Richard tapped his foot on the polished surface of the kitchen table, his arms crossed, and his patience growing continually shorter.  The five-inch-tall shrinker glanced over at the clock on the oven timer yet again, just to confirm for himself it was as late as he thought.  He’d been posted here for the past two hours past midnight, waiting for the girl who was technically the daughter of his “owner” but was just as close if not more so to his own daughter than any blood relative in the world.

            Grimacing, he endeavored to remind himself that it wasn’t worth getting as worked up as he already was.  If nothing else, it was a good thing for the girl to be out, apparently working her way up the social ladder like she had been in these previous few months when Richard had seen less and less of her.

            After all, Julie certainly didn’t come from a background that afforded her many easy friends.  She had been the result of her mother’s drunken escapades at age eighteen; the father had run off before legal responsibility could get its mitts on him, and Carol had raised Julie alone for the first five years of her life, until Richard had entered the picture.  A runaway shrinker who’d been in his brother and sister’s cruel custody for the past eight years, he was mortified to be captured in the garden by Carol, until their respective vulnerabilities, and Carol’s kind heart, allowed their love to blossom.

            Julie, still too young at the time to have formed notions of the hierarchy of humans and shrinkers, grew to love Richard as her father, learning to hold and care for him with all the delicacy he required.  In turn, he taught her to treat all living things with gentleness and generosity, always encouraging her to do her best.  Carol, with Richard’s help monitoring Julie at home, had managed to graduate college and get a job in a law firm while working toward a higher degree.  In spite of the overwhelming odds, they had made it.

After six years together, Carol and Richard had been more-or-less married in a Las Vegas chapel that didn’t discriminate amongst mixed size unions, with an adoring Julie as the flower girl.  It wasn’t recognized by their state as an official coupling, nor would it have in any other, but none of the little family cared.  They had each other, and that was all that mattered.

            Finding the balance was certainly tricky since mixed size couples were looked on with unholy disdain by the majority of the free world.  Many people outright refused to interact with such abominations in any social context; many companies refused to hire anyone involved.  Carol and Richard had worked hard to find the most liberal district in the city, which after a great deal of hunting, allowed them to build up a little network of accepting friends and acquaintances, a few of whom had adopted the lifestyle as well.  Once Carol, a newly minted lawyer, had found work, they even had financial stability as well.

Of course, this didn’t mean things went entirely smoothly, and despite the rampant challenges faced in his own perilous existence as a shrinker, the thirty-nine-year-old Richard was able to recognize this fact.  Julie, now eighteen years old, had spent her entire school career dealing with harsh bullies who mercilessly teased her for having an inhuman doll-sized pet as a father.  One girl in particular had made a point to confront Julie in front of a hallway full of people, calling Carol a “shrinker whore” and Richard “a walking-talking excuse for life.”  The exchange had ended with the girl laying on the ground and Julie’s nails clawing into her face in retaliation, and enraged cursing pouring from the latter’s lips.

It took Carol pulling quite a few strings at her firm to ensure Julie wasn’t expelled after the incident.  The school, though uniquely supportive of the humane treatment of shrinkers, had to draw the line when a student was having the bridge of her nose nearly scraped off.  Neither able to condemn his daughter’s defense of him nor condone the violent reaction, Richard truly came to realize the worlds the girl was trapped between, and he sincerely wished there was a way he could alleviate the strain on her.

The clock hit 2:14 AM.

Richard grumbled, cognizant of the balance his daughter was striving to achieve in her life, but there eventually had to be a limit.  A soft curfew had been placed a few years ago for her to be home by midnight every weekend, and up until now, it hadn’t been broken.  He supposed she deserved the leniency to bend the rule now and again, but this was really pushing it.  She hadn’t been answering the texts he’d been sending her by punching letters into the smartphone on the countertop.

He wished Carol was here at home instead of in the next county for the weekend on a case.  She was usually better at handling these types of situations.  Despite her love for her father, Julie tended to respect her mother’s commands more readily, even if she didn’t realize it, possibly because Carol was able to look at their child eye-to-eye rather than Richard’s comparative eye-to-ankle.  Usually Julie was good enough to pick her father up and hold him up to her face if he had something to say, but all the same, there was something subconsciously disempowering for the man when he had something to discuss with his child and he was forced to get her attention by tapping on her pink-painted toes, which wriggled instinctively at his tickling touch before a palm lowered to collect him.

Suddenly Richard heard the garage door creaking open, and his heart flooded with relief. At least something hadn’t happened to her; she was home safe.

He had resolved over forty minutes ago to save the lecture for the morning, after they’d both had some sleep and clearer heads.  As soon as Julie was inside, he could simply request that she carry him up to his room for bed, and then say good night to her.  No matter the issue, they could talk it out in the morning, like they always had, usually with Richard perched lovingly in Julie’s hands as she reclined in the backyard hammock.  At least, that was how it had been before she’d started spending more and more time outside the house, to her parents’ bittersweet approval.

The door into the kitchen from the garage swung open and Richard puffed up his chest, hoping to look authoritative without condescending.  However, rather than seeing Julie saunter inside, he watched a clustered trio of teens he didn’t recognize stumbling up the step and into the house: two girls and a boy, all appearing to be about Julie’s age, with professionally maintained hair and dressed in fashions that looked like they came from stores at least two socioeconomic levels higher than Richard’s family.  Their eyes were all foggily unfocused as they gazed around the kitchen, dumb grins frozen on their lips, and it occurred to the five-inch-tall shrinker that they were all at least a little bit tipsy.

