The contempt and the flattery were the same transaction.

They held me in contempt because contempt kept me anxious and eager to please, and an anxious woman eager to please is a woman who keeps paying.

And they flattered me at the register because flattery kept the payments coming.

It was not inconsistent at all.

It was a strategy, whether any of them had ever consciously named it or not — a beautifully efficient little machine for extracting money from a woman by keeping her permanently off balance, never quite accepted, never quite rejected, always one more grand gesture away from the belonging that was never going to come.

I had thought I was failing to earn their love.