Lessons In Listening

“Don’t touch that!”

Startled in her tracks, Alexa whips her head around. Oscar stands in the doorway with his quivering forefinger pointing to the brown paper package at the edge of the porch and a wild look in his eyes—they dart around the property for any sign of the mysterious courier.

“Dad, what the hell!”

Oscar beckons her. “Come inside.”

Her face crinkles with petulance. “I’m getting my package!”

“Come inside, now!”

“No!”

“Lex!” He barks.

She takes another step forward and is suddenly whisked off the ground in a bear hug. Oscar scurries back into the house with his daughter squirming in his arms.

“What is wrong with you?! Stop manhandling me!”

He puts her down on the couch by the front door, peeks out for any other anomalies, then slams it shut. Oscar types on the adjacent touch screen with frantic fingers the 15-digit code to set the alarm. Three automatic bolt locks click with reassurance. Then, he turns to Alexa with a surly look.

“I said ‘come inside.’”

She springs off the couch, eager to challenge him. “And I said I was getting something!”

“That’s not for you.”

“The fuck? Yes it is! I ordered something. That’s how it works.”

“It doesn’t have a label.”

“And it still got here. Lucky me.”

“What'd you order?”

“That’s not your business.”

“In my house, it is.”

“And I’m telling you it isn’t.”

“Why would an unmarked package know to come to this address, for you specifically?”

“Why are you being so weird about this?”

“I’m being cautious, like you should be about any suspicious package.”

“But I’m telling you it’s my package.”

“No.”

“Then who else could it be for??”

“Wrong address.” He declares, forcing a shrug.

“How could it come to the wrong address with no address on it? Your logic is stupid.”

“Don’t talk to me like that!”

“Make it make sense.”

A loud POP! makes Oscar jump in his skin. He tosses the blinds to the side: a beater picks up speed on the road in front of his land. The package still sits at the edge of the porch. He sighs.

Then, he steps forward, looming over his petite daughter. She stands erect, almost three-quarters of his height, with defiant resolve. “The only thing that needs to make sense is I said leave it alone. Get it into your thick skull.” He pounds his fingers against his head.

“It’s my package!”

“No, it’s not!”

“WHY NOT?!” Alexa hollers, throwing her arms down. Her face ignites red.

“BECAUSE I AM YOUR FATHER AND I SAID SO.” Oscar’s voice rattles his daughter’s small frame.

Tears well up in her fiery eyes. “I’m 19! I’m my own goddamn person!”

“Living in my house!”

Alexa crosses her arms tightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?!”

Oscar jabs his finger inches away from the bridge of her nose. “It means you listen to whatever I tell you! I’m done with this! Don’t go outside again.”

He turns his back to her indignantly and heads toward his den in the back of the house. As he crosses the threshold of the living room into the kitchen, he glances out the windows along the sidewall for anything else suspicious.

Alexa huffs behind him, tears streaming down her hot, flushed cheeks. “You don’t respect me! Mom respected me!”

Oscar doesn’t bother to turn around. “Your mom is her own person, I am my own person.”

“Was. She’s dead, remember? Or maybe you don’t since you didn’t show up at the funeral.”

He stops abruptly. He clenches his jaw like a vise and swivels around to meet his daughter’s spiteful glare. His eyes narrow. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. I said I’m done with this.”

“I’m not,” Alexa says. “Did you just hate her that much? And now you’re taking it out on me?”

Oscar steps into the minefield, only as cautious as he knows how. “I don’t hate your mom. I’m not taking anything out on you—you don’t even make an effort to listen to what I have to say when it’s for your own good.”

“How would you know what’s for my own good when you don’t even know me?! You didn’t care about my life when you and Mom were together, you don’t care now, so how would you know? You don’t, so you sound stupid.”

Oscar's nostrils flare. He throws his arms up. “You such a brat!”

“And you’re a tyrant! I hate living here, and I knew I would before I came!” Alexa gesticulates like a child having a tantrum, some need being vehemently denied.

“Well, you had nowhere else to go—still don’t—so you could show me some appreciation and respect.

“Actually, I do. I’m gonna move in with my partner.”

“What, like a boyfriend?”

“Partner! We’ve been together for four months and they love me more than you do!”

“It’s not safe for you to travel alone from here.”

“My partner can pick me up.”

“That’s not happening.”

“You think you can control me.”

“This is my house and I say that no one that I don’t know is coming to get my young daughter to move in with them God knows where.”

“Far away.”

“Alexa, no!”

“You only say that cuz you won’t have anyone to fucking bully anymore.”

Oscar takes pause. He looks into his daughter’s blazing brown eyes and decides to pull back.

“Is that how you really think I act? Like a bully?” His voice is timid.

Alexa sees her father’s vulnerability as a window of receptivity, but she knows to keep her guard up.

“However you think you act stresses me out. Like there’s a gun to your head. And then you yell at me and boss me around after I haven’t seen you all day, or for a couple of days cuz you’ve been in your own anxious little world. Like, I don’t need this right now.”