That was when Julie appeared, pushing past the three and stepping into the kitchen.  She was wearing a leather jacket Richard didn’t recognize, possibly a new purchase from earlier in the day.  More noticeably, her blond hair was streaked on one side with fresh pink dye.  Richard did a double take, but forced himself not to mention it.  She was eighteen, after all.  What was the harm in changing her style a little?

By now, the trio was leaning against a wall for support.  The boy was intimately embracing one of the girls, his hands cupping around her denim-clad butt, and the other girl was picking at something in her teeth with a white-painted fingernail.  All three had set their sights squarely on Richard, however, and their amused smiles were curling into something bigger and potentially more sinister.  The boy and girl, clearly a couple or at least bang buddies, chuckled openly at him.

Swallowing hard and forcing himself to ignore this fairly common occurrence in his life, Richard instead focused his attention on his daughter.  Julie’s hands were buried in her pockets and she seemed to have shifted her slender weight onto one foot so that she leaned with just a little attitude.  Studying her face, the shrinker realized she was wearing more make-up than when she’d left earlier that night as well, but this too he resolved to ignore.

“Julie,” he said at last.  The semi-drunken trio all flinched at the sound, as though previously unconvinced that Richard was sentient, and then snickered again, this time joined by the nail-biting girl, who set about twirling a finger through her hair instead.

Richard’s daughter blinked, a stoic expression locked on her countenance, but at last she gifted him with eye contact.  Her gaze was different, not the compassionate and cheerful one he was used to.  It lacked something, but he couldn’t place it.

“Daddy,” she answered after a pause.  The dulled response was merely a statement of identification.

“Julie, it’s… two in the morning,” he said, more hesitantly than he meant.

“So?”  This word was even more cold and unfeeling.  It chilled Richard to the bone.

“I don’t mean to make a big deal of it in front of your… friends, but in case you’ve forgotten, your curfew is midnight,” he said, placing his hands on his hips for courage.  “We don’t have to talk about it right now.  I really just want the both of us to head to bed.  Your mother will be home around noon tomorrow, and we can have a little talk.”

There was another icy pause.  Julie bit her lip and wordlessly frowned at her father.  Suddenly, the boy and girl behind her detached themselves slowly and leaned forward.

“Shit, I thought you were kidding, Julie,” the boy said, clearly shocked.

“So crazy,” his significant other breathed.

“Excuse me,” Richard said, more loudly now.  “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’m trying to have a conversation with my daughter here, and-”

At this, the trio burst into laughter, and a smile cracked over Julie’s lips.

“Holy fuck.  He… he even talks like a real dad,” the boy cackled, slapping his thigh.

“That’s hysterical,” the hair-twirling girl commented, shaking her head in disbelief.  “Julie, how’d you get him to do that?  Do you give him treats?”

“All right, that’s enough,” Richard snapped.  The force of his voice momentarily conjured stillness from the three visitors.  Julie remained as she had been for several standoffish minutes.  “I’m not going to try to talk you into looking at me a certain way right now.  You’re obviously very set.  I’m far too tired, and I have some personal matters to discuss with my daughter.  If you don’t mind, I would appreciate it if the three of you showed yourselves out now.”

The three pairs of eyes behind Julie all bugged, startled beyond belief at this command from a man smaller than each of their hands.  Instantly then they split up into riotous peals of laughter, bending over and holding one another for support.  It went on for at a full uninterrupted minute as Richard stared them down, feeling increasingly powerless by the second, and witnessed the girl with the bored tics actually crying from guffawing so hard.

Julie herself only seemed to twitch at the onslaught of laughter, but her face remained expressionless.

“Julie,” Richard said.  His voice was softer and more forgiving now.  At this point, he was willing to look past quite a bit, if only the three would leave his and Carol’s house and allow him to peaceably end the current conversation with his daughter.  “Please.  Ask your friends to leave.”

The teen took a step closer to the table, wrinkling her lip into a sneer, and pulled her hands from her pockets so she could cross her arms across her chest, mimicking the stance her tiny father held in an attempt to demonstrate some parental dominance.  Instantly Richard’s limbs felt like they were made of jelly, in a way he never thought he could feel while his gigantic daughter stood above him.

            “No,” she said matter-of-factly.  The chill had endured in her tone, and it was so alien to Richard he had to remind himself that this was the same girl who had once written him a poem about daffodils and read it in the most lovingly singsong voice to ever emerge from a child.

            “What?” he uttered.

            “I said no.  I think I want them to stay for a little while,” she continued.  She unfolded her arms and lowered her right hand onto the table, tapping the surface with her fingertips just a few inches from where Richard stood.  Like never before, he felt intimidated by the sight of his daughter’s hand, where before he only felt comfort and closeness to her.  She had fresh French tips gleaming on each fingernail.

            “Now, Julie,” Richard said.  His throat had gone dry.  “I see that you’re just trying to fit in.  Believe me, I… understand.  But I am your father, and you will listen to me.”

            “I will, huh?” the girl posed quietly, tilting her chin pompously up toward the ceiling.  Her entire frame stiffened a little, again distant from her normally relaxed stance, as though she was steeling herself for something and didn’t want to have to stare directly downward.

Suddenly her hand was rising back up, fingers outstretched, and tangling themselves around Richard.  She flattened him to the surface of the table with great ease, particularly as the shrinker was too shocked by this show of force to resist.

Her palm broke his fall, preventing any pain in the takedown, but as she pinned him to the wooden surface with just her thumb and index finger, Richard gasped in shock.  Even the trio had fallen silent.

“It sure doesn’t feel like I will,” Julie announced icily.