I am sitting in the dark at 2:14 AM, listening to the hum of a refrigerator that has been dying for exactly three years and seven months. We humans have a peculiar way of decorating our cages. We buy the right rugs, we polish the silver—we did the silver tonight, for the first time since the Christmas of 2019—and we pretend the walls aren't closing in. I looked at my daughter across the table tonight. She’s thirty-five now, a successful architect with three major firm awards and a penchant for expensive, minimalist jewelry. She was looking at me and her father like we were some kind of archaeological ruin.