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Soon after filming finished, Williams was pregnant; Matilda was born just before Brokeback opened. Rather than set up house in Hollywood, they instead settled in Brooklyn. Ledger raked leaves with neighbors and skateboarded around town in his familiar pink ski hat; Williams shopped for art for Matilda's nursery and threw fund-raisers for a local anti-development group. "When Michelle is working, I'm the manny, and when I'm working, she's the nanny," Ledger cheerfully explained in 2006. His family, a blissful Ledger said that year, is "everything to me – the most important thing I do. Before, I felt like I was floating through life, like a ghost; I may not have even existed."
But by early 2006 – just as Brokeback was being feted during awards season – the relationship seemed strained. "Things had obviously changed," says a source who saw them around that time when they stayed at L.A.'s Chateau Marmont. "They would come out to the patio early in the evening and sit together. Michelle was very attentive to Matilda and Heath seemed distant. He looked fidgety and just didn't seem part of the family. It was as if they were in different worlds." Later, says the source, Williams "would go into the room with the baby. Heath would stay in the garden and lobby for hours."
