I Keep Getting Hassled About Dead Passengers

From the adventures of Cpt. Heather T. LaFourge, commercial cruise ship captain.

Every cruise loses at least a few passengers. It happens! Whether they die from a norovirus in the food, or when things get heated during Aquarobics and a fistfight turns into a knife fight, or they simply feel summoned to the sea so they hop overboard, cruise deaths are as common as cruise sunburns. If you’re expecting an ocean liner to return to shore with the same number of passengers it set sail with, I hope you got some nice looking frames to go with those rose-colored glasses.

“Maxwell Hendrickson,” says Officer Owen Poehner, the company’s in-house security, after he bursts into my bridge waving his identification. “Widower of Francine Hendrickson. His sister reported he hasn’t emailed her in days. She got worried.”

Franciiiiine, he screamed.

“Widower?” I say. “Probably a suicide.”

“Could be,” Poehner says. “Except his sister claims he was headed to San Juan to sprinkle his wife’s ashes on the beach where they had their honeymoon, her dying wish. Odd that he’d take his life before making sure that wish was fulfilled. What you got to say to that, smart lady?”

“Oh will you get off my back!” I say. “I can’t babysit every single passenger to make sure they stay alive! Forgive me if a few passengers jump overboard, but I’m a little busy MAKING SURE THE BOAT DOESN’T SINK!”

My crew applauds. It was a good speech, even if Poehner doesn’t think so.

“It doesn’t work that way anymore, Heather. And you know it.”

He’s right. There used to be an understanding about death at sea. You didn’t ask questions. If I came back to shore a few light on my headcount, all I had to say was “Suicides,” and the questions would stop. Lately, though, relatives keep complaining. They don’t ease up with the calls and the emails about how their loved ones were too chipper to give their lives to the sea—never mind that no one can predict how a temperament will react when presented with all the truth an ocean can contain. The bean counters start wringing their hands when they get the “I want to know what happened to my wife/husband/entire middle school marching band on that boat” phone calls, so they’ve been putting narcs on my boats to try to keep the souls on board from being sent up to heaven.

“I took the liberty of taking a head count,” Poehner says.

“You counted every passenger on this boat?” I ask. “Maybe you should get off the water and take a job with the census.”

My chief radio officer raises his palm to give me the high-five I just totally fucking earned.

“Counting your passengers and making sure the number doesn’t change, that is my job, Captain,” Poehner says. “And I’m sorry to say, you’re one short.”

Damn you Maxwell Hendrickson. Figures you’d be on some wishy-washy errand like throwing your dead wife’s cremains around a beach. I could tell in bed, by the way he refused to wear the chef’s hat and kept asking me to stop swearing, this dude was the sentimental type. I did him a favor by pushing him overboard, sending him back to his lady. But no good deed goes unpunished.

“Maybe you haven’t checked everywhere?” I say. “Follow me.”

Poehner wears a smirk the entire walk. He thinks he’s got me cornered, and I’m just stalling. He could be right, depending on how this plays out.

While he’s been under my Chief Medical Officer’s attention, I’ve avoided talking to Matteo, my half-brother. Upon discovering our desert island rescue’s name, I ran from the room and haven’t gone back. I was too frightened to hear what he might have to say about our father. I’d avoid him for the entire voyage if I could, but we need one more head on that headcount.

“Officer Poehner, meet Maxwell Hendrickson,” I say, giving Matteo a look that tells him he’d better play along. “Mr. Hendrickson, Officer Poehner thought you might have gone overboard when the headcount came up one short. Then I remembered my Chief Medical Officer telling me about a passenger who was mourning his dead wife being treated down here for heat stroke.”

Matteo meets my eyes for just a half-second of comprehension, then extends his hand. “Pleased to meet you Officer Poehner,” he says. “Maxwell Hendrickson at your service. I’ve lost my wallet so I don’t have any identification.”

Poehner looks like he just found out Christmas is canceled as he shakes my half-brother’s hand.

“If you’ll excuse me, officer,” I say. “I’d like a moment alone with my passenger. Maybe you could go up to the games room and count the heads of the children playing skee ball.”

Poehner leaves. I wish I was glad to see him go, but with his exit it’s just me, my brother, and the many questions about the father we share.