While Jacob slaved in the darkness, chained to his pick in the mine, grit in his mouth from the dust he inhaled, Victory and Jedd traditionally toured Europe, hitting all the society spots and being charmed and charming as the delightful young southern Americans. They attended gala parties awash with expensive perfumes and exotic buffets, laughed with heads of state and danced on ancient marble floors. Cobb separately toured Europe, marveling at crop circles, dancing in the center of stonehenge on a moonless night and howling with the wolves on an icy slope in Austria. The travelers touched base every few days, and their wanderings eventually took them to Sweden.
The impeccably clean streets and polite formal manners of the Swedish immediately appealed to Victory and Jedd, particularly the strong role of women, which Victory found especially refreshing. Cobb was also swept up by the beautiful women, but not for their strength as much as for their health and shining beauty. Aliens forgotten for the moment, Cobb met a woman, Helga, in a sidewalk cafe, and began to court her, completely fascinated by her crisp command of English and her statuesque 6'4" height curvily ending in shining blonde hair and sparkling green eyes. To Cobb, she was an angel on earth, and he frequently stared at her in awe, for in his eyes shimmering wings unfolded behind her back when the wind stirred her hair. He, in turn, fascinated her by his rambling lectures on every conceivable subject, and Helga found herself entertained and attracted to this unusual American. Cobb followed her like a puppy everywhere she went, even lounging outside the women's accommodations when they were touring the town and she had to take a nature break. Drawn to her, a moth to flame, he pined unable to sleep at night in her absence. By the end of the month they spent in Sweden, the last stop on their tour, Cobb proposed to Helga, convincing her to travel back to the United States with him. Strong willed and thoroughly modern, Helga informed her parents of her decision, and over their misgivings, left for the States with Cobb, her education in the Swiss schools having completed the prior spring.
Victory and Jedd returned to settle down in Georgia, selecting a small town in the center of the Johnson holdings, where Jedd worked tool and die and Victory began to furnish and decorate the small home they purchased in the outskirts of town.
The years passed peacefully for the newlyweds, Jedd advancing in his job, Victory initially applying her education to keep a neat and orderly house. Fascinated with gadgets, Jedd triumphantly came home with a television set, over time to replace it with a color TV, and brought home every kitchen convenience appliance on the market for his bride. Some sat and gathered dust, completely unused, since Victory couldn't figure out what they were for, let alone how to turn them on. Victory found she had a real talent for making plants grow, and the tiny house grew gradually encircled with brightly blooming flower beds on the outside while the inside grew progressively less kept, though scented with gardenias Victory regularly brought in. What Victory didn't know about herself was she single-mindedly focused on one pursuit at a time, as a result the housekeeping slid in favor of the garden, whose random splashes of color and shape reminded Jedd of a Jackson Pollock painting and revealed more of the disconnected structure of Victory's mind than she was capable of realizing. Cobb returned with Helga to Ohio, bringing the woman into his parent's home, completely surprising them as he had not written of her existence. Helga's quiet confidence, however, soon won over Dixie, who welcomed a female companion in her home, and her stunning beauty and intelligence quickly impressed Jacob, who saw her as a refreshing change to the now time worn and graying Dixie, admitting to a slight jealousy over his son's good fortune.
William capped off the year by telling Jacob of his bank holdings, explaining if they scraped up slightly more they could reopen a store. Excited by this prospect, Jacob racked his mind trying to find a way to raise funds, and finally wrote his solicitor in Wales, asking him to sell the family property. He resisted this when losing his store, and kicked himself over the last few years for clinging to the land; he decided this time not to let old sentiment get in the way of his own progress in America. Influencing his decision was the reality crawling through Jacob's mind that he was having increasing difficulty keeping up with the younger men in the mine, and the absolute knowledge his time of physical labor was drawing to a close he was as impotent to delay any more than he could stop the gray advancing across his temples.
By the end of the following year, the property sold, and a jubilant William and Jacob reopened the grocery, William donning the grocer's apron with pride and Jacob running out to purchase a three-piece suit to don the coat of the important business man, strutting around the store like a cock in its glory. Jacob dug out the bourbon he had saved to celebrate Cobb's successes, figuring at this point that wasn't going to happen, and cracked it open to celebrate. He took one sip and spat it out, muttering how it must have weakened over time. Dixie daintily hid a giggle behind her glove.
He had despised his time in the mine, daily remembering how his father had been proud of him for opening the first store, daily suffering the guilt of knowing he had lost that trophy and lost that respect, even though his father was long dust. It was as if Mr. Saer had reached out from the grave to choke Jacob every time he entered the earth, and he found himself resenting the fates throwing him there, a prisoner to the economy, and swore if he ever got out of it he would rise to the position his father felt a Saer was entitled to in life and never let any softness of heart or weakness cause him to fall into the pit again.
