There, I’ve said it.

I’m tired of feeling like a boiled, then salted, then deep-fried steam-heat peanut. I’m tired of loud fans (but not Loud-Fans, necessarily, save for the whinier types). I’m tired of breathing the questionable air — I’m sure laden with spores of alveoli-withering nastiness — half-heartedly farted out by our two hand-me-down air conditioners. I’m tired of hanging all my fantasies on the promise of a low-pressure system from Canada arriving in four or five days. I’m tired of getting my chill-thrills from cold showers with peppermint hippie soap (the effects of which never last past getting toweled off), or from watering my tomato plants after dark — keeping my eye on that suspiciously reclusive-looking brown spider while ants and moths crawl up my legs and down my back, respectively. Brr. And also, yuck.

Summer makes me tired in a way that even the blizzardiest winter never will.

I’m probably also edgy because the family health weirdness just keeps multiplying. Last weekend, my brother Jeff left me a sort of frantic message on our voicemail asking if I’d talked to Mom and Dad recently (I had, as had D when my father thanked him for the mellow jazz CD and Baltimore mystery novel my most considerate boy had sent them). When I talked to Jeff the next day, he was edgier than usual: “Did they say anything about Mom’s health?” (No.) “Well, I think she may have had a small stroke.” (Jesus.)

My brother explained that my dad had called him midweek saying that my mother had lost vision in one eye temporarily, and had been having dizzy spells. She was fine late in the week, but was scheduled to have an MRI this week. Jeff (with his optometry degree imbuing him with a heightened sense of medical expertise) admonished my father to make sure our mom gets a carotid ultrasound in addition to the MRI. (My brother, as far as I could discern, did not offer to pay for this extra procedure in light of my parents’ paucity of health insurance.) He also described Dad breaking down over the phone, worried sick about our mother (”I can’t remember him crying — ever — except when Mom was hospitalized after her heart attack in ‘78,” Jeff said — though, hair-splitter that I am, I remember my dad in tears the day I came home from school and talked to him after our dog had died and my dad had spent the afternoon burying her.) Anyway.

I spoke with my mom last night for nearly an hour, and she didn’t mention anything along the lines of “loss of vision” or “stroke” or “MRI” or “commence panic attacks,” though she did say she was seeing her doctor Tuesday. For the most part, she sounded relaxed, energized by the idea of taking classes with a master rose gardener in town, and happy. We talked about the contrast between my cousin Tracy’s lackadaisical parenting style with her daughter and my friends Janet and Andy’s amazing, loving, intelligent, and appropriate style with their children. We talked about my nascent gardening epiphanies. I didn’t probe into my mother’s medical condition. I don’t know if I should have. Ultimately, I don’t want to perpetuate this bizarre truth triangle connecting my parents, my brother, and me, so I’m hoping that I can listen to what my family chooses to tell me, be open about what’s going on in my life, and expect honesty and openness in return.

It’s weird: I don’t really feel adult enough to take on a steward role with regard to my parents’ health, finances, and well-being — despite being reminded that I’m their executor every time I talk to them. (And God help me, the past several nights’ mares in which one or both parents die and I’m trying to sort out the sundry legalities are infinitely worse than the tornado dreams I’ve had since I was a young girl.) I’m not quite sure where their idea that their daughter — (married young, divorced youngish, wrassling with depression and often confused — for heaven’s sakes, an English major, carless, and still renting!) is any more equipped to handle weighty affairs than is their happily married doctor son with a beautiful daughter, an immense home, two SUVs and a pool. Weren’t the collegiate drugs, inadvisable boyfriends, and bad dye-jobs supposed to exempt me from being trustworthy?