FINDING LOVE IN VERDUN
Move helped launch relationship
Colourful paper lanterns and a string of lights ring the front balcony of this ground- floor apartment in a Verdun fourplex. A note warning “Prenez Garde aux Chiens” is posted by the gate, and the two barking dogs bound forward then calm down quickly as Lorraine Ouellette greets us.
Ouellette moved here a few years ago, and soon became attracted to a neighbour living about five doors away, Dominic Caya, who joins us midway through the interview.
Ouellette notes the two extremes of each end of the apartment. In the front, it’s boisterous with visiting dogs and friendly neighbours, and the sounds of drag racing and car alarms. Out the back door, the scene is quiet and verdant, with birds and butterflies aflutter.
Q: How did you wind up in Verdun? Are you from here or did you arrive here? A: I came here after a separation. My eldest son had a friend living in this apartment. He was moving when I was splitting up with my husband. I visited and I fell in love with the place.
Q: What made you fall in love with it? A: The neighbourhood and the architecture. The wooden doorways, the hardwood floors.
Q: Where were you coming from? A: Greenfield Park on the South Shore.
Q: Did you move here with one of your dogs? A: No. When I separated after 20 years, I’d been wanting to have a Bernese mountain dog. And not that I never could, but it never happened. When I rented here, I said, “OK, I’m going to get my dog.” So, I got Bella.
One day, I was walking with her and there was this big, huge dog. ( Ouellette points to Jax, a German shepherd and boxer mix.) Bella saw him and right away they became friends and played.
And that’s when I heard the most beautiful voice. For me, that was it. ( Ouellette gestures toward Caya, who is exiting the bathroom.) He was working up on the roof, for his landlord.
Q: And you went weak in the knees? A: Yep. He was the one. It was crazy because I was coming out of a 20- year marriage.
Q: Did a romance begin then, or did it take some time to develop? A: It took time. Coming out of my marriage, it wasn’t easy to move quickly. In my heart it was, but not in my head.
One Saturday I was sitting on my front balcony. It seemed like each Saturday at 10 a. m. it was the neighbourhood dog rendezvous. And Dominic came along and our dogs started playing and we started talking.
But the way it really happened is, one day, when Bella was still very small, I passed the vacuum. I didn’t have a gate on the door and it had never been a problem. But that Dirt Devil is so noisy, she was terrified. She ran away. But she ran away to Dominic’s! And that was it.
( Caya is now sitting beside Ouellette on the green leather couch in the living room.) Caya: I was coming down the stairs with Jax when Bella ran away. Jax pulled me toward her in the middle of the street and he pushed her back on the sidewalk.
Q: To protect her? Caya: Yeah. And then she started to play with him. She never left him alone after that. So everyday she’d just go under the fence, cross the street and scratch on my door. I would open it, and Bella would be there. Ouellette: When she ran away that first time, I was running all over Verdun screaming, “Bella, Bella!” Caya: I knocked on every door asking, “Whose dog is this?” And finally knocked here. ( Caya looks at Ouellette.) You were making dinner. Ouellette: Yep. And that was it. He stayed for dinner. And dessert. And breakfast. ( Laughs.)
Q: How long after that did you move in, Dominic? Caya: A year.
Ouellette: Well, he was here all the time before that. But, officially, a year. Dominic’s wife died about five years ago, suddenly at 42 years old. I’m divorced.
So, you know. It didn’t come easy for us. Although, we know we love each other. Caya: Yeah, maybe sometimes I bitch too much to say I don’t have room — it’s too small here.
Q: After you’ve both been in long relationships, what’s it been like starting fresh? Learning to live with someone new? Ouellette: It’s hard. It’s hard. Caya: A lot of adjustment, and a lot of difference. You don’t expect that at first. Ouellette: Yep. Caya: But, I try hard and she tries hard.
Ouellette: And we’re still together. ( They both laugh.) But you know what? For my part, it was love at first sight. Head over heels. And when I left my husband, I never thought that would happen. I never planned it. It just happened.
( Ouellette and Caya offer a tour around the apartment. Ouellette explains when she moved in, the bedroom facing the street was her middle son’s, and she had a bedroom built in the unfinished basement for her younger daughter. But, both being in university, working, and with their own apartments, they don’t use them any more, she said. Caya’s computer is now in the front room, where he plays Evony, an online game. The dogs also have beds in this room, but Caya and Ouellette say the dogs prefer to sleep in their queen bed with them in the bedroom just off the kitchen.
In the hallway between these rooms are photos of Ouellette’s children, and her grandchild. A large stuffed Scooby Doo wearing a Rastafarian cap with fake dreadlocks, which Caya won at LaRonde, sits on a shelf overlooking the tall dining room table. On a ledge sits a canvas with red, purple and yellow tulips that Ouellette explained was painted and given to her on her birthday by her friend, a neighbour, who died one month ago.
We wind up on the porch at the back of the house, overlooking a little garden and a view straight down a tree- lined alley.)
Q: The price of your rent is a steal. I guess you just took over the lease from your son’s friend?
Ouellette: Yes. But I think, with the owner, he would have charged the same even if he could have charged $ 1,000. He has such integrity. In the rare case something needs to be fixed — one hour, and he’s taken care of it.
Q: Where do you like to go in the neighbourhood? Ouellette: The bord de l’eau.
Q: The waterfront? How often do you go down there? Caya: Every day if I can.
( Ouellette points down the alley:) You just walk down there three minutes. Bella doesn’t go in the water, but Jax just dives in.