Sullivan's Choice
A stranger comes to call on Charlie Sullivan, soon to be the most successful store owner in Cork, Ireland.
© 2025 Duleepa Wijayawardhana
All rights reserved. This is an original piece of fiction.
Featured in Episode 20: Flash! of Tales under the cat tree
He knocked on the open door on a crisp, clear midnight and peeked in. Charlie Sullivan looked up from behind the the number-filled papers neatly piled on the desk next to the store counter.
“Yes? ‘Tis a bit late to be knocking.”
The dark stranger tipped his top hat in apology.
“A light was on so late, and I was curious for a cup of tea. If you can spare one.”
“Late it is. But yes come in. ‘Tis a freakishly cold evening. I’m just setting the final ledgers straight before going home. Come. Sit by the counter.” Sullivan said as he waved the man over.
“A kindness, sir, never to be forgotten in these lands.” The stranger smiled, white teeth gleaming under the store lamp's weak orange glow. Sullivan ran his hands through wavy locks while pouring two steaming cups from a thermos.
“Mind you, I should be home to wife and the young ones soon.” Sullivan sighed.
“Just a cup, and I’ll be on my way. Many children?”
“Three young sons, not one a teen yet. But strapping young lads. My Janey's done well. Someday those boys’ll take this shop and everything I’ve been building!” Sullivan beamed at the thought
“You seem to be doing well.” The stranger lifted his cup to glistening teeth, his eyes taking in the goods falling over themselves on the shelves, boxes begging to be carried off by customers.
“I do all right. Charlie Sullivan’s is the best place in Cork for anything and everything. There's always more to be done though in building a business. It’s a challenge and a half. One day this will be ‘C. Sullivan and Sons’ and a shop in every town in Ireland!”
The stranger was reading the spent leaves at the bottom of the cup.
“Well, a kindness paid is a kindness rewarded. I wish you and your family wealth in all that you choose.”
The stranger's chair scraping signalled an end to the meeting. Sullivan glanced at the ledgers and frowned his way back to fixing numbers.
Charlie Sullivan’s storefront grew by leaps and bounds. Each year brought in more customers under whose hands an ever-increasing amount of goods flowed out. Each of Sullivan’s children sprouted long legs, full heads of hair, and Janey loved all three. Sullivan planned for his shop network and saved a bundle of money within the cramped ledgers every midnight session in each of the years the children grew.
When his first son reached that blissful age where trust could be easily ascribed, Sullivan had him join his late-night sessions. The son learned from the father, but surely as the nights went long, the son’s eyes longed for the embrace of mother and bed. Some years later, the eldest son left for the bright lights of Dublin.
Janey cried deep and long, and Sullivan cured his sadness with the second son. Sullivan went through ledger by ledger, talking the son through the cramped columns and regaling him on how the numbers would move from shop to shop and foam with wealth for all. The second son departed on a boat bound for Australia.
Janey soaked enough sheets with her tears and held her youngest close. Sullivan brought the ledgers home and put the youngest through the pages, with Janey sniffing through her knitting while staring at the deepening circles around the boy’s eyes as Sullivan’s stuttering pen passed from row to row. The youngest boarded a flight to New York.
Many years later, when a letter arrived from the eldest heralding a birth, Janey left for Dublin. Sullivan had ledgers and duties to take care.
He knocked on the door on a wet, cloudy midnight. Sullivan moved aside the ledgers with a trembling, wrinkled hand and answered the door with some trepidation. His top hat in hand, the stranger's smile beamed down. Not a day had gone by to this visage.
“Oh, it’s you again. I’ve been expecting you," Sullivan grumbled.
“Ah, it is a kindness you do to invite an old soul for another cup of tea on such a damp night.”
“Aye. Well. Come in. I’ll get the kettle on.”
Sullivan slouched into his bony shoulders and shuffled to the kettle.
“I see you’ve done well. But I was expecting the name to have changed to 'C. Sullivan and Sons' and to meet your sons tonight.” The stranger asked with his eyes darting here and there.
“Stuff it, you old devil. You screwed me up completely. I gave you a cup of tea that night. I did you a kindness, and look at me now. Alone. No wife, no sons to speak of. No, I’ve been expecting you alright, not to thank you but to spit in your face and curse you!” Sullivan spat on the ground between them even as he hoisted a cup.
The stranger sighed, took the offered cup in both hands, and looked at Sullivan with a single tear in his eyes. He took in the humped, balding old man, disappearing into the ledgers, the wealthiest merchant in all of Cork, gasping for breath in his condemnations.
“What choices of yours are my burden to carry?”