Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes in Aberdeen on Wednesday (05/10/06)

Forget whatever it was Tom Cruise told Diane Sawyer about his relationship with Katie Holmes' parents.

The truth is, Katie's parents, Martin and Kathleen Holmes, didn't get to see baby Suri up close and personal until the day of the "Mission: Impossible 3" premiere in Los Angeles.

That would have been May 4. Suri was born in the late afternoon on April 17.

You do the math, fans. That's two and a half weeks. The Holmeses were specifically not invited until Tom was back home in Los Angeles after his worldwide promotional tour and could monitor the baby¡¯s first visit with her maternal grandparents.

Tom's mother, Mary Jo Mapother-South, was there for the delivery. So were Tom¡¯s sisters. But, as widely reported, the Holmeses were at their vacation home in Florida when they got the news that their daughter had given birth to their first grandchild.

¡°They are heartbroken,¡± says the source who filled me in on this, and this person knows what they¡¯re talking about.

But no one who's interviewed Cruise for "M: I3" has dared asked these questions.

Instead, they've let Cruise refer to Katie as ¡°Kate¡± and do all the talking for her. The Holmeses are scared to speak out, say friends, for fear that they will be cut off even more from Katie and Suri.

It's not like the public hasn't sensed something is wrong with all this. The result has been an enormous backlash against Cruise.

Yesterday's box office numbers for "M: I3" were even lower than the day before. The movie took in a mere $2,783,719 on Wednesday, down 13 percent from Tuesday¡¯s $3,204,660, according to boxofficemojo.com.

This is a big problem, since "M: I3" is playing in 4,000 theatres, one of the widest releases ever for a feature film.

At this point, if tonight¡¯s numbers aren't much, much better, "M: I3" will begin to self-destruct.

If you're looking for context here, compare "M:I3" to "Spider-Man 2," a movie that played in a comparable number of theaters. On the first Tuesday and Wednesday after its weekend debut, "Spider-Man 2" took in, respectively, $10 million and $9 million. "M: I3" is very far off that track.