title: Goodbye, My Darling
author: Conger, JoEllen
description: Recently widowed after thirty-five years of marriage, Maude MacGinness steps aboard the Windjammer Cruise ship determined to make this Wedding Anniversary trip her last farewell to her husband’s memory. However, this time she travels alone. Her roommate would be a stranger instead of her life-time partner. Sharing her stateroom, a willowy Chinese gossipy teenager turns up with more luggage than royalty, its contents perpetually scattered about their shared quarters. In spite of this inconvenience, Maude is determined to make this trip, so struggles to be polite to this disruptive youngster. She concentrates on videographing the voyage for a proposed travel log that she plans to sell to the school system. Then, a red-headed passenger catches her eye. Everywhere she goes, he turns up. Watching him she realizes the man doesn’t seem to be aware that he is being stalked. She struggles to ignore him. His fate is none of her concern, but she finds her heart being snared by this boisterous, often tipsy storyteller. She discovers this man of intrigue isn’t who he claims to be. The name he is using is not listed on the ship’s manifest, and she aims to find out why.