The half-life of his marriage persists, flirting with farce as it fades.
On August 7th, 1931, he legally changes his name. A.J.’s son ceases to be. He is now the man the titles of his pictures declare him to be; the fiction created with Mae has become the reality. And as he alters his name, so, too, must Lois alter hers, even though she barely wishes to know him by any name.
Never mind. She will not have to suffer under it for long.
And meanwhile, he thinks, his dead boy bears the patronymic of one who no longer exists at all.