They obtained the same location as their first store, since the bank had not been able to sell it either, dusted it clean in a flurry of activity, the air glowing golden in dust motes and richly infused with lemon polish, dug out the neon sign and hung it proudly in the window, having changed the gas filler and adding "Prophyd," William's last name; it now read "Saer & Prophyd, Grocers" in a tasteful green blazon of light. Jacob again let Dixie plan and order the stock, Helga proving to be a useful compatriot in this endeavor, having come from an ancient line of farmers and canny in her negotiation with them for produce, meat and dairy products, mesmerizing them into ridiculously low prices with her low voice and soft Swedish accent.
Cobb was so inspired by this he returned to college, graduating by the end of the next year, proud in his degree and having gotten his drinking down to a single, rather strong, nightcap every evening. Wanting to impress Helga, he ignored the crawling desire to drink rising with him every morning, bit down cravings and bent to his studies, making high marks, rushing home to the one drink he allowed himself, to savor it in victory over the aliens and angels battling in the back of his mind.
The family fell into a routine of manning the store during the day while Dixie worked at the school, then gathering back home in the evenings for singing and dinner, prosperous and happy. Jacob added a maid and handyman to the household as soon as he had the means to employ them, coming to the conclusion after a run of unsuccessful hires that perhaps the southern opinion of blacks might possibly be true, eventually settling on a married couple from England who were down on their luck. Had he known his surly temperament had a lot to do with the first hires being recalcitrant, Jacob may had a better understanding, but only Dixie saw this, relieved to see him treating his fellow former countrymen with better respect, thus receiving better service, to everyone's satisfaction.
Helga slid into the gap left by Victory, replacing her outgoing fire with a glowing coal, bright in its heat but calm in its simmering light. Conversations with Helga about being a foreigner in America led Dixie to read Richard Wright's "Native Son," which for the first time opened her eyes to bigotry, and she vowed to change her ways, finally seeing the connection between Jacob's long forgotten own reception in the America he first saw and the current treatment of the blacks in the cities and towns. While she never had agreed with the violent KKK connections of her family, she realized she had "bought into" the subtle formal caste structure of the South, and swore to herself to never give it credence again. The family fretted over the German invasion of France in May, Jacob deeply concerned there would be another war, remembering how the last war destroyed his business.
Having discovered home movies, Jacob soon became an avid fan of them, sneaking up on Dixie in the shower and getting soaked for his indiscretion, secretly recording Cobb and Helga's gentle courtship as they swung on the front porch talking of the future. He proudly set the camera on a tripod and filmed the wedding of Cobb and Helga, his entire family assembled as Victory and Jedd drove to Ohio to join Cobb in his happiness. The wedding was one of simple elegance, held in the garden and presided over in both Welsh and Swedish by Jacob's Pastor and Helga's father, who endured the voyage to America with his wife to meet Cobb's family. The bride was a shining angel in white, and Cobb a totally devoted, passionately in love groom, awed to be hand in hand with this vision of his muddled mind. Mary danced ahead tossing flower petals when Jacob and William sang Welsh duets and Helga's father proudly led his daughter to the bridal arch of roses, carefully twined together by Sarah and Dixie. Following the wedding, the two families mingled and met, regaling in a banquet the women prepared, laughing over the cutting of a elaborately towering confection of a cake Victory made in her enthusiasm, delighted her beloved brother had found such a perfect wife. Dixie found Helga's mother to be a quietly strong woman after her own heart, and Jacob was somewhat intimidated, but impressed with her powerfully confident father, a ruddy strong farmer whose heart was deep in the land.
The newlyweds moved into a house Helga's family purchased for them in the farming district near Jacob's home, contentedly settling down to raise sheep and a small family garden. Cobb's education in pyrotechnics was pushed to a back shelf in his current fascination with animal husbandry and shepherding. Neither one of them having much in the way of resources, they agreed to put what they did have into getting the farm started, and enjoyed the opening night of the movie Fantasia in the city as their wedding trip. The dancing hippos and magically possessed brooms added to Cobb's dreams propelled by his love for Helga, jet In the evenings they would cuddle together to watch the fire and talk, Helga telling long, beautifully woven tales of her childhood on her father's land and Cobb knitting stories that stretched the imagination of all the past myths and possible futures of man. From there they would retire, to leisurely enjoy each other by touch and taste, inhaling each other's scents and whispering of their love. Cobb never outgrew his need to touch and be touched once he discovered the sensation, and Helga was very physically affectionate, so the two intertwined gently, secure in their mutual need for this love. They lived simply but well, singing hymns every Sunday with the meanings of the lyrics foremost in their minds, listening to the lesson and pondering how it directly refers to their lives, and both watching a dance of angels in the rafters as the sunlight twirled the lazy dust rising on the early morning breeze.
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