"I'll be honest with you, Mr. Beale. When I first heard Chris was dating your son, I didn't encourage it. She was eighteen years old, and that's too young to be getting serious with anyone, let alone an employer, a man who is twice her age. He had no business putting her in that position."
"I understand what you're saying," said Andy Beale. "I get the sense that you've spent most of your life the way I have—working in business. And we've both seen a lot of times when executives have fooled around with young secretaries, and been real users, and haven't cared about those young women at all. That's why the laws have changed and become very punitive about sexual harassment. But if you've talked with Christine about Richard, you know that isn't what was going on between them. I respect your worries, and I respect you for having them, but your daughter and my son are in love."
"The reason I didn't try to interfere was that I was in here," said Robert Monahan. "I wasn't in any moral position to tell anyone that what they were doing was wrong. And Christine has had to be independent, making all of her own decisions and working to support herself, since she was sixteen. All I could do for her was just to help her feel good about herself."
"You're a sensible man," said Andy. "I admire you for that. If I'd known, I would have discouraged it, too, but Richard is the same—self-motivated, self-reliant, and not someone to come to his father for permission. You and I couldn't stop it, but maybe we can salvage it. Do you know what went wrong for Christine? What made her decide to leave him like this?"
"Not specifically. Until recently I didn't know that she had moved in with him, and I don't know exactly what made her decide this was the time to leave. I do know she isn't planning to go back."
Andy Beale looked down at his feet and shook his head. "Kids. They do these things on impulse, without thinking." He looked at Robert Monahan again. "You know she's going to have a baby?"
"It doesn't make me happy, but I know. She'll be a good mother."
"She's a girl you can be sure will be responsible. My son has told me a lot about her, and I saw a lot of her when she worked in our family business. But I use the word 'girl' intentionally. She's not entirely grown up."
"And your son didn't give her much time to finish growing up, did he?"
"You have my profound apology for that. He's always been a fine young man, and no fool either, until he fell in love. I was deeply surprised that he would ever take such a chance, put the girl he loved in that kind of jeopardy. He's not the first to do that, but it wasn't like him. I talked to him about it in pretty harsh terms, I can tell you. He said that at the time they were taking all the precautions, but maybe they got careless once because they both knew they'd be married before long and it wouldn't matter."
"He asked her to marry him?"
Andy Beale sensed the first bit of surprise, the first real interest in the conversation. It was like a spark on tinder, and he had to keep fanning it, trying to coax a flame into life. "He said they talked about marriage often, and she told him she wanted to. He told me he thought the only reason she was putting it off was that she wanted to wait to make it official until after you had been in here long enough to qualify for some kind of furlough to give her away at the wedding." He looked at Monahan in curiosity. "Was she being straight with him? Does the prison work that way?"
"I asked if he actually proposed to her."
Andy Beale sensed that this might be a trap. She might have told her father that Richard hadn't asked her. "They discussed it. I don't think he went through the whole production of getting down on one knee yet. I know he bought the engagement ring and a matching wedding band, and was keeping them as a surprise. I've seen them. The engagement ring has a three-carat diamond that cost him about fifteen thousand dollars. He said he was waiting for her to be ready to accept a proposal before he officially asked, or he would just make her feel bad." He kept his eyes on Monahan's, wondering if he had gone too far. He wished he could have brought a ring in here to show him, but that was against the rules.
Monahan said, "What do you want from me?"
"I want you to help me make my son happy. The reason you should do it is that it will make your daughter happy, too."
"How do I do that?"
"When you next talk to Christine, tell her what I've told you—that Richard's heartbroken because she left. He wants to marry her and bring her home with him in time to have the baby. He loves her and misses her every hour of every day. He thinks she must have misunderstood something he said or did, and if she would just talk to him, he's sure he could clear it up."
"You want me to say all that?"
"Yes. I know that being in here, you worry about her all the time. Hell, I'm a father, too. But Richard will take care of her. He'll treat her like a queen for the rest of her life."
Monahan folded his arms across his chest, and Andy Beale knew that this did not signal anything good. Monahan said, "Her story isn't quite the same as your son's. She's not going to take anybody's word fourth hand over her own memory."
"I'm not asking her to, only to listen to what he has to say. Please. Things sometimes happen between a man and a woman that their fathers don't know, and probably shouldn't know. I don't know what made her mad. I just know he's sincere, and never meant for this to happen. If she won't listen to Richard, is there somebody she knows who will?"
"What do you mean?"
"Somebody she trusts. Maybe somebody a little older, who can talk it over with Richard and then report back to her."
"No."
"Come on," Andy pleaded. "Give my son a chance, at least."
"I haven't seen Christine in over a month. I don't expect her any time soon. I don't even know what city she's in."
"I accept that. But isn't there anybody who can give my son a phone number or an e-mail address? Anything?"
"Not that I know of."
Andy Beale knew nothing about Christine. He was reduced to a bluff. "What about that friend of hers, that Sandy or Sarah or Susan or whatever it was?"
"Sharon?"
"Yeah. What about her? Do you think she could set something up so Richard could get a message to Christine? Even if they're thousands of miles apart, I think Richard could make her know how much he cares."
"You'd have to ask Sharon."
"Do you have her address?"
"No," said Monahan. "I don't have addresses. If anybody wants to reach me, they know where I am." He stood up and nodded to the guard across the room.
Andy Beale tried to cover his disappointment by standing up, too. "Just think about what I said. The day they marry I'll give them each a wedding present of a million dollars. And I'll throw in a nice house on the beach."
"I don't think this is about money."
"Of course not," said Andy. "It's about love. I'm just trying to treat her like one of the family."
"Good-bye." The guard had arrived, and he took Robert Monahan beyond the steel door.
As Andy Beale walked out of the building he reflected that Monahan had surprised him. There was a part of Andy Beale that thought there might have been a time when the two fathers could sit down for a beer together—maybe out on Andy's boat—and learn to get along fine. But he had a bad feeling it wasn't going to work out that way this time. Whatever Richard had done, Monahan wasn't ever going to forgive him.
RICHARD BEALE WAS upstairs in his bedroom watching the Padres playing the Braves on the big-screen television when his cell phone rang. He got up off the bed and hurried to the desk where he had left the phone, and snatched it up. "Hello?" He waited to hear whether it was his father's voice or Christine's.
"Hi, Richard."
"Sybil?"
"Yes, it's me. I'm in my car outside."
Richard walked across the hallway to one of the spare bedrooms on the street side and looked out the window. He could see her sitting in his driveway in her red Corvette. "Is something happening?"