PRAISE FOR
ALONE: A LOVE STORY
This is a lyrical tribute to the intoxicating, dramatic, destructive, and ultimately empowering nature of love. I could not stop reading Michelle’s story, and now I cannot stop thinking about it.
— ANNA MARIA TREMONTI, acclaimed journalist and broadcaster
Page by page, Michelle Parise’s story of love, betrayal, loss, and ultimately redemption is filled with moments of grace, humour, pain, hope, and wisdom. Beautifully and powerfully written, Alone: A Love Story left me heartbroken and inspired at the same time.
— TERRY FALLIS, bestselling author of Albatross
Michelle Parise is the best company. Her passion and humour leap off the page.
— CAMILLA GIBB, internationally acclaimed author
When someone hurts you deeply (like, REALLY deeply), it can turn you into a special correspondent from the wreckage that is your own heartbreak. It may take all your self-control not to grab strangers by the shirt collar and shout, “He hurt me!” When Michelle Parise’s life blew up, she did the more socially acceptable and thoughtful version of this: she wrote her own love story. It’s brave, resonant, and oh so raw. In Alone: A Love Story, Michelle turns her greatest shock into a story that lets you get close enough to feel its sting and understand its nuance. Her book doubles as a survival guide for when it’s your turn to rethink your relationship with love itself. Plus, Michelle Parise channels some seriously steamy Canadian Bridget Jones divorcee realness, and I’m here for it.
— ANDREA SILENZI, host of the podcast Why Oh Why
For anyone who has had a marriage fall apart, Alone: A Love Story is a book to keep close. Parise is unflinching as she reports back from her broken heart and, as strange as this might seem, comforts by showing us the way from loneliness to standing tall . . . and alone.
— LAURIE BROWN, music journalist and host of Pondercast
Michelle Parise’s writing makes me feel like I can be more myself. She is remarkable at rendering the (nearly) universal human experience of deceit into a tightly woven tapestry of vulnerability, rawness, and humour, and while she’s doing it, makes you contemplate your inner life with more acceptance and compassion.
— BRITT WRAY, Ph.D., broadcaster, and author of Rise of the Necrofauna
Alone: A Love Story is an emotional memoir of a life exploded — the end of a marriage, referred to as The Bomb — and the chaos that follows. But it’s also about what blooms in the wreckage. Beautifully written, intimate, alive, and accessible, the story flows like a conversation with your most interesting, wise, and exciting friend.
— EMILY URQUHART, author of Beyond the Pale
You know that feeling, when a close friend shares a secret with you? The rush of surprise and empathy you get, as you hear the most intimate and heartbreaking details of someone’s life? Michelle Parise has turned us into confidantes, revealing her experiences of love, dating, and divorce. Alone: A Love Story is equal parts pain and hope, served with a side of laughs — and we’re all wiser for it.
— DUNCAN McCUE, CBC Radio host and author of The Shoe Boy
How do you know when an ending is actually a beginning? What’s it like to love the ones we can’t be with? Ardent, urgent, and honest, Parise’s wildly intimate voice reminds us that as long as we are feeling — feeling longing or loss, collapse or curiosity, the things that make us human — we are never really alone.
— ADRIAN McKERRACHER, author of What It Means to Write
Alone: A Love Story is a courageous and full-throttled confessional. Michelle Parise has written a fierce and compassionate book about losing yourself to grief and then finding yourself again with humour and grace.
— DAEMON FAIRLESS, journalist and author of Mad Blood Stirring
Alone: A Love Story is a universal, human, female experience; it’s a homecoming and a reckoning. Parise took her story, one of pain, rage, and ultimately hope, and decided to own it, to reframe it, to tell it to the world on her terms. Alone: A Love Story tells a unique, nuanced story of healing. We’ve seen enough stories about self-destructive “lost” women. Parise explores the more real female narrative: we bleed but we’re masters at covering it up. Parise’s writing is addictively, heartbreakingly great. She will inspire you and she will devastate you, and you will be better for it.
— KATIE BOLAND, actor, writer, and filmmaker
Dating, love, marriage, parenthood, and scrape-yourself-off-the-floor heartbreak is illuminated in Alone: A Love Story. Michelle takes us into the heart’s dark corners with dark humour and deep honesty, pouring out her story like a funny, fierce friend who trusts you with everything. I don’t know anyone who won’t see themselves somewhere in this story (but be glad Michelle’s the one doing the telling). Ultimately, Alone: A Love Story gives us something we all want: to feel less alone.
— CHRISTA COUTURE, author of How to Lose Everything
PRAISE FOR THE PODCAST
ALONE: A LOVE STORY
Michelle Parise knows how to shape and deliver a story that will keep you coming back for more.
— THE ATLANTIC
The storytelling is exemplary. The way the narrative unfolds, moving back and forth in time, conjures up the full scope of emotion — horror and anxiety and wonder and happiness. Parise’s is a very particular story but in many ways it’s universal and familiar. The thing I’m most struck by is the neat way she walks the tightrope between hope and despair, darkness and light.
