22. Chapter 19 | Dom
A week since the arrest. A whole week since Lewis Jordan walked out of that cell while Dom bled on the concrete. A full week waiting for him to come back with friends, with cops, with revenge.
Nothing.
Dom wiped down the bar in the late afternoon light, trying to believe the quiet might last. Behind her, Elle hummed while restocking bottles. At his corner table, CJ bent over poster designs, charcoal smudging his fingers.
Just the three of them and Papa Louie were building a semblance of normal.
Elle's hip bumped hers in passing—quick touch, casual intimacy. They had fallen into routines without discussing them. Elle sleeping in her bed every night, her dresses hanging in Dom's armoire. Small miracles that still caught Dom off guard.
Then CJ sighed heavily.
Dom looked up. "What's wrong, kid?"
He showed his poster—bold graphics, powerful composition. A raised fist in the center, strong lines radiating outward. And across the top in careful block letters: FREEDOM NOW.
Elle appeared at his shoulder, drying her hands on her apron. She studied the poster. "CJ, honey, that's spelled wrong. Freedom has two E's."
CJ's face crumpled. "I can't even spell freedom."
"You got most of it right—"
"Most of it doesn't count!" His voice cracked. He shoved the poster away. "What's the point if I can't write the words? I'm fifteen and I still can't spell right."
Elle sat next to him. "What if I helped you get better? Really taught you." She paused. "I've been asking around. Reverend Alexander told me about a program—there's a test called the GED. They just started offering it to Colored people. You can get your high school diploma without going to school."
Hope flickered across CJ's face, then died. "I can't go to school. They'd eat me alive."
"That's what I'm saying—not school. You study at home, at your own pace." Elle pulled a pamphlet from her apron pocket. "I picked this up at the church yesterday."
CJ took the pamphlet like it was made of gold. "I could do that?"
"Yeah. And someday, maybe college."
Dom's voice cut in. "We can't register him."
Everyone looked at her.
Elle stood. "What?"
"You can't register him for any program. You're not his legal guardian. Neither am I." The words tasted bitter. "Legally, we're nobody to him."
The hope drained from CJ's face.
"Then we find another way—"
"Every time someone like us reaches for something, they find a way to take it.
" Dom's knuckles whitened on the bar. "My mama wanted to be a nurse—they said no Colored women.
Papa Louie wanted to open a real club—they changed the zoning laws.
I learned to want less. Safe things. That's how you survive. "
"So we just give up?" Elle's voice was sharp.
"We protect him." Dom turned away. "CJ, go upstairs."
"Now."
He went slowly, the pamphlet clutched in his hand.
The instant he disappeared, Elle's voice turned deadly quiet. "What's wrong with you?"
"I'm being realistic."
"You're being cruel."
"I told him the truth. We can't promise things we can't deliver."
"There is no other way!" Dom's voice rose. "You think I haven't thought about adopting him? They'd never let someone like me—a woman arrested for cross-dressing, who fights in illegal matches—adopt anybody."
Elle closed the distance between them. "Then we do it unofficially."
"And when he needs that diploma? When they ask for guardianship papers?" Dom's voice cracked. "We can't make the world safe just by wanting to."
"But keeping him from learning—what kind of life is that?"
"A safe one."
"A narrow one."
The words hung between them. Dom longed to kiss her determined mouth.
But she couldn't. Elle was right, and she was furious about it.
"I need a minute."
Dom walked into the storeroom, breathing hard.
A narrow life.
McDonogh No. 35 was six blocks away. She'd walked past it every day growing up, watched other kids heading to class with their books and dreams.
She'd told herself she was free because she carved her own way.
But had she just carved herself into a corner instead?
The storeroom door opened. Elle slipped in.
"I'm sorry," Elle said quietly. "I shouldn't have pushed—"
"You're right." Dom's eyes teared. "I dropped out the day I turned sixteen. Thought I was finally free. But I just made everything smaller instead."
Elle crossed to her, pulling her close.
"Curtis went to college," Elle said. "First person in our family.
Full scholarship to North Carolina A&T." Her voice went distant.
"When they arrested him for that sit-in, he was wearing his letterman sweater.
The police report said he was stealing." She pulled Dom tighter.
"But I know what they really couldn't stand—a Black boy who dared to get educated.
Who dared to think he had the right to sit at that counter. "
Dom pulled back to look at her. This close, she could see the exact shade of Elle's eyes—honey and whiskey and gold.
"So I know what you're afraid of," Elle said, cupping Dom's face. "I know what happens when people like us reach for more." She wiped Dom's tears. "But baby... what if we let him try anyway?"
"What if they break him?"
"What if they don't? What if he learns and makes posters that change minds? What if he gets that diploma?"
Dom inhaled sharply.
"You gave him so much. A home where he's safe. A family who sees him exactly as he is. Now let's give him the rest. Let's let him be brave."
Dom closed her eyes, leaned her forehead against Elle's.
"We'll be terrified side by side," Elle whispered. "And we'll be there with him. Every step."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
CJ sat on his bed, the pamphlet beside him. His eyes were red.
"Hey, kid."
Dom sat down. "I'm sorry. I got scared and took it out on you."
Silence.
"You were right though," CJ said finally. "We can't register me. I'm nobody. Legally."
"You're not nobody. You're my kid. That's not legal, but it's real."
CJ looked at her, hope and hurt warring on his face.
