By Michael Belanger

Mr. Abbington didn’t like to smile. In fact, he did everything in his power to avoid it. When he first saw his wife, Mrs. Abbington, and the two glared at each other from across the room at Moody’s Bar and Grill—Mr. Abbington didn’t see anything ironic about the name, and to be honest, hated irony to begin with—he knew he’d met his soulmate.

When Little Abbington was born, they both agreed it was best to hold off on naming him—after all, they didn’t want to spoil the child. Those first couple of months, Little Abbington mostly cried and looked grumpy, only requesting to be fed, changed, and occasionally cooed. All appropriate activities for an Abbington.

By the third month, Mr. Abbington noticed a change in Mrs. Abbington. Once, as he peered into the nursery, decorated in a palette of grays with storm clouds on the wall—the one nod to whimsy Mr. Abbington had allowed—he caught Mrs. Abbington smiling at Little Abbington and making fart noises with her mouth. Mr. Abbington cleared his throat before entering the room, and Mrs. Abbington promptly scowled, reminding Mr. Abbington about the latest bill that had arrived in the mail and the sordid state of the insurance industry.
When Mr. Abbington returned to work on Monday, an appropriately gloomy nine-to-five selling corrugated steel, he found himself enjoying a glum satisfaction for his unsmiling family. Too much pride would’ve been unseemly, but without any pride, nothing would hold the small family together. Staring at an empty picture frame on his office desk, he pursed his lips to avoid smiling.

He should’ve been on guard, because when he returned home that evening, he found Mrs. Abbington hunched over Little Abbington, pretending to eat his arms. Mr. Abbington watched from the kitchen, hoping for the scene to stop but also—and this is the part that scared him—not wanting the scene to stop. There was something beautiful about Mrs. Abbington smiling with abandon. With her hair down, she looked like an Ancient Greek goddess, the alter ego of the buttoned-up lawyer he’d met in Moody’s all those years ago.

“Watch this,” Mrs. Abbington called, gobbling up Little Abbington’s arms.

A squeak of laughter escaped from Little Abington, and Mr. Abbington grasped his chest; there was a pressure building inside, needing to escape.

Fearing for Little Abbington’s future, he shared his concerns with Mrs. Abbington later that night while reading in bed.

“It’s just that I’m worried about the type of values we’re instilling in Little Abbington,” Mr. Abbington explained.

“I’m sure even you smiled when you were a baby,” Mrs. Abbington said, abruptly closing her book and turning over.

If he did, no evidence existed; his father didn’t believe in pictures, and his mother had died in childbirth.

“If we could at least agree to not encourage the child.”

Mrs. Abbington turned her bedside light off.

Mr. Abbington wondered what had happened to his perfectly dour wife, the woman with a smile like a Renaissance oil painting.

That night, Mr. Abbington lay awake, tossing and turning for hours, until he heard a small cry from the bassinet. He stood up and padded over to Little Abbington, ready to shush him to sleep; maybe even sing an old hymn, something melodic, but not too melodic. Mr. Abbington had learned the hard way that most lullabies contained far too many major notes.

He picked up Little Abbington, and his cries stopped. As Mr. Abbington’s eyes adjusted to the dim, he noticed Little Abbington smiling. Without warning, Little Abbington reached for Mr. Abbington’s face, gently running his fingers over the stubble. While Mr. Abbington didn’t like scruff of any sort, he found shaving before bed irritated his skin. Little Abbington laughed, causing what any reasonable person would call a commotion.

Mrs. Abbington stirred in bed. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s just… He’s…” He choked back the elation in his voice, modulated it to a stoic flatness, before the baby squealed again, still petting Mr. Abbington’s face. Mrs. Abbington began laughing too, and then—there was that pressure again, desperately searching for an escape—Mr. Abbington snorted in delight. He thought of his father, staring with pouty indifference at the scene, but before he could stop himself, Mrs. Abbington’s hand joined his on Little Abbington’s head, and the family of three rocked together in the early morning light.