Spencer Tracy_ A Biography - James C. Curtis [103]
There was also the thing that had happened to John, the horrible thing with the unknowable cause that could happen again. Spence, particularly, was tormented by the thought, the possibility, that they could have another child so afflicted. Louise, too, although she didn’t share his Irish temperament, his deep sense of guilt and foreboding. Where Spence felt the raw burden of sin and dark purpose in Johnny’s disability, Louise saw a biological mystery, a circumstance of terrific power. And where Spence bore the blame, all visceral and unspoken, Louise felt only responsibility, the need to do everything she could either to fix their son’s deafness or to marginalize it to the point where it would no longer matter. The only constructive thing Spence could do under such circumstances was to earn the money she would need to do what she had to do for John. They both grappled with imperfect thoughts, unjustified feelings of inadequacy and torment.
Louise talked to a woman at the Home Adoption Society, who was plainly dubious of their plan.
When she asked me why we wanted to adopt a child, I answered, naturally, that we wanted a playmate for our son. I went on to explain his deafness and the reason for wishing an older child rather than a baby. She told me that John’s deafness created a problem in our household, which constituted an “abnormal” situation and might be a handicap to another child. She said that the Society was averse to placing one of its children in less than a perfect environment … She also went on to say that, in any case, she thought we had much better take a boy, as a different sex complicated things still further. She said, however, that I might fill out an application, if I wished, and then, if adoption was thought to be possible at all, the whole situation could be investigated thoroughly.
The friends they brought into the discussion advised against adopting an older child, concerned that habits and attitudes set even before the age of three could somehow hamper John’s progress. Spence and Louise continued to bat the idea around, wondering not only what age an adopted child should be but whether they could even get one. As soon as he had finished with Hughes and Sky Devils, they moved from the Chateau Elysée to a rented house in the Hollywood Hills where they could spread out again and take full stock of the situation.
Sheehan had no immediate assignment for him, preoccupied as he was with the Chase Bank’s pursuit of Harley Clarke, the interim president of Fox, who had managed to turn a $13 million profit (in William Fox’s last year at the helm) into a net loss of nearly $3 million. Spence, as it turned out, would have six glorious weeks off before the start of his next picture. Leaving John in Mother Tracy’s able care, he and Louise went off to spend a few days at Arrowhead Springs, a resort in the mountains above San Bernardino. They started riding again, Spence deciding that he really did like it, and reconnected on other levels as well. Perhaps it was nothing more than Louise, for the first time in years, being apart from John and the constant, almost compulsive attention she lavished on him. And perhaps, too, it was Spence being away from the pressures of the studio and the worry that option time typically brought upon a contract player of any stripe. Wurtzel had picked up his option so early on that he was assured a regular paycheck through November 1932—more than a year in the future.
Those few days at Arrowhead were relatively carefree, a throwback to the very earliest days of their marriage, when there were just the two of them and their worries extended no farther than the mastering of next week’s part. Not long after they returned home—about the time Spence started shooting a picture called Disorderly Conduct—Louise discovered, at the age of thirty-five, that she was once again pregnant.