Gone But Never Forgotten

I. THE FIRST HEARTBEAT 

The pounding started the night after the funeral. 

I thought it was grief at first — I had read somewhere that sorrow could sit heavy in the chest, tightening like a fist. But this felt different. Violent. Urgent. 

Alive. 

THUD. 

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, pillow still damp from sweat or tears — I wasn’t sure which. The house was silent, but inside my ribcage, something hammered with the insistence of someone trapped behind a door. 

THUD. THUD. THUD. 

I pressed my palm hard over my chest. 

“Stop,” I whispered. 

The heartbeat did not stop. 

If anything, it struck harder, as if offended. 

I rolled onto my side and squeezed my eyes shut. Everything that had happened in the past few weeks blurred together — the police, the questions, the neighbors leaning over hedges, trying to peer inside my life. The funeral with its too-bright flowers. The priest who spoke gently about a woman he never knew. 

“A devoted mother,” he’d said. 

And I’d felt it then, too — the pounding, louder than the organ, louder than the murmured prayers, louder than the silence when her coffin was swallowed by the earth. 

THUD. 

I tried not to think of her face. 

I tried not to think of what I had done. 

But the heartbeat did not let me forget.

II. A VOICE BETWEEN BEATS 

The pounding was following me everywhere 

At the grocery store checkout line. 

In the shower where I hoped the water would drown it out. 

In the quiet of the house — too quiet now — where every tick of the clock seemed to sync with the metronome in my chest. 

By the end of the first week, I was barely sleeping. 

By the end of the second, I started hearing… something else. 

At first, it was a faint hiss between the beats. 

Like breath caught on the edge of a word. 

I ignored it. 

I told myself it was stress, or exhaustion, or guilt gnawing at the back of my skull. 

But then, one night, lying awake at 3:12 a.m., the heartbeat paused — just for a fraction of a second — and I heard a whisper: 

“You hear me.” 

I sat up so fast the room spun. 

“No,” I said aloud, because saying no made it feel less real. “No. No. No.” The heartbeat resumed. 

But now, there was a cadence to it. 

A rhythm I recognized. 

My mother used to tap her long, sharp nails on the countertop when she was angry. Slow at first. 

Then faster. 

Then faster still. 

THUD. THUD-THUD. THUD. 

My stomach twisted. 

I swallowed hard and forced myself to stand, turning on every light in the house. I walked room to room.

I peaked behind every curtain. 

I checked the locks twice. 

“I’m imagining this,” I told myself. “Trauma plays tricks.” 

But when I climbed back into bed, the heartbeat was waiting. 

And when it slowed to a low, deliberate pulse, the whisper returned. 

“You hear me now.” 

III. MEMORIES OF RESENTMENT 

I didn’t always hate her. 

Children rarely start out hating their parents. 

The hatred grows slowly — festered by fear, by shame, by the quiet kind of cruelty that stretches across a childhood like a shadow. 

My mother had a voice that could slice through walls. 

A temper that ignited without warning. 

But no bruises. 

No marks. 

Nothing anyone else could see. 

She was careful about that. 

She could twist a sentence into a blade sharper than any knife. 

“You’re ungrateful.” 

“I should have killed you when you were born.” 

“You ruined everything.” 

Things said in a calm, even voice. 

Things that burrowed under my skin and stayed there. 

I used to believe she loved me. 

In her way. 

In the same way a storm “loves” the coastline it erodes day after day.

But even then, I didn’t wish her dead. 

I didn’t. 

Not until it became too much— 

No. 

I couldn’t think about that. 

Not yet. 

IV. THE HEARTBEAT GROWS TEETH 

The voice started forming words more clearly in the third week. 

They weren’t full sentences, not yet — more like fragmented thoughts doused in static. But I could understand enough. 

Enough to know she was angry. 

Enough to know she wasn’t done with me. 

“Liar.” 

“Coward.” 

“Say it.” 

The heartbeat synced with the words, each beat a shove, each pause a demand. 