— SHARON BALA, author of The Boat People
ALONE
A LOVE STORY
MICHELLE PARISE
ALONE
A LOVE STORY
Copyright © Michelle Parise, 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purpose of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Publisher: Scott Fraser | Acquiring editor: Kathryn Lane | Editor: Jess Shulman
Cover designer: Laura Boyle
Printer: Marquis Book Printing Inc.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Title: Alone : a love story / Michelle Parise.
Names: Parise, Michelle, 1974- author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20200178423 | Canadiana (ebook) 20200178466 | ISBN 9781459746909 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459746916 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459746923 (EPUB)
Subjects: LCSH: Parise, Michelle, 1974- | LCSH: Parise, Michelle, 1974-—Relations with men. | LCSH: Dating (Social customs) | LCSH: Man-woman relationships. | LCSH: Single mothers. | LCSH: Parenthood.
Classification: LCC HQ801 .P37 2020 | DDC 306.73092—dc23
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Ontario, through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and Ontario Creates, and the Government of Canada.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
The publisher is not responsible for websites or their content unless they are owned by the publisher.
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For my Birdie. May you always know that love was the driving force.
CONTENTS
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE: FALLING
CHAPTER TWO: WAITING
CHAPTER THREE: RUNNING UP THAT HILL
CHAPTER FOUR: THE BOMB
CHAPTER FIVE: FALLOUT
CHAPTER SIX: LEFT AND LEAVING
CHAPTER SEVEN: PROTECTION
CHAPTER EIGHT: FORZA
PART TWO
CHAPTER NINE: VOYAGE
CHAPTER TEN: HALF-LIFE
CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE SADDEST OPTIMIST
CHAPTER TWELVE: ADRIFT
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: VESPERS
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE LONELY
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: HE EXISTS
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: SO IT GOES
PART THREE
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: BLOW AWAY
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: THERE, THERE
CHAPTER NINETEEN: IN REVERSE
CHAPTER TWENTY: TRYING
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: HOME
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
PART ONE
Love is only real if it can rage like a bonfire and also comfort like a fireplace.
It’s both, at once, the pain and the warmth. It’s why my heart is always cranked to maximum.
CHAPTER ONE
FALLING
LOSS
So, here I am on the edge of thirty-nine. Petulant, drunk, and obsessed with a charming but frustrating man in a white shirt and perfect jeans. I’m taking my one-millionth fancy cocktail and stumbling down a hallway to go see a tarot card reader. My friends all rolled their eyes, but I like the idea of someone telling me who I am and what my path is based on randomly turned up cards. Because seriously? Fucked if I know these days.
The Man with the White Shirt is mingling so excellently and effortlessly with my friends. His smile and those dark eyes and that body in those jeans — God, it hurts to look at him too long. He’s so handsome I can hardly stand it sometimes, and whenever he’s around everything softens in me. Usually. Tonight I’m all edges. I’m being a bit rude to him even. I’ll tell you why later, stick with me.
Right now, I’m stumbling down the hallway to see the tarot card reader. She’s, like, twenty-five, max, and drinking a gigantic glass of red wine. She locks the door and it’s quiet and all fortune teller-y in this closet we’re in. I’m drinking my strong fancy French cocktail as she shuffles the cards and thinking about how this is going to be such bullshit, but it’s my birthday so fun! fun! And then she turns over the first card.
LOSS. It says loss.
More cards come and it’s like they are shouting at me. FEAR. FUTILITY. What. The. Fuck.
They may as well say Your husband cheated on you and Now you think no one can love you.
“You used to know exactly who you were,” she says. “You were stable, confident. But now you have a veil of uncertainty over you. That’s because you’re being tested. To help you figure out how you say yes to things and how you say no.”
Whoa. How I say yes to things, how I say no. Not if. How. It’s as if she’s telling me I have choices. Some control over my life. I know that probably seems obvious to you, but right now? In this year? In this bar? This is news. This bullshit card reading has suddenly become really fucking real.
I return to my friends and try to be cheerful. White Shirt is there to greet me, all gorgeous and sweet. He’s searching my eyes for a sign, but I just say, “It was fun! She said freaky things!” Inside I think, Fuck, why can’t this real thing he says he feels for me be real enough?
I wake up the next morning in his bed, my head bashed in by booze I don’t even know the name of. My veins filled with lead instead of blood. Hungover. Massively. It’s my thirty-ninth birthday. I look at White Shirt as he lies sleeping, and I already feel far away. How did I get here? I used to be married, for God’s sake! What happened to my life, to love?
I wonder this all the time now.
Y2K
It’s 1999. I’m twenty-four years old and living an artsy city-girl’s life. I work all day in public radio and spend my free time in used bookstores and going to see bands. Every Wednesday night you’ll find me and my friends here in this bar, before we head out to a well-known dive for dancing. They all drink and party and stay in school forever, but not me. I rarely drink, and certainly don’t drink to get drunk. I’m not being pious, I just love to experience life, and I feel like I’d be missing out if I put a filter on it.
