It was for the day spa and the shopping at Scottsdale Fashion Square, the country-club lunches with friends she wanted to impress, the trips she funded for relatives who despised her the rest of the year.

She used my work to buy herself a reputation as a generous matriarch, and the well had no bottom.

And I, a senior director at a logistics firm, pulling a serious salary, had fed that bottomless thing for five years, telling myself concessions would eventually be met with gratitude.

They never are.

Unconditional giving doesn’t grow gratitude.

It grows appetite.