Sorry for the late post.

...

JR opened the envelope and dropped it's contents on the bed. There was a folded up painting which JR spread open to reveal a picture of a yellow bedroom with a soccer pitch for a bed, and the page of AJ in three different shots with Marissa, Bianca and the Montgomery girls from the Hello magazine with his little quote. There was also a keychain with one of the Disney seven dwarves on it.

And there was the letter, the precious letter!

…

Dear Daddy,

You are a bad daddy and I don't like you now.

Do you hate me? Mom said you did what you did because you love me and wanted me to live with you. I thought you did love me but now I think you must hate me.

Why did you want to hurt mom and stop her being in love with Bianca? Bianca makes her happy. She makes me happy too. And I don't want to live with you. I love my mom and I want to live in our house. I have my own room (I sent you a picture, it's yellow just like I wanted) and I have two sisters now to play with. And we have fun holidays – we went to Disneyland in Paris and everything was in French. Binks got sick and had a rest with mom but we still had fun with Reggie who is going to be our nanny. He was in the army and is really strong and can pick me up with one hand. I brought the keychain because it was funny but then it made me think of you and I don't want it anymore so you can have it. Binks is Bianca. She lets me call her that and she calls me Buddy. Gabby calls mom Momma 'Rissa. Please don't take me away and don't make mom sad or hurt her or Binks. If you do I will never forgive you and I will hate you forever.

Daddy, you told me lies were bad but you lie all the time and your lawyer lady tells lies too. I do want to go to court to say how I love my mom and family and that I want to stay here and be happy; and it is true because it says so in a magazine! I am not afraid. And I want to tell them that you are a bad man who hurts people when he is angry and is scary when he is drunk and that you tell lies all the time.

Please daddy, stop being a bad man. Please be my nice daddy again. And please don't tell mom I wrote this letter. If she knew how cross I am she would be sad and I want her to be happy for always.

With anger and sadness

AJ.

…

JR stared at the words on the paper but he couldn't see them. That first line said everything he didn't want to hear. In desperation he skimmed the paper for the word love, but the word was never for him.

It took JR a long time to be able to focus on the words written on the page and really see what was being said.

His gut reaction was to dismiss this as a trick. This was Marissa dolling out more punishment, finding a new way to twist the knife in before he shattered her happy little world at the trial. But just like when he read the Hello article, JR could hear the words in the page coming from AJ, all of them, and worse he could see the anger, sorrow and fear on his son's face as he read them.

He read the letter through five times. All the plans and schemes he had gleefully made for the trial, and what he had planned for Marissa and Bianca afterwards where suddenly in tatters after AJ's ultimatum, 'Don't make mom sad or hurt her or Binks. If you do I will never forgive you and I will hate you forever'.

JR saw the painting and key chain in a new light as well. The painting of AJ's bedroom was another way for his son to beg to let him stay with his mom and Bianca. And the Disney keychain bore the legend '100% Grumpy – Keep your distance', which is exactly what AJ wanted to do with his dad; keep his distance.

The only ray of hope that there was anything to salvage was six little words, 'Please be my nice daddy again'. The only trouble was JR didn't know how.

…