My Mom's Dead Guy

My mom remarried when I was nine, and my step-dad knew two sentences, "You shouldn't let her do that" and "I'm going fishing." Of course, mom usually took his opinion to heart, so I didn't get to do a lot of things I could have gotten away with if it had just been her, so I was glad when he took his butt fishing.
The thing is my mom really didn't like him to go fishing alone. She imagined great horrors happening to men who went out into the water alone. Finding a fishing partner wasn't usually a problem as he knew a lot of fishing buddies, but one Saturday his fishing buddy cancelled out on him at the last minute, and my mom decided to step in.
I must give you a little background info here. My mom is one of the women, like me, who is petrified of crickets and bugs and crawly things. I think she'd rather face down a lion than have a bug thrown on her, and I agree. And I can only imagine she probably shared my opinions on fishing, too. Sit in a boat, put bait on hook, throw it out there, and sit for hours staring at the water and not talking. Woopeeeee. Hell no.
Anyway, my mom accompanied him that Saturday and all went well as they floated along, until the coast guard boat pulled up. They said they had been searching for a man who had been reported missing by his wife. Evidently he had gone fishing the day before (alone, Mama's nightmare) and had not returned home that night. They described his boat and the man, and my mom and step-dad said they'd keep an eye out.
Hours later, as they were still floating along, my step-dad caught a glimpse of something in the water. Paddling nearer, he said, "Hey, that's a brand new life preserver. I'm going to stop and get that." It was one of those seat type life preservers that looks like a flat cushion with two straps, and it was floating UPRIGHT in the water. When they got nearer, he said, "You know, that's odd for it to be floating like that. I bet that's THAT MAN."
At this point, my mom went into hysterics. "Well don't look!"
To which he replied, "Don't look!?? Are you nuts? I have to look."
Then she went into her begging fit, "Oh God, please don't look. Let's just go get the coast guard. We don't need to look."
He assured her that yes, he was going to look. He leaned over and raised the life preserver slightly and said, "Yep, that's him," and slowly lowered it back in the water.
My mom was crying by that point. "Oh God, Oh God, Oh God."
This quickly changed when she realized that my step-dad was clearing out a place in their boat to put the body.
"Oh Shit, what are you doing? Don't you tell me you're getting him out of there. No way. No, uh huh. Forget that Shit shit shit."
My step-dad said he just couldn't leave the guy in there. No telling where he'd float off to by the time they found the coast guard and got back.
My mom realized he was serious, and she had to come up with a Plan B fast. She told him there was a boat across the river that was visible from where they were. They could go over there, since it wasn't that far, and get them to go get the coast guard, and then he could let her out on the bank, and come back and watch the guy until help came.
He finally consented, went and told the other boat, but neglected to remember the part about letting her out on the bank, and she found herself right back by the dead man, floating again.
(I know this is horribly morbid but it's a true story, I swear.)
They floated along with this guy for what she said "seemed like hours". At one point, my step-dad's fishing line (yes he figured that if he was going to have to sit for hours, he might as well do some more fishing) got caught on the man's clothes. Don't ask me why his line was that close. I don't even want to imagine his reasoning on that one.
My mom begged him to take her somewhere else. He of course, assured her that he was there with her and she'd be ok. Why is it that men assume their mere presence is enough to ward off our mental demons? Even Valium can't do that sometimes, and this was one of those times.
Finally the coast guard came, and she had to be there as they pulled the body out of the water. If you have a weak stomach, skip on down to the next paragraph. She described it as terribly bloated and oozing from every opening.
She cried all the way back to the car, and most of the way home. She had nightmares for weeks.
The poor man's boat never did turn up. The newspaper said he was a good swimmer, but had recent surgery, so they still don't know why he drowned, but since he had his wallet on him, they decided it wasn't foul play.
Needless to say, my mom never never never mentioned fishing with him again.