Dreaming of my mother

Last night I dreamt that my mother came to the door of my house, or of some house where I was living. (You remember that right now I live in an apartment.) It was great to see her. I gave her a big hug and brought her in. She looked young, like she did all the years when I was growing up, and she started describing some kind of car trouble she had just had on the way there. She sat down on the living room sofa and we talked.

Then Brother came to the door. He didn't seem to see her at all, or notice her in any way; and he started talking to me about how we had to clear out all of her things by the end of the month unless we wanted to pay for the next month too. I asked him why this was so urgent and kept looking over at her on the sofa, seemingly blocked out of the conversation. And somewhere in there I started to wake up.

As dreams go, this one was disturbingly easy to read. So I texted Mother this morning and she texted back. She's fine -- busily working (at home, not at the office) and wondering why her clients put off everything to the last minute and then want her to do it all by magic overnight. She also started to ask if maybe we could think about getting together in a socially-distanced way for the Fourth of July. In short, she's fine.

But I had to check.