not entirely sure the difference between anthropology and sociology, so she’d obviously not taken either of those. Psychology. There’d been a film, a VHS tape, a format nobody used anymore. There were monkeys taken from their mothers. They'd clung to a fake fur replacement but had to stretch out as far as they could to reach the milk that had been jimmied onto a monkey shaped from cold metal. What on earth had that studied been about besides creating a need for monkey therapists?
The girl stirred, and Gwen glanced over, pitied her inevitable hang-over and hoped she’d sleep the whole day. Sleep and learn to pace herself with alcohol spiked with artificial strawberries.
Cupboard love. That was the study. The monkeys were there to answer the question of why babies loved their mothers. Was it for soft comfort or the promise of food and survival? Was it cupboard love? It hadn’t been. It hadn’t been the milk at all. It was warmth. Had she given it to her baby? Had Missy loved the holding? She could picture those years, in the blurry way that might just be a memory from a photo, but still true, still true she knew. She’d carried her baby girl around, listened to her sigh before sleep, rubbed her back in circles when she’d cried. She’d done that. Not perfectly, never perfectly, but she’d given it. And she’d also been guilty of offering more cupboard love than anyone needed.
Maybe she’d scared Missy off with homemade cocoa and gingerbread at Christmas. Maybe she’d driven Steve away with one too many well-thought-out dinners. Hell, she didn’t know what ways she’d screwed it all up, but she did know she’d taken psychology, dammit. A history. A literature that was terribly boring, Russian maybe, and one that was better. French, two semesters.
It surprised her, the checks down each column, each Sphere. She had it all, all her general education done. She could file for an Associate’s Degree. Who needed a bachelor’s degree anyway? It wasn’t like she was going to be a teacher. What had she even been thinking at eighteen? Maybe Missy hadn’t fallen that far from the tree. Then she spotted the asterisk by the fourth Sphere. Really, Spheres? The Fourth Sphere sounded like a bad cable knock off of Star Trek. But in tiny print, print that required her to hold the catalog surprisingly far from her face to read, it said she needed to successfully complete with a C or higher a two-hundred level course in the same designation as the one-hundred level requirement for said Sphere. So, she was missing…?
She considered what she’d already checked off and how, for about a second, she almost felt good about something. She read the asterisk note again. She’d just have to take the next psychology class. Psychology II. Roman numerals were nicely impressive. If she did register for the class and stay another night, she’d call it night II. Could she live in the dorm for three, three-and-a-half months? She had everything she needed. She wouldn’t have to go back to her empty house until Christmas, and by then she’d have put her energy into something that would never leave her.
"I’m Mranda. The R.A." The short, perky girl she'd run into in the hall extended her hand with authority. "That stands for resident assistant."
"Oh," Gwen laughed. "I think I knew that. Nice to meet you, Miranda."
"No, Mranda."
"Oh. I’m Gwen. I guess my consonants already run together."
Mranda tipped her head, then perked up again. "You must be…" she noted the name tags on the door’s bulletin board. "Kaylie or Melissa’s mom." She smiled, shook her head. "The girls need to get passes for overnight guests. Dorm policy."
"Oh… I’m, well, I’m Gwen Melissa. I’m, I guess, living here?"
"You’re…" the smile fled, and prior to watching it leave the girl’s face, Gwen hadn’t imagined she could feel worse about her life, but she did. Mranda lit up again as if sudden inspiration had struck. "You’re a grad student! You’re just on the wrong floor. Come on." She took off down the hall, her quite impressive breasts not even bouncing, which made Gwen like her even less. But the girl moved like she meant business and Gwen was unsure how not to follow her. She stepped back in the room, grabbed her handbag, and headed to the lobby.
Mranda had already darted behind the main desk and returned with a key. She held out her empty hand and waited until Gwen figured out she