The knowledge grows in her core, pieces of body memory that unzip and then twist together, wrapping around each other like legs and sheets in bed in a long afternoon. It's too much to fit inside just one being. Written in her every cell component, in her cytoplasm, and even in the nutrient bath around her, the other's signature promises a coming change. She bursts and boils. Her walls come down.

From all her senses and all her pieces, gathered in the middle of herself, a daughter begins to form. The mother's traits line up like a fence, and, through it, she sees the woman who will someday be. Her daughter will have eyes like hers; she will lower her voice at night like her mother does; and she also will burn easily in the sun. The mother can touch each trait with precision, and, on the other side of the fence, her daughter does the same. They must hold hands like this forever. They must wear matching clothes when they travel, and make sure all 10 of their fingers touch.

But fibers pull them apart. She struggles and clings. Suddenly, the self that had been overflowing seems small and dry. She does the same things every morning, and goes to bed at night with the same socks on. Still, there is no stopping nature and no stopping youth. They slam doors. They listen to the angry music of different eras. They retreat to opposite sides of the cell membrane. Her daughter hasn't yet left her, but the nucleus of their home has divided. The cytoplasm running through it prepares to take sides. The mother quivers over her entire surface, and within.

They stare at each other across the dinner table, each complete within herself and sick of the other. They split. They surround themselves with fresh new skins, and with pride. As the last bonds break, the daughter becomes an awful stranger whose thoughts the mother can no longer fathom. At first it is a feeling of betrayal that keeps the mother sitting up smoking on the porch the first few nights after her daughter leaves. Then she begins to sense little ripples moving through the world, little signs of the daughter's life, and she comes to love the trembling night. Inside, the knowledge grows again, thought replicating thought.

Erica Naone writes about software and the Internet for Technology Review. Her short fiction has appeared in Coyote Wild, On The Premises, and Storyglossia. She lives with her husband in Allston, Massachusetts.