from ‘Literary Hub’, May 11th 2022
When Day poisoned his tea with five heaping spoonfuls of sugar, Addison warned him that his teeth would fall out and that he’d get diabetes—one of her periodic public service announcements denouncing meat, cigarettes, and hypocrisy. He just scowled at her. She scoops out half his sugar when he’s not looking, but he recoups it later in cookies. He doesn’t fret about getting diabetes because he has leukemia, and he doesn’t fret about having leukemia because he is determined to be a stoic, and he doesn’t fret about failing to be a stoic because he doesn’t always remember that that’s what he’s supposed to be.