Before I continue I should probably explain the origins of my name. On my birth certificate I am Felix Fredrik Knutsson. Fredrik was my morfar’s name. He died before I was born. Mormor’s stories about him made him sound like a saint. But Astrid says Mormor was engaged in “revisionist history.”
“Then why did you name me after him?”
“I didn’t. I named you after Eugène Fredrik Jansson, my favorite Swedish painter. Your mormor just assumed I’d named you after my father, and I let her believe it, because it kept her more or less off my back when I gave you the first name Felix.”
My mom really named me after her older brother. The name is derived from Latin and means “lucky or successful one.” Original Felix was neither.
Astrid has told me a lot about him. They were super close. He was two years older than her. She adored him, and the feeling was mutual. Felix was handsome and funny and charming, and he watched out for my mom from an early age.
Because Fredrik was a mean dad. He was very religious, but not in a nice, “love thy neighbor” way. He was religious in more of “an eye for an eye” way. Whenever Original Felix or Astrid stepped out of line, they would get the belt. Felix couldn’t stand to see Astrid get hit, so he took the blame for everything. And he got the belt a lot.
When he was sixteen, Original Felix came out to his parents. Astrid thinks Mormor wanted to understand, because she loved Felix. But their father thought homosexuality was a sin, and he kicked Felix out of the house.
Original Felix was a smart, resourceful guy, according to my mom. But he was only sixteen. He had to make money to pay the rent on a room in a decrepit building near Main and Hastings in Vancouver. He got a part-time job at a Burger King, but it only paid minimum wage. So he did other things to earn more money, things that made him feel bad about himself and sometimes put him in danger.
He started to use drugs. Astrid would visit him every chance she got. She could see he was sinking, and she tried to get him help. But I guess there are a lot of people who need help in Vancouver, and not enough people to help them.
She was the one who found him. She hadn’t heard from him for a few days, so she went to his place. He didn’t answer her knocks. She got a neighbor to help her force the door. The coroner said he’d died of an accidental overdose.
Astrid says their father wept at the funeral, and it made her want to rip his eyeballs out with her bare hands.
Based on my P.O.O., I have developed a theory, and the theory is that I am not sure my mom ever completely recovered from Original Felix’s death. Of course, I’ve only known my mom A.O.F. (After Original Felix). But it’s the way she talks about him, the way she gets this look on her face. I think it destroyed a little part of her. I think it’s why she has a prescription for antidepressants.
She likes to say that the day I was born was the happiest day of her life. And she named me after her brother, to keep his memory alive. I think that’s why she likes me to call her Astrid instead of “Mom,” because that’s what Original Felix called her.
I know some people find it weird. I remember other parents in the schoolyard thought I was precocious, calling her Astrid. But when they found out she wanted it that way, they looked at her like she was precocious.
I’m just trying to give some context before I mention Astrid’s Slumps. That’s her word for them. Slumps. She’s had them off and on over the years, but they usually don’t last very long—a few days at most. During a Slump she stays in bed and I take charge. Mormor took charge when she was alive, but after that it was left to me.
The first time I took charge I was eight years old. I don’t know what caused that particular Slump; perhaps it was because it was around the anniversary of Original Felix’s death. Astrid just didn’t get up one morning. So I got myself to school and I got myself home and I made us each a peanut butter and jam sandwich for dinner. I even went to bed on time, but I didn’t brush my teeth.
On the third day of that Slump, my teacher asked if everything was okay at home. I said yes. She said, “You’ve worn the same clothes to school all week.” The next day I changed my clothes. But one of the other mothers called my mom to say she’d seen me walking home alone again, and she gave her heck. Astrid grumbled about “meddling helicopter parents,” but the next day she managed to drag herself out of bed and walk me to and from school. “The last thing we need is some busybody calling the MCFD.”
I think that was the first time I’d ever heard of the MCFD.
I won’t lie, I was scared the first few times Astrid had a Slump and I had to take over. But I got good at it. I knew I had to ride it out for a few days, a week tops. Astrid would always assure me that she was okay, she just needed to get through it, and she always did.
She always does.
Okay?
She always does.