21. Chapter 18 | Dom
Elle favored her right hand. Dom noticed it first thing—the way Elle reached for the coffee mug with her left hand, cradling the ceramic against her ribs as if the weight was too much for her damaged hand.
Her knuckles were tightly wrapped from last night, but Elle kept gingerly flexing them, testing.
Every time she thought Dom wasn't looking, her face tightened.
"Let me see."
"It's fine. Just—"
Dom set down the coffee pot and held out her hand.
Elle unwrapped the bandage slowly. Swollen knuckles, bruised purple-yellow, split in places where the impact had been wrong. When Elle tried to curl her fingers, the skin pulled white around the splits.
Dom's jaw tightened. "You hit him with your thumb inside your fist."
"I don't know what I'm doing."
"Yeah. I see that." Dom turned Elle's hand in the morning light. Beautiful hands—pianist's hands, a performer's hands. Not meant for fighting. But Elle had thrown a punch anyway. For CJ. For Dom.
She'd done it wrong.
"Come on. We're going to fix this."
The bar was empty this early. Morning light came through the front windows, hitting the bottles behind the bar in amber streaks. Dom positioned Elle in the open space near the back, away from furniture, away from anything that could break.
"Feet apart," Dom said. "Like you're about to be pushed. You want to be stable."
Elle tried, but her feet were too close together, her weight too far back.
"Wider. More forward." Dom adjusted her with hands on her hips. Elle's breath caught, but Dom didn't stop. This was about technique. This was about making sure Elle didn't destroy her hands again.
"Power doesn't come from your arm," Dom said. "It comes from here." She rotated her own hips, brought her shoulder through, extended her arm in one smooth motion. "You're rotating your whole body. Hip, shoulder, arm. That's the order. That's what keeps you from breaking yourself."
Elle tried to copy it. She looked clumsy—all awkwardness and thought.
"Don't think so hard," Dom said. "Feel it."
Elle planted her feet better. Her hips rotated. Smoother this time. Elle's whole body aligned. Her face brightened.
"There," Dom said. "You felt that?"
Elle nodded, breathing harder.
"Good. Now your fist." Dom showed her own hand. Scarred knuckles. Years of damage. "Thumb outside. First two knuckles. That's the impact point. Your thumb is cargo if you do this right. You hit with these." She pointed to the first two knuckles. "Not your palm. Not your wrist. These."
She walked around Elle, adjusted her shoulders, made sure her arm was aligned. Stayed close. Elle's hand trembled slightly under Dom's touch.
"Focus," Dom said, though she was smiling.
Elle threw a slow punch. Better form, but still held back.
"Don't apologize to it," Dom said. "You're not trying to ask permission. Hit like you know what you're doing."
Elle threw again, faster this time, harder. The air made a sound when her fist cut through it.
Dom caught her fist. The form was nearly perfect. Elle was learning. Elle had wanted to learn.
"That's better," Dom said.
"What are you doing?"
CJ stood in the doorway to the bar, book in hand. He was wearing one of Dom's old shirts, his hair freshly cut short. He looked smaller in daylight than he had last night, but his gaze was alert.
Dom looked at him and felt herself transform into something protective and fierce, terrifying in its newness. CJ, who'd called her Mom for the first time. CJ, who'd seen his father try to drag him away and then watched Dom and Elle stand between him and that fate.
"Teaching Elle how to throw a punch without destroying her hand," Dom said.
CJ's face lit up. He hesitated—just long enough that Dom recognized the calculation happening. Then: "Can you teach me too?"
Dom didn't answer right away. She just looked at him. CJ, small and fierce, already learning what it meant to survive in a world that didn't want him. CJ, asking to learn the same skills Dom had, knowing he'd need them.
"Yeah," Dom said. "Come here."
CJ came over. Dom positioned him between herself and Elle, hands on his shoulders. She felt his tension, how much this mattered to him. How much it mattered to her that he asked.
"You already know how to fight," Dom said. She squeezed his shoulders gently, and CJ understood. The way he'd stood his ground. The way he'd moved when he needed to. "What you need is technique so you don't hurt yourself. And so you know when not to."
"When not to?" CJ looked genuinely confused.
"That's the hardest part," Dom said. "Anyone can throw a punch when they're scared or angry. Not everyone can choose not to."
She thought about CJ's lifetime. About the fights that would come—not in boxing rings, but in streets, in schools, in places where people looked at him and saw something to destroy. Dom couldn't protect him from all of it. But she could at least teach him to protect himself.
"He needs to throw a punch. Because he's going to have a lifetime full of them. Same as I did."
Elle watched her. Dom felt the weight of that attention.
"Let me show you the stance," Dom said to CJ, and got back to work.
