Chapter 3 - The Address Change
Vivian refused to let Damon move the suitcases upstairs.
Instead, she walked into the library and used the landline.
Audrey followed.
“Who are you calling?”
“My doctor.”
It was a lie.
Vivian called her neighbor, retired judge Margaret Sloan, whose number she knew by memory.
“Margaret, I need you to come over.”
Damon appeared in the doorway.
“You don’t need an audience.”
Vivian looked directly at him.
“I need a witness.”
That stopped him.
Audrey gave Vivian her phone back only after Vivian threatened to call 911 from the landline.
Damon insisted the punch had been an accident.
Audrey didn’t support that version.
She didn’t contradict it either.
By the time Margaret arrived, Damon and Audrey had retreated to the driveway with their suitcases.
Margaret photographed Vivian’s swollen lip and urged her to go to urgent care.
Vivian agreed.
Before leaving, however, she noticed three envelopes among the mail her housekeeper had stacked on the foyer table.
All were addressed to Damon Mercer.
At Vivian’s home.
One was from a commercial insurance company.
One came from a lender.
The third bore a return address from Fulton County.
Vivian had never given Damon permission to receive mail there.
Margaret saw her expression.
“How long has he been using your address?”
“I don’t know.”
Vivian took photographs of the unopened envelopes and left them where they were.
At urgent care, the physician documented bruising and a split lip. Vivian declined to minimize what had happened.
When the nurse asked who struck her, Vivian answered plainly.
“My son-in-law.”
That evening Audrey texted.
Please don’t destroy his life over one terrible moment.
Vivian read it twice.
Her daughter hadn’t asked how she was feeling.
Vivian called the lender whose name had appeared on Damon’s mail.
After verifying her identity and property address, she explained that Damon Mercer did not live there.
The representative paused.
May you like
Then he said something that made Vivian sit straighter.
According to their records, Damon had claimed Vivian’s address as his primary residence nearly six weeks earlier.
