Rescue Me Read Online Free PDF Page B

off his concern. “Let me worry about the party. You’ve got enough on your plate. Speaking of which, what are you going to do about Jasmine?”
    Alex’s entire body sagged under the weight of this new problem. He expelled a deep sigh and ran his left hand down his face. “I need to find out exactly what’s going on first. She hasn’t been acting any differently at home. I had no idea what she was up to at school.”
    “That’s because she’s the only six year old at home and it’s easy for her to get whatever she wants. At school, she has to compete with twenty classmates for attention.”
    “That’s no reason for her to throw tantrums. And using her mother’s death as an excuse? Jasmine knows better than that.”
    “Maybe she doesn’t, Alex,” Monica said. She dropped the stopper into the sink and started running hot water. Mama did not believe in automatic dishwashers. “It’s obvious she’s seeking something, or else she wouldn’t be acting out.”
    “You just said it yourself; she gets practically anything she wants. I’m guilty of spoiling her too much as it is, but when you add in her grandmother, uncles, and you, Jasmine wants for nothing.”
    “I’m not an expert in child psychology but I have seen enough cases in the ER where kids have acted out against their own bodies as a call for attention. It sounds like Jasmine’s aggression is being projected onto her classmates, instead of herself.”
    “So you’re saying I should be happy she’s beating up herclassmates as opposed to slicing at her skin with razor blades?”
    “I’m not saying you should be
happy
about any of this, but you need to get a handle on it before things get out of hand. I don’t want to see her in my ER in five years.”
    Alex leaned back against the kitchen counter, closed his eyes, and kneaded his temple. “Sometimes I doubt whether I’m cut out for this parenting stuff.”
    “Alex, you are one of the best parents I’ve ever met,” Monica said.
    He cocked one eye open.
    “Seriously,” Monica insisted. “You shouldn’t automatically assume this has anything to do with you as a parent. There’s no telling what goes through the mind of a little girl Jasmine’s age.” She patted him on his good arm. “Wait until you hear what the principal has to say about her behavior before jumping to any conclusions.”
    “Wait until the morning before trying to figure out why my daughter has turned into a demon child who kills innocent turtles with over the counter medication,
and
beats up her classmates? Oh yeah, I can do that,” Alex snorted.
    Monica burst out laughing. “The turtle death should be under investigation. I think it was an accident.”
    “As far as the turtle’s concerned, that doesn’t really matter, does it?”
    Sobering, Monica stared at him with sympathetic eyes. “It’s going to be okay,” she reassured him.
    Alex could only hope she was right.

Chapter Three
     
    “It’s a good thing I’m not vain,” Renee Moore said after the shower of plaster rained down on her head, sending up another cloud of white dust when it landed at her feet.
    “Well, I am,” her aunt Lorna complained, shaking bits of crushed Sheetrock out of her peppered gray and black hair. “I’m going to get a bottle of water. You want one?”
    “In a minute. I want to finish tearing down this section first.” Renee heaved the bulky sledgehammer over her shoulder, cringing at the ping of pain that shot through her arm as the tool connected with the drywall. She and Aunt Lorna deserved a massage after the work they’d done today.
    Renee mentally reviewed the bank statement she’d pulled up online earlier this morning. There had been enough money for a couple of massages, but not nearly enough to pay for a demolition team to come in and finish tearing down these walls. Of course, the forty thousand dollars her aunt had given the man who’d promised to demolish her house would have gotten the job done. Too bad the