I also, with every part of me, love love. I mean, I love it! Being in love and falling in love and writing about love and singing about it and living it. I’ve had one boyfriend after another since I was fifteen years old. All long, committed relationships. I haven’t slept in a bed alone in years. Relationships are everything to me; I know no other way. I just love to get lost in another person, to learn everything about what interests them, to see what they see and feel what they feel.
And that’s how it is with my boyfriend right now. We’ve been together since I was nineteen. He’s a musician, and four years older than me, and so intelligent and mystical that, probably out of youth or just abject insecurity, I defer to him on just about everything. I think he’s so much better than me — he’s read every book, he knows every song, he’s knowledgeable on all subjects, every topic imaginable. He’s an atheist, and a passionate altruist. He’s a vegetarian, so of course now I am, too. He’s a devoted boyfriend, a real partner; we are honest and expressive and artistically inspired by one another. We have matching tattoos, because it’s the nineties. It’s been a perfect, symbiotic relationship. We say we’ll be together forever.
But lately, things are different. The Musician has been talking about us having an open relationship. Like, open open. He thinks we’re mature enough and secure enough to handle sleeping with other people while still maintaining our committed bond. I’m less sure — a big part of me feels like true love doesn’t want to be shared. But that seems old fashioned, so I start to entertain the thought. Could I really do something like that?
The only guy I find even remotely interesting is this weird, brooding graduate student. A friend of a friend, who always seems to be around but doesn’t exactly fit in. He’s completely different than all the downtown artsy guys I know. A small-town boy, a scientist, here in the big city doing his master’s degree. We’ve never really talked, but I find him kind of cute. He’s tall, with awful glasses and the worst long hair. But there’s something about him. I kinda like that he gives zero fucks about what anyone thinks of him.
The Scientist drinks three pints of beer to every regular guy’s one. He whistles to get the waitress’s attention, which we all find mortifying. He sits with us, but doesn’t really talk to anybody. He hasn’t seen the latest Thomas Vinterberg film. I don’t even think he reads books! You can tell he thinks we’re all a bunch of big-city snobs, which of course we totally are. But he likes Top-40 music. And watches football. The Musician can’t stand him, but I have been completely awakened from my elitist stupor by his very presence.
On this Wednesday in the bar, The Musician is holding court as he always does, orating on some political issue or another with everyone’s rapt attention. Bored, I look across the table and find The Scientist just staring at me, his arched eyebrow indicating he thinks my boyfriend is a blowhard and also that he knows that deep down I agree. And so I smirk at him, and he smirks back, and this is all it takes for us to fall in love.
It’s that knowing smirk we will share for the next thirteen years — on our wedding day, at crowded parties when other blowhards speak, in the middle of huge arguments, during sex, when any of our parents speak at any time about anything, and several times in the delivery room when he stays awake with me for forty hours straight until our daughter is born. It’s the same knowing smirk we still share today, long after the divorce. All I can call it is true love. There’s no more truth than that look between us.
But back to 1999. Things are escalating between us. We find ways to sit beside each other or walk together or run into each other. He stares at me across the bar and I feel it befo
re I even turn around. There’s an electrical current that’s been switched on. He’s wild and wounded, and it’s this sad complexity that draws me to him, a thing that I think I can somehow fix.
On this night in the bar, after the smirks, I leave the table and go down into the basement. Just as I’m about to go into one of the washrooms, a hand grabs mine. The Scientist is behind me. He doesn’t say a word. He kisses me so hard and his body is so physically strong, the breath gets literally knocked out of me. It is the best kiss I’ve ever had. In fact, the kiss is better than any sex I’d ever had. Then he turns and leaves without a word. It was so aggressive and unexpected. The Musician is sooooooo Mr. I’m-A-Sensitive-Feminist guy, and this is just the complete opposite. From this moment on, we begin an intense relationship.
The Musician can’t understand why I would pick The Scientist of all people. I mean, it was his idea to be open, and now he doesn’t like that I’ve chosen this football-watching, beer-drinking guy in cargo pants. But it’s too late. I’m done. Hooked. I’m less and less interested in The Musician and the life we’ve built together. I’m tired of our shabby apartment, our vegetarianism, our bohemian lifestyle. The Scientist has plans, and goals, and eats meat for Chrissake. He’s driven and focused, and I’m enthralled by the contrast.
We fall in love with each other hard and fast, writing long emails back and forth all day, every day. Me from my ninth-floor office downtown, and him in his lab at the university uptown. We are obsessed with each other. By the end of December, I’m packing up my things and preparing to move out of the apartment I share with The Musician. The Scientist and I meet on the day before Christmas Eve and he gives me a gift — our emails printed out and bound in a book. He’s made two copies, one for each of us. He calls it Our Book. He says he loves me. He says he’ll wait for me. His dark eyes are so shiny as he holds my hand across the table and says, “I don’t want to share you with anyone.”
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