Four months later the paperwork was completed, and Jolie was an instant mother. "I kind of winged it," she says. "I remember his first warm bath. He seemed so surprised. Then I realized he didn't have plumbing, so he'd never felt warm water before." These days Jolie's favorite time is when the two curl up in bed together. "Every night I get a foot in the face or a finger poking me in the eye," she says, "but it's fantastic. When he gets cozy, it's the best feeling in the world."

At first, however, motherhood was bittersweet. When she adopted Maddox, she thought that she'd be raising him with Thornton, who has three kids from two of his four marriages prior to wedding Jolie. After all the public passion and quirky declarations of intimacy – including Thornton's admission that he wore her underwear – what went wrong? "I'd love to know," she says. "I don't have a f-----g clue."

But there were signs that the relationship was in trouble just two years into their union when Jolie began traveling as a U.N. goodwill ambassador for refugees while Thornton hit the road with his band. "We simply didn't know each other anymore," she says. "It was very, very clear that we had nothing to talk about. It made for a very uncomfortable, sad situation." Even more so when she brought Maddox to L.A. for his first visit with Thornton. "Billy and I didn't sleep in the same place that night," she says. "I had that first night of realizing my best friend was gone." So why had Thornton declared his excitement about Maddox's arrival just weeks earlier? "I think he was into saying things that solidified our marriage," she says. Their last interaction, the day before her 27th birthday on June 4, 2002, was ugly: "We got into a big fight. I haven't seen him since." (Thornton's rep had no comment for this story.)