would satisfy him after his requests. Gradually the metaphoric aspect of his speech became second nature to her, as she was learning language too herself, and she could switch from what her parents would understand to what Cobb would understand as easily as a child raised in a bilingual family changes tongues.
As the child grew older, Victory took to disciplining Cobb, doling to him what she received, learning a sense of justice in the process as well as the reality that those in the wrong are not always contrite about it. Dixie would sometimes come in to see Victory lecturing Cobb in his own shorthanded speech, and have no understanding of what was being discussed. She'd watch these exchanges jealously, angry that she did not understand but not taking the time to try. The little girl would don her apron and stand to face her sibling, hand on one hip and the other gesturing, in a miniature copy of her mother.
"Cobb, legs fold." [sit down]
"Bickie, see high." [I want to stand] Cobb raised his hands to her.
"No. Legs fold now." [sit down now] Victory gently pushed her brother to sitting, one hand on each of his shoulders.
"See high!" [objecting] He raised his hands again.
"See high bong bong." [you can stand when the clock strikes] She took his hands and set them in his lap, showing him the clock and pointing to where the hand would soon turn.
"Eye hurt." [crying] Cobb rubbed his eyes, glowering at his sister.
"Eye not hurt. Eye mad." Victory frowned exaggeratedly, making Cobb laugh at her distorted face. She crouched to face him eye to eye, taking his hand. "Baby walk place?" [you're just mad. Where is my doll?]
"Baby walk bumpy sun." [I put the doll under the white crocheted comforter] Cobb smiled, proud of himself.
"No walk doll any more bong bongs. My doll. I walk." [leave my doll alone] Victory shook her head and looked stern, tapping his hand in a light imitation of when Dixie would swat Victory's hands away from the stove.
"Doll walk eyes no see." [I just put the doll to bed to sleep] Cobb pouted.
"Happy help but no walk doll." [thanks but don't do it again] Victory smiled and patted his hand, shaking her head no.
Cobb sighed. "No walk doll. See high?" Cobb raised his hands to her.
"See high." Victory hugged him, helping him to his feet, lecture and discipline over.
When Victory began to attend school, Dixie nearly tore her hair out dealing with the wildly angry brother her daughter left behind. Cobb had grown so used to being able to communicate with Victory, and so deeply bonded to her, that her absence was a rift of silence and isolation in him that he could not cope with, screaming from the moment she left, kicking and hitting his head on the walls. It got so bad Dixie cracked open the fine old bottle of bourbon Jacob had set aside on the day Dixie told him she was preganant for when Cobb turned 21, carefully keeping the curtains closed lest any police walking by were to see she was in possession of alcohol, even though she had no plans of drinking it herself. She took to slipping Cobb half a shot of bourbon in his food, enough to put him to sleep for a couple of hours each day to grant her blessed peace. It was either that, or throw him against the wall and knock him out, which Dixie knew she was perilously close to doing.
Before long she tired of the subterfuge, and poured off a portion of the brew into an old bottle, marking it "teething medicine," then refilled the bourbon with water to the top, cleverly repaired the old seal and returned it to Jacob's stock. She figured alcohol is in medicine anyway and perhaps medicine was what Cobb needed, even though the doctors said he was simply brain damaged and there was nothing that could be done. So, she carefully poured out the amber brandy in a spoon as if it were prescribed, and measured an increasing number of golden spoonfuls into his juice at lunch every day, rationalizing the increase because he was growing. It became such a ritual Dixie took to calling it Cobb's "medicine" even though she knew exactly what it was. Jacob was unaware of this ruse, and was pleased to see how Dixie managed to get Cobb to settle down into a "routine."
When she learned she was pregnant again, Dixie initially rejected the idea, terrified she would give birth to another Cobb, trying home remedies to abort the child. Her body agreed with her soul on this and the pregnancy spontaneously aborted within six weeks, her womb too damaged from Cobb's birth to carry again, which Jacob grieved over and Dixie rejoiced.
The family enjoyed three years of prosperity while the children grew and their parents worried and worked. By the end of 1927, Jacob and William opened their second store across town, which William manned while Jacob held down the original site. Life was good, and the following year Jacob read F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," delighting in the glitter and excess, dreaming of success and prosperity, and completely missing the spiritual emptiness of the life Fitzgerald described. They attended church dutifully, properly starched and crisp, but Jacob was preoccupied with ideas for his business, Dixie was completely overtaken keeping the children in line, and Victory was mentally practicing hymns on the piano. Cobb amused herself staring at the intertwining colored lights coming in through the stained glass, but cringed from the angels he saw in the rafters; for him they had a gray aura and frightened him.
Victory took it upon herself to teach Cobb to speak so he could be understood and to read, endlessly repeating to him the "normal" phrase for his cryptic remarks, withholding a treat or toy from him until he said the phrase correctly. Eventually these drills both brought Cobb into the rest of the world, and gave Victory an uncommonly good command of the grammar and vocabulary of English. Once Cobb discovered that people would react to these "normal" phrases, he began to assemble them himself, embellishing his ideas with side roads of thought like a sapling growing branches in the spring. He was talking, but the content of what he wanted to say was lost in tangle of unrelated ideas. Reading was an easier skill for Cobb, immediately grasping his alphabet and learning to read phonetically, saying the words aloud letter by letter. Victory spent hours reading to him, curled up with the boy in her lap surrounded by stuffed animals and pillows, this becoming his favorite time with his sister. Combinations like the vowels in through, thought, and though would throw him, but by the time he was five, the wealth of writing began to unveil to him, its mystery peeling away like the petals of an aging rose.