From everything she had heard about Tad's house Marissa was expecting a warm family home full of laughter and fun. She certainly wasn't expecting the long uncomfortable silences and the cold stares that passed continuously between her mother and Tad's partner Dixie. The tension was excruciating. Krystal was keeping up a front that everything was fine, but she and Dixie refused to speak to each other, and if words had to be exchanged it was via Tad or one of the girls. Tad looked uncomfortable in his role of mediator; he was trying hard to appease both women, but in the end seemed only to annoy them.
All the tension was about AJ being with his father and now Marissa was caught right in the middle of it. Krystal told her in no uncertain terms what she thought of JR and the games he'd played over the years. Dixie was keen to stress that JR was a new man, a hero and insisted he was determined to make up for all his past mistakes. He wanted to be the best father for AJ he could be. Krystal was very clear that she believed AJ would be happier if he never saw JR again.
Marissa didn't know what to think.
Since his first visit to the hospital that day, AJ had become her sole purpose of being. Of all the memories she had lost, the memories of her son were the ones she was most desperate to have back. People tried to talk to her about other things, her job as a lawyer, her life in Pine Valley, her twin sister Babe, her friendship with Bianca but she only wanted to know about her son and that is always where she would direct the conversation, gathering every tit-bit and filing it away as if nothing else mattered. Maybe it was an obsession, but Marissa didn't believe she could love anyone as much as she loved that little boy.
Life was never simple though, thanks to her amnesia she had a month to wait before the courts would clear her shared custody agreement with JR. Until then only supervised visits were permitted and JR had insisted he be present at all times. Whether she believed her mother or not, Marissa didn't have much of a choice when it came to her ex-husband. She still wasn't sure what to make of him, her gut was telling her something wasn't right but she had to be nice to him if she wanted to see her son.
She would stick to her plan; everyone had a clean slate until she'd gotten to know them well enough to judge for herself. The most important part was that she would get the chance to spend time with AJ, after that nothing else mattered.
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