We got married in a fever

"We got married in a fever, hotter than a pepper sprout."
the legendary John and June Carter Cash

The fever has never died, and it isn't likely that it will. My wife Marie and I are separated, 3 months now, and a week ago we had an awful fight. She became so angry she tried to rip the skin off my face, tormented with sorrow, frustration and grief. We have been married just two years and met at The Tillicum Club, a blues bar on Highway 8, on August 16, 2005, just two months after my mother's death. The first time I saw her I was stunned. I had never been so taken by a woman. I saw her on the dance floor dancing silly with another man, Jay, who is now a good friend. She wore a blue top with spaghetti straps that showed off her summer tan and strong shoulders and golden curls, and jeans with sparkled pockets that hugged her beautiful frame. I leaned against the wall listening to the great Norman Sylvester playing the blues, and I thought to myself, "I wish I could have a girl like that." An old John Cougar song, I think. "I wish I could have that girl." Jay is a big goof, a delightful man, and he and the blonde girl I didn't yet know were dancing crazy and at one time he playfully grabbed the sweet womanly curve of her and a lump rose in my throat. I had to look away. I closed my eyes and listened to Norman play the blues, still aching for my mother but proud of the good grief our family had done, and aching a little more with lonliness over a hundred stories I don't yet have time to tell. I closed my eyes and rocked my head to the good powerful music, and I was stunned to look up and see the blonde girl standing over me. "Would you like to dance?" she asked. She had a tiny diamond stud in the beautiful dimple of her nose. I thought it rocked that a woman my age could have the confidence and self-possession to put that jewelry there. Two moments passed and I hadn't said anything, mesmerized by her and a little hesitant because my brother Roger always said I danced like a chicken. "Why not?" I finally said, and the music began. I don't remember what Norman played. Afterward I asked her name but the bar was noisy and I thought she said "Laurie." She was so beautiful. She returned to the table where she was sitting with two friends I now know as Jay and Steve. At the time I couldn't know if she was with one of them--it could have been a charity dance--but I had an impulse and asked the waitress to send over a round to their table. I was drinking ice tea. It was late for me and tomorrow was a work day. I listened to Norman and the band finish the rest of their set and then went to the bar to pay my bill. It was busy at the bar and it took a few minutes to pay. She came up behind me and touched my shoulder and I turned toward her. She thanked me for the drink and said, "I'm really interested in you. Are you single? Do you live around here?" No hair flipping or coyness, just a mature confident and striking woman, asking for what she wanted. We talked. I asked her for her phone number, which I never do, generally shy around women, and I wrote it on the back of a lottery number order form from the bar. "It might be lucky," I said. Then I asked her if she was busy Thursday and we made a date to meet for a glass of wine and see Dub Debrie across town in Tualatin. And that was the beginning of the most remarkable part of my life, the part that has led to now.