He tries to stay away from Alyce Ardell.
Tries, but rarely succeeds.
He is concerned about alerting Lois to Alyce Ardell’s existence, although he believes that Lois already suspects, even if she has not yet guessed the identity of the other party. He picks up the accusatory note in Lois’s voice when she asks how the day’s extended filming has gone, or about the script conference that ran over, or whatever excuse he has lately manufactured to be with his lover. Sometimes Lois flinches at his answer, as though he has raised a hand to her and she is steeling herself for the blow. Only as the situation worsens does he comprehend that she is reacting not to a hurt to come, but to one already inflicted.
Lois knows that he is lying, but wants to believe he is not.
Lois is seven months pregnant.
It has been arduous for her, more difficult than it was with their first child. Lois senses that she is carrying a boy because only a male could cause her so much torment. When Lois is not being physically ill, she takes to the couch and stares out the window, or moves to her bed and attempts to sleep. She is too queasy to read, and music, however soft, sounds excessively loud to her ears. Only her daughter brings her joy.
On Monday, May 5th, 1930, he and Babe begin filming their new three-reel picture. The cast is good, but once it is finished they will have to film it three times more for the French, German and Spanish markets, painstakingly learning to speak the dialogue phonetically. Two weeks of work, made harder by the knowledge that there are not enough gags to fill three reels, which means more dialogue, which means more stumbles through unfamiliar tongues.
On Tuesday, May 6th, 1930, Lois complains of pains.
Something’s wrong, she tells him.
He tries to soothe her, but Lois will not be soothed. A doctor is called, and then an ambulance.
On Wednesday, May 7th, 1930, his son is born prematurely. They name the boy Stanley.
The publicity department issues a press release. He would prefer that it had not done so, but the publicists are a law unto themselves, and someone at the Hollywood Hospital has already alerted the newspapers. The reporters even get the weight of the baby right—five-and-a-half pounds—but none remarks on how this is at the lower end of the scale for a newborn. A joke is added, something about Babe having to be nice to him for a while now that he’s a father again.
“You mustn’t abuse a papa!” he is quoted as saying.
He wonders how many acres of newsprint have been filled by words he has not said, forming an entire alternative history of his life in which nothing has meaning or substance unless it forms the punch line to a gag.
His son is placed in an incubator. He is informed that the birth weight, although troubling, is well within the limits of viability. The first twenty-four hours will be crucial.
Lois rests, but he does not. He counts the minutes into hours, and the hours into a day, and only when evening drifts into night, and twenty-four hours have safely elapsed, does he sleep.
Each morning thereafter he travels to the studio and works. Well-wishers inquire after his son. It is known that the child is sickly, but he was a sickly child himself, and he survived.
Each evening thereafter he travels to the hospital to be with Lois.
On the ninth day, his son dies.