Oscar tightens up. “Not everything is about you, Lex. There’s still a lot for you to learn about the world, and as your father, I have a broader scope than you do. I just need you to trust me.”

“Stop condescending me!” She points a finger at him like a gun. “You expect me to trust you when you’ve treated me like I don’t matter since I’ve been here! Do you even realize why I’m here?! My mother is dead! Her ashes are sitting on my dresser! I wouldn’t be here if she was still alive! So how much worse do you think it makes me feel when you act like my feelings don’t matter?!”

“Stop throwing it in my face! Of course I know your mom is gone, and I’m upset about it too! You think you’re entitled to all this special treatment because you walk around all moody—”

“MY MOTHER! JUST DIED!”

“STOP SCREAMING AT ME!”

“I FUCKING HATE YOU!”

“DON'T TALK TO ME LIKE THAT! I AM YOUR FATHER!”

“You’re a fucking failure!”

“I’m not dealing with your teenage angst. Go scream into a pillow or something.”

“You’re sick in the head!” Alexa jams her forefinger against her head. “You live with your daughter who just lost her mom and you tell her to deal with it by crying into a pillow! You’re the reason why I feel so alone and trapped and depressed in this house!”

“You’re not the only one that loves and misses your mom, Lex! You’re not the only one with problems in life!”

“So go cry into a fucking pillow!”

“Alexa, goddammit!”

“You didn’t fight for her! You say you love Mom but you didn’t act like it when she was alive! You’re the one that’s been distant from us! If you ever loved Mom you would treat me better! I was the best thing in the world to her, and you treat me like shit! If you weren’t so self-absorbed, we’d still be a family and Mom would still be here!”

Her mouth stays open as if she has more to say. Tears cascade down her face as if a cry could come out instead of words. She looks at her dad hopelessly, with grief caught in her throat, then brushes past him walking towards the back stairs.

“Alexa, get back here!” Oscar strides after her and intercepts her by blocking the stairwell. He inhales a hot-blooded defense, reconsiders, exhales and decides to soften his approach. “Please, Lex. Let’s just be calm and talk.”

“Move. I’m going to my room.”

“Lex—“

“I don’t wanna talk anymore!” She shoots him a look filled with contempt.

“I need us to sit and talk this out. Please.”

“What about what I need?! I need to go lay down! MOVE.”

“Lay down on the couch, so we can talk.”

“Stop trying to control me! God, I need air!” The desperation barely passes her lips.

Alexa pushes off of him and pads to the front door. She reaches for the doorknob, jiggles it. It won’t budge. She remembers the locks.

“Lex, no! Stay inside, please!”

She tampers with the alarm system. Oscar pads after her, his nerves alight. Her breath hastens. Her nerves alight. The three locks begin to retract, one after the other. Before she can swing the door open to liberate herself, Oscar pulls her arm away.

“YOU’RE A FUCKING TYRANT!” She screams hysterically.

“STOP! I’M TRYING TO PROTECT YOU! PROTECT US!”

She screams helplessly. Her voice goes hoarse.

“SHUTUP! AND! LISTEN!” Oscar roars in her face with a booming gravity.

Alexa is shocked into silence. She drops down from the emotional high. Submission drains the color from her face, dries the tears from her eyes.

Oscar sighs a lungful. “There are people—powerful people—after my life because of a news piece I wrote about them.”

He scans Alexa’s face for feedback. Glazed and weary eyes. Mouth closed, lips parched, gently pursed at rest.

He continues. “Your mother left because, at the time, I wasn’t finished with the story and I wouldn’t leave it alone. She thought it was too dangerous for me and the family—it was—but I had to continue. I wasn’t going to let them stifle me. After I published it, they found our old address and burned it down. So for the past two-three years, I’ve been here in the countryside, laying low.

He scans again: she’s docile in defeat.

“I’ve been safe, but also very cautious. It was risky when you moved in but you needed a home. I took that chance, and I think they may have found me again…the package, I think, could be some kind of explosive.”

Alexa’s eyes drift toward the window, looking at the package outside at the edge of the porch with a drowsy nonchalance. “Like a bomb?”

He pauses. “Yeah.” He sighs, bowing his head. “Look, I know you didn’t have a choice moving back in with me. You think I’m a shitty dad, that I don’t love you…but I’ve just been trying to protect you.”

Alexa is quiet. She stares blankly at her father. He searches for the fire in her eyes—spent.

She opens her mouth to speak, words slow to come out. “You don’t know for sure if it’s a bomb?”

“No. I’m not taking any chances.”

She nods tacitly. “Can I please go to my room now?”

Oscar hesitates, sighs, nods. Alexa brushes past him without a glance. He watches her trudge up the stairs. He heard the door to her room at the top of the stairs click shut. Momentary silence, then Halsey sings through speakers, muzzled by the wall.

Oscar throws himself onto the couch by the front door and stares into the room—an uneasy moment of stillness. He twists his trunk to peek through the blinds behind him. The unmarked brown paper package sits patiently at the edge of the porch.

He thinks, What could she have possibly ordered online?

He turns around, settles into the couch and stares into the room. His mind is a minefield.