I tried distracting myself — long walks, loud music, anything to drown her out. But the heartbeat grew clever. 

It learned to hide behind external noise. 

It learned to whisper when I thought I was finally calm. 

I cracked. 

I found myself standing in the kitchen at two in the morning, slamming cabinets open and shut, shouting: 

“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” 

The house swallowed my voice.

Then, softly: 

“You know.” 

V. DENIAL IS ITS OWN PRISON 

I stopped going to work. 

Stopped answering texts. 

Stopped eating. 

My world shrank to the size of my chest cavity. 

Every beat was a reminder. 

Every silence was a threat. 

I tried to outrun it. 

Jogging until my lungs burned. 

But the heartbeat only grew louder, stronger — as if it fed on my panic. “Leave me alone,” I begged. 

THUD. 

“Please—” 

THUD. 

“Just let me forget!” 

THUD. THUD. THUD. 

“No.” 

VI. THAT NIGHT 

It was storming when it finally happened — the kind of storm that makes the power flicker and the windows rattle.

I was sitting on the floor of the living room, knees pulled to my chest, rocking, trying to match my breathing to anything other than the pounding in my ribs. 

The storm roared. 

The heartbeat roared louder. 

“Stop,” I whispered. 

“Stop, please—” 

The heartbeat didn’t stop. 

But it stuttered. 

Skipped. 

As if preparing. 

Then the voice pierced through, clear and cold: 

“Tell me.” 

“I can’t.” 

“TELL ME.” 

Lightning cracked. The room flashed white. 

“I DON’T WANT TO REMEMBER!” 

“REMEMBER.” 

The heartbeat slammed against my ribs so hard I gasped. 

I tried to stand but my knees buckled. 

And suddenly I was back on top of the stairway — not physically, but inside the memory I had spent so long burying. 

Her shouting. 

My terror. 

Her hand gripping my arm. 

The last moment where everything could have gone differently… if I hadn’t— “No,” I whispered, shaking. “No, no, no—” 

But memory is merciless.

And so is guilt. 

And so are mothers who do not stay dead. 

VII. CONFESSIONS 

“I killed her,” I whispered into the storm. 

The heartbeat slammed once, violently. 

“I killed my mother.” 

The pounding slowed. 

“I didn’t mean to—” 

My throat tightened. 

“I just… I couldn’t take it anymore. She wouldn’t stop. She said she wished I had never been born. She said I ruined her life. Every day. Every hour.” 

My vision blurred. 

“No, No, I…”  

“It was an accident. She grabbed me. I panicked. I pushed her. Harder than I meant to.” I swallowed the sob rising in my chest. 

“She fell. She didn’t get back up.” 

The house was silent except for the rain. 

And one single heartbeat. 

THUD. 

Then nothing. 

No pounding. 

No breath. 

No torment. 

I almost sank to the floor in relief. 

Until—

The voice returned. 

But now it was unmistakably hers. 

Not angry. 

Not broken. 

Icy. 

Triumphant. 

VIII. VENGENCE 

“You think I didn’t know?” she whispered. 

My blood froze solid. 

“You think I didn’t feel it?” 

A hollow echo rolled through my chest — a phantom heartbeat that wasn’t mine. 

“You didn’t just kill me,” she murmured. 

“You freed me.” 

Lightning flashed. 

Her voice slithered through the dark. 

“I always resented you.” 

My knees buckled. 

“From the moment I carried you.” 

A slow, deliberate pause. 

“You were a burden I never wanted.” 

Tears blurred my vision. 

I couldn’t breathe. 

“And now,” she said, voice soft as a poisoned lullaby, 

“you finally feel the truth.” 

The last ghostly heartbeat echoed in my ears— 

THUD.

And then she spoke one final time: 

“You don’t get to forget me.” 

— 

The house fell silent. 

Silent in the way a grave is silent. 

Silent in the way the last breath of the dying is silent. Silent in the way resentment can be eternal.