"Elle and I are going to figure this out. Find a way to teach you that doesn't need guardianship papers," she said, taking his hand. "One way or another, you're learning. You're going to spell freedom right. And someday, you're taking that test."
"For real?"
"For real," Dom squeezed his hand. "I was trying to protect you by keeping you safe. But I was just shrinking your life. Like mine."
"I'm scared all the time. Scared of losing you. Scared that if you get bigger dreams than this bar, you'll leave."
CJ threw his arms around her. "You're my real parent. More real than he ever was."
"I'm not going anywhere," CJ said fiercely. "Even if I go to college. This is home. You're home."
His smile could have lit the whole room.
Elle was at the bar when they came downstairs. CJ crossed to her immediately. "Can we do this? Without papers?"
Elle glanced at Dom. Dom nodded.
"Reverend Alexander's church runs a reading program. They don't ask for guardianship papers—just whether you want to learn."
"Classes are Tuesday and Thursday nights. Or I can teach you myself. Every night at the kitchen table."
"Can we do both?"
Elle laughed. "If you want."
"I want to learn fast. I got a lot to say."
That night, Dom made a different plan.
She couldn't give CJ legal papers. But she could give him tools.
The mimeograph machine at the print shop cost sixty dollars. Plus ink, paper, stencils—eighty total.
She had twenty-five saved. She needed fifty-five more.
She called Claudette. "What's your best purse?"
"Garden District. Friday night. White crowd. Hundred dollars."
Dom's stomach dropped. "Set it up."
Ten days later, Dom took the bus to the print shop with eighty dollars in her pocket and fresh bruises under her shirt.
Elle had patched her up in angry silence after the Garden District fight. "Next time, you talk to me first."
Dom had promised. But it was done now, and worth it.
The clerk helped her load the mimeograph into a borrowed truck. Papa Louie tried to help her wrestle it upstairs.
"I got it, Papa."
She set it up in CJ's room while he was at a CORE meeting. Tested it carefully—loaded the drum, positioned a practice stencil, turned the crank. The sheet fed through smoothly, ink transferring in clean lines.
Perfect.
Then she waited.
Early evening. CJ's voice on the stairs, Ruth's laughter echoing behind him.
Dom stood in his doorway.
"Come see."
They entered. Both froze.
The mimeograph sat on his desk. Big. Metal. Real. Ink bottles lined up beside it. Stacks of paper. Fresh stencils still in their packaging.
CJ stared at it without touching anything.
"What is this?"
"It's yours. For your posters."
He ran his hand over it reverently. "This is mine?"
"All yours," Dom said as she picked up a stencil sheet.
"See this waxy paper? You draw on it, cut through it with a stylus, then the ink pushes through the holes.
Every copy is identical." She gestured at the supplies.
"I got you enough ink and paper for five hundred prints to start.
That's five hundred people seeing your art.
Five hundred people reading your words."
CJ gasped. "Five hundred?"
"You could cover every telephone pole in Tremé. Every church bulletin board. Every corner store from here to the French Quarter."
CJ looked up at her, taking in the fading black eye, the split knuckles, the way she still protected her ribs.
"You fought for this."
Dom nodded.
"Your art matters. You matter. What you have to say matters." Her throat tightened. "I can't give you legal papers. But I can give you this."
CJ threw his arms around her.
Dom clung to him despite the pain.
"No one's ever believed in me like this."
"I'd fight for you anytime. Papers or no papers. You're mine."
Papa Louie appeared in the doorway. He took in the mimeograph machine, Dom's fading black eye, the careful way she guarded her ribs.
His gaze met hers. A whole conversation in that look—worry, pride, understanding.
"That's a fine machine," he said quietly. "Your boy's gonna do good things with it."
"Yeah, Papa. He is."
That evening they gathered at the kitchen table. Elle pulled out a worn paperback: "Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin.
CJ's face lit up. "I heard Reverend Alexander talk about this."
"Want to try reading some?" Elle asked.
Elle opened to a marked page. "This essay is called 'Notes of a Native Son.' Want to try the first sentence?"
CJ's finger traced under the words.
"On the twenty-ninth of July, in nineteen forty-three, my father died."
He looked up, surprised.
"Good. Keep going."
"On the same day, a few hours later, his last child was born. Over a month before this, while all our... ener..." He stopped. "That word's too long."
"Sound it out," Dom said. "What's the first part?"
"En-er. Ener-gies?"
"Perfect. Keep going."
He stumbled over words—"intellectual" took three tries, "unprecedented" took five—but he didn't give up.
When CJ finally got through a whole paragraph without stopping, he looked up, breathless.
"I read that. All of it."
Papa Louie appeared with tea, saw them bent over Baldwin, and smiled.
They read for another hour. When they finally stopped, CJ closed the book carefully.
"Can we do this every night?"
"Every night," Elle promised.
Later, Elle traced Dom's bruised knuckles with gentle fingers.
"Garden District?"
"Yeah."
She pressed a kiss to Dom's jaw. "I'm proud of you. For letting him try. For being scared and doing it anyway."
Dom's mouth found Elle's, a slow, deep kiss.
When they pulled apart, Elle was smiling in the dark.
"I love you."
"I love you too."
Elle settled against her shoulder.
Through the wall, CJ's soft snoring. Downstairs, Papa Louie's radio played low.
Two weeks ago, she almost died in a ring. Tonight, she watched her kid read James Baldwin, saw him discover a machine she'd bled to buy.
This family. Hard-won. Precious. Built from nothing but choice and stubborn love.