I had a dream that my mother came back from the dead. That I woke up next to my brother who doesn’t really talk to me anymore, but whom I love with all my heart, awoken by the woman I used to have a crush on. In introducing her to my brother, she informed me that everybody thought he was weird, and she should add me to the group chat that discussed it. I asked her why would I want to join a chat that was mean about my brother, and she laughed, tossed her long hair over her shoulder and told me to get up.

I did so, suddenly dressed and brushed and deodorised and so I showed her around the house I had never seen before but knew was mine. She asked me about a door to the outside that I had never used, but then realised was a double door that opened on to a beautiful wooden deck with too steep steps, and I remembered. “That’s why we don’t use this door,” I said. “My mother can’t climb these steps.”

The woman (I know her name, but I’m not going to tell you) with her long hair and lithe body, followed me everywhere. I went up to see my mother, this woman in tow, and saw Mum in her bathroom, one of my little cousins playing in Mum’s bed.

“Mum.”

There she was. My mother. A thinner, older version. As she said, “it’s been 7 years.” Her family was in my house, a whole heap of them. My cousins and their children, who were basically my cousins as children. Karen with her daughter, Karen. Patrick with his son, Patrick. I introduced them all to this woman attached to my hip. Then I got to be with my mother alone.

“I don’t like her,” Mum said.

“But you liked her in previous dreams,” I replied.

“Yes, but I’m alive again now.”

I went downstairs with my brother who doesn’t really talk to me anymore, but whom I love with all my heart, to a locked-in island kitchen where a man I didn’t know was mansplaining everything to the woman I had once liked.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my kitchen?” I demanded.

This man asked who I was and continued to dribble information I already knew.

“This is my house! Well, it’s my Mum’s house, but it will be mine and my brothers … in fact, Mum’s already dead, so technically, this is my house, get out!!!” Saying that made me happy in a strange way, as Mum never owned a house, but coming back from the dead had given her money and a comfort that life never had. It was satisfying.

The man disappeared into a fridge I had never seen before but knew was mine, and I rounded on the woman, the woman who smiled a coquettish smile, knowledge sparkling in her eyes.

“Why did you let him in here?” She cocked her head to the side and answered me with no answer. So I said, “you broke up with your wife, I was there as a friend, crushing on you, yes, but wanting to be your friend. Then you got a new girlfriend and now I don’t exist to you. Why are you here?”

She smiled, and my cat meowed so I woke up, still wondering why I’m alone with my thoughts, my cats and my pain, wishing Mum really had come back from the dead.