CJ caught on faster than Elle. Maybe because he'd seen Dom box for years, learning her body the way a kid learns their parent's rhythms. Maybe because he had hunger in him—the hunger to be capable, to be strong, to never be dragged anywhere again.
Dom showed him the rotation. "Hip, shoulder, arm. All together."
CJ did it. Better on the second try. Even better on the third.
"Good," Dom said. "Again."
Elle practiced in the background, throwing punches with increasing confidence. Dom saw the difference—Elle's form cleaned, her commitment strengthened. Each punch sounded more solid than the last.
The bar was quiet around them. Just the three of them and the morning light and the sound of bodies moving.
At one point, CJ threw a punch, and Dom caught it. She felt the power in it—real power, not anger, but strength. CJ would be alright. CJ would be able to take care of himself.
The thought constricted her chest.
"Again," she said.
CJ did it again. And again. Getting stronger each time.
After the fifth repetition, CJ paused, breathing hard.
"Oretha would hate this," he said suddenly.
Dom looked at him. Elle paused mid-punch.
"She'd be like 'CJ, we have to be committed to nonviolence,' and 'we have to show them we're civilized,'" CJ continued, his voice taking on a higher, more formal tone. "Meanwhile..."
"Right," Dom said. She understood CJ's intent. Not mocking Oretha, but probing. Testing whether Dom would agree the movement's strategy didn't match reality.
"Nonviolence is Oretha's strategy. It's not mine," Dom said. "We have a right to protect ourselves."
CJ nodded, as if Dom had confirmed a vital point.
"She thinks we can trade that right for their acceptance," Dom continued. "But these—" She raised her scarred knuckles. "These are my god-given right. And I'm not trading them to anybody for any reason. I'm not giving up that right so white people can feel safe next to me."
Elle watched her. Dom felt recognition in his gaze. Understanding, perhaps.
"Your fists," Dom said to CJ, "are your right. Same as mine. You understand?"
CJ nodded.
"Come on," Dom said. "Show me again."
She watched her son throw another punch.
They practiced until the sun climbed higher. CJ's shirt soaked with sweat. Elle's hand hurt less visibly now—she'd found her rhythm, and rhythm eased pain.
At some point, Papa Louie appeared in the doorway with water. He moved slowly, arthritis making each step deliberate. He set three glasses down and watched, leaning against the doorframe.
"I remember teaching you how to throw a punch," Papa Louie said to Dom. His voice was quiet, thoughtful. "You were better at it than I ever was."
Dom smiled. "You taught me piano too."
Papa Louie's mouth quirked. "And you were better at throwing punches than playing, that's for damn sure."
Elle laughed. Even CJ cracked a grin.
"Fair," Dom said.
Papa Louie approached CJ, moving carefully. His hands—slender pianist's hands, swollen now at the joints—reached out to adjust CJ's foot. He winced slightly, but his touch was precise. Years of muscle memory, even through the pain.
"Keep your shoulders down," he said. "Don't telegraph what you're doing."
He stepped back, a hand briefly touching his lower back before he caught himself. "I couldn't fight the way Dom fights," he said to CJ. "Never had her build, never had her..." He gestured vaguely at Dom, who stood solid and unmovable in the morning light.
"She was just a little girl then, but I saw what she could be. I saw what she was... and what she wasn't. But I taught her what I knew. And she became what I couldn't be."
Dom smiled at Papa Louie. He'd never flinched—not when she'd started wearing men's clothing, not at her first boxing match, not when she'd brought CJ home. Not at any of it. In 1963, in New Orleans, he'd just let her be exactly who she was. And now he was giving CJ that same gift.
"That's enough," Dom said finally.
CJ picked up his book—Baldwin, the one he'd insisted on starting with even though Dom could see the pencil marks in the margins, the words he'd circled when he didn't know them.
He headed toward the back of the bar where the light was better, already hunched over the pages.
His breathing had settled. His movements were loose, confident.
But his finger traced under the words as he read, slow and deliberate.
"Same time tomorrow?" he called over his shoulder.
"Yeah," Dom said. "Same time."
She watched him settle into the corner booth, book open, body still radiating the heat of exertion. Safe. Learning. Choosing to stay.
Elle breathed hard, sweat cooling on her skin. She looked at Dom like she'd just seen something vital.
The bar was quiet except for Papa Louie's slow, steady breathing from his chair and the rustle of CJ turning a page. The afternoon light slanted gold through the windows.
Dom met Elle's eye.
"Come on," Dom said quietly.
They went inside toward the stairs. The bar's familiar dimness wrapped around them. Dom took Elle's hand—the one with the wrapped knuckles, careful of the damage—and pulled her forward.
Behind them, Papa Louie didn't say anything. CJ kept reading. The world kept turning.
Dom took Elle to bed.