Mary-Louise Parker has written a new book, and earlier this week she chatted about it with Savannah Guthrie on The Today Show. At one point the talk turned to a very turbulent point in the Weeds actress’s life–when Billy Crudup left her for Claire Danes. Mary-Louise Parker was seven months pregnant at the time.

It was back in 2003, and Billy Crudup was starring opposite Claire Danes in Stage Beauty. Mary-Louise Parker recalls that moment in time in the part of her book called “Dear Mr. Cabdriver.”

Listen to Mary-Louise Parker read from her new book, #DearMrYou: https://t.co/R7SkTPuQD5 pic.twitter.com/X65qaw22ow

— Vulture (@vulture) November 13, 2015

“S–t, goddamn. I mean, why, I mean why the hell-NO! Where are you going now?” Parker yelled at her cabdriver (as excerpted in her memoir). Her shouting got so bad, in fact, that the driver told Parker to get out of the car. “I don’t want you anymore,” he said to her. She replied: “No one does . . . Look at me . . . My life is worse than yours in this moment . . . I am alone. Look, see? I am pregnant and alone. It hurts to even breathe.”

“This was a complete stranger that met me at a very low moment,” Mary-Louise Parker told Savannah Guthrie. “And had I been in touch with a higher self and been forgiving of him, it would’ve been heroic. But I was so attached to my own unhappiness that I was unable to sort of rise above feeling persecuted, and it just created this dynamic with this perfect stranger . . . and he held up a mirror at my face, he sort of haunted me because I didn’t consider him or his life.”

Mary-Louis Parker doesn't shy away from her split from Billy Crudup in her new memoir https://t.co/6eI6etXftv pic.twitter.com/O71TesIxan

— People magazine (@people) November 12, 2015

Parker acknowledges that something very wonderful came out of that turbulent period–her now 11-year-old son William.

“It was something that I had waited for all my life,” Parker says of motherhood, as detailed in her memoir. “I wanted a baby my whole life. I was a little girl who wanted that baby.”

"I am pregnant and alone. It hurts to even breathe:" Mary-Louise Parker opens up about being dumped while pregnant https://t.co/iov629dgFW

— Page Six (@PageSix) November 11, 2015

Mary-Louise Parker’s new book, Dear Mr. You, is a series of letters to the men from various periods in her life–some real and some made-up–who have shaped the person she is today. It hit book stores on November 10th.

Mary-Louise Parker’s first book, reviewed by @Leavittnovelist. We also interviewed her: https://t.co/XdHDJJvusK pic.twitter.com/sxvkVOeVLd

— John McMurtrie (@McMurtrieSF) November 5, 2015