In Which I Dream of an Apartment

Dream:

I went back to Dan's apartment (except that it wasn't his real-life apartment) and was amazed at how beautiful it was. His ex-wife and her husband had moved in and covered the bedroom walls in a textured white fabric that matched the bedding. There were twinkle lights around the edges of the ceiling like stars in a snowstorm. The other bedroom (in real-life, there wasn't another bedroom, but in the dream it had always been filled with boxes) was cleaned out and there was toilet in one corner with a shoji screen around it. The walls and the upholstery on a chair were the most beautiful sea foam green. There was a white daybed and on top of it was a tabletop size old-fashioned pinball game. "Novel plots at the flip of a switch," it proclaimed in fancy script. After you launched the ball, it would ping around and land in a slot marked with some life event or plot twist. Heroine poisons ex-husband. Beloved son killed in car accident. A entire game board of terrible things. It was a beautiful vintage thing, this pinball machine. Used, but well-cared for, and everything seemed to work. He'd probably gotten it for me at a garage sale and had planned to give it to me for a present, and forgotten about it when he got sick. I kept wandering around murmuring about how beautiful it all was, feeling impossibly sad. There was a little secret garden out the door and down a narrow flight of steps. Ferns and colorful mosaics. And in the kitchen, the faucet was a sleek red bird. You pulled up on its tail feathers to turn on the water. It was a piece of art, so lovely that I cried when I saw it. 

I woke up feeling so confused. Why the apartment that wasn't really his apartment? Why the red bird? Why the apartment and not him? It's been forever since I've dreamed of him.