Time For Tea

Written by Martin Nethercutt
©2026 Ruth McCartney Music Publishing, BMI

Mrs. Sullivan Theme

[Instrumental]

From her diary:

My name is Esther Margaret Sullivan.

I have often found that childhood is misremembered.

People speak of it as a place of warmth. Of safety. Of smallness. But that was never my experience. Childhood, to me, was the first time I understood that the world was not obliged to explain itself.

I was six years old when I learned to listen properly.

It was winter in Durham. The sort of winter that settles into the bones of a place. Our house stood at the end of a narrow lane, built of old stone that never truly warmed, no matter how long the fire burned. My mother kept everything immaculate, as if tidiness might persuade the world to behave predictably.

It never did.

My father was a quiet man. He did not speak unnecessarily, which is perhaps why I loved him most. He believed words were instruments, not decorations. When he asked a question, it mattered. When he answered, it was the truth as he understood it.

He never lied to me.

That is why I never lied to him.