Tiare in Bloom by Célestine Vaite

kids, I’ve got
peau de balle et variété!
Peanuts!’ And then she said, ‘You should have listened to me when you had the chance to.’ Then I said, ‘I was always there
     for you,
salope,
I paid for all those plastic things.’ Then she said, ‘Women don’t care about things! Women want love! They don’t want to
     be the bread crumbs!’ And then I said, ‘Women don’t care about plastic things?’ And then she said, ‘Ah, for once you’re not
     deaf!’ So I grabbed all of her stupid fucking plastic things, her stupid fucking plastic bananas, her stupid fucking plastic
     apples, and I threw them out of the kitchen window, and next thing, she was yelling her head off, ‘Stop! My fruit didn’t do
     anything to you! Stop!’ And then I said, ‘I thought you said that women don’t care about plastic things?’ She spit in my face,
     so I grabbed her by the hair and —”
    Pito, worried, looks up.
    “And,” Heifara continues, breathing heavily, “and then she said, ‘Touch me and my father is going to turn you into mincemeat.’
     I let go of her hair and went to bed, and the next day this
salope
said —”
    “Heifara,” Pito, relieved, interrupts. “Concentrate on your work.”
    “I’m concentrating,” Heifara reassures his colleague, and continues, his eyes on the plank he’s cutting. “And then she said
     that her lawyer informed her that she was entitled to sixty percent of my pay. And then I said, ‘Tell your lawyer to go fuck
     himself.’ And then she said, ‘If you don’t give me sixty percent of your pay, I’m reporting you to the tribunal.’ And then
     I said, ‘You
salope,
’ and then she said, ‘You better mind your words or you can forget about having the children on the weekends.’ And then I
     said . . .” Heifara’s voice trails off.
    Pito looks up.
    “And then I said nothing. If I don’t see my kids, I die.” Heifara’s lips quiver.
    The young father is about to do his crying cinema, so Pito gives him a quick, affectionate tap on the shoulder and goes back
     to work. Meanwhile, tears are plopping out of Heifara’s eyes. “And then I said, ‘Please give me one more chance,’ and then
     she said, ‘Where were you when I needed you? I’ve tried to save our marriage but you didn’t care, and now it’s my turn not
     to care.’ And then she went on and on about things that I told her years ago when we were just boyfriend and girlfriend .
     . . But I never told her that I was going to take her to Paris one day. I never told her that I was going to write her name
     on my surfboard. She’s crazy. I said to her, ‘You’re fucking crazy.’ Next thing, she was yelling her head off, ‘Don’t tell
     me that I’m crazy!’ I said, ‘Shut up, you
salope.
’ And —”
    “You know, she’s right,” Pito says.
    “Who?” Heifara asks.
    “Your wife, what’s her name again?”
    “Juanita?”
    “
Oui,
her, your wife.”
    “What about my wife?”
    “She’s right.”
    “About what?”
    “Do you listen to yourself talk sometimes?” Pito looks at his colleague, thinking, This kid needs a bit of education. “Rule
     number one: never call a woman
salope
to her face.”
    “What if she is a
salope?
” Heifara asks.
    “Rule number two: learn to shut up and listen.”
    “Is this what you do?” Heifara asks, very seriously. “With your wife?”
    Pito has to think about this one. “It depends on the situation.”
    “Do you go on holidays with your wife?”
    “My wife likes nothing I like.” By this Pito means fishing, soccer, reading comics in bed, and drinking at the bar.
    Later, in the truck on his way home, Pito thinks about that holiday he took years ago . . . it must be twelve years ago, because
     Moana broke his arm the day before . . . Anyway, when he came home, Materena gave him the silent treatment for three days
     and he didn’t ask her why. He just lived with it. And there was that other time . . . Meanwhile, the seven-year-old opposite
     Pito is