Afternoon | Saturday, October 15th, 2022 | Cruise Ship

Faye Santos

I’m not sure who else I can talk to who would take me seriously. After half an hour at the security office I am more frustrated than I’ve been.

“My husband is missing!” I say.

“Mrs. Santos, he’s only been gone for a few hours, that hardly counts as a missing person.” The tall security man said. I can tell he’s trying to be nice, not to break the good customer service.

“But he’s handicapped, he can’t go anywhere without someone helping him. And he wouldn’t have left me when I was feeling sick.” I say.

“Again, Mrs. Santos, I can assure you that no one fell over the cruise ship. So your husband is either still on the ship, or he has gone down to explore the town a bit.”

“Officer,” Lorie chimed in, “it is just highly unlike my son to have done something like this. He didn’t even leave us a note or anything about his whereabouts before he left.”

“Oh he gave me this.” I produced the card that the butler gave me this morning, and handed to Lorie. Lorie read it and her eyes started to water.

“Lorie, are you okay?” I put my hand on her shoulder.

She started to cry and shake her head. The security officer looked awkward and uncomfortable. Lorie looked up at me and then at the security officer, “Sorry, sorry I got emotional. It’s… it’s just been a lot recently. Officer, please help us look for my son. He couldn’t have gone that far if he left the ship.”

“Okay, okay,” The security officer put up his hands in defeat and gives a little, “We will look for him.”

“Please check the security footages of the hallway,” I say, “Don’t you have cameras everywhere?”

“Yes, Mrs. Santos, we will check it, please just take a break in the lounge and as soon as we have something, we will call you.” He tried to smile with reassurance, “I promise we will take this very seriously.”

We left our mobile numbers with him and I took Lorie’s arm and we start to walk away, feeling very much that he was not going to take us seriously. I’ve seen movies and read the books, the first forty-eight hours in a missing person’s case is critical. The last time I’ve seen Eric was around nine last night, and it’s already been twenty hours past that. We walk back up to the top deck, wondering what we would do in the mean time.