Shantel stood in front of her closet, eyeing her dresses with a mixture of fondness and frustration. Nothing seemed to fit quite right anymore—at least not the way it used to. Her belly, though not large, had started to curve just enough to make her fitted work dresses feel more snug than sleek. She ran her hands down the sides of a navy-blue wrap dress and sighed.
From the bed, Gilbert looked up from his tablet. "You've been standing there for ten minutes. You're glowing. Just pick something."
She glanced over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow. "That's easy for you to say. Your body isn't changing by the week."
"Fair point," he said, closing the tablet. "But you really do look beautiful. Like, ridiculously so."
Despite the distance between them that had quietly settled like dust on old furniture, Gilbert still said the right things. He still looked at her with something close to wonder, even when it came laced with guilt.
She gave him a half-smile. "Thanks."
In the end, she chose a soft green blouse and black maternity pants—her first real "mom" outfit, if she was being honest. She stared at herself in the mirror for a beat, pressing a hand gently to her stomach. There was life inside her. Movement. Change. And something about that made her feel more like herself than she had in months.
Gilbert came up behind her, rested his chin on her shoulder.
"You ready for your first day back?" he asked.
She nodded. "More than ready."
"Don't push yourself too hard."
"I won't," she said.
But she would. She always did.
Back at the Wellspring Hope Foundation office, Shantel was greeted like a returning queen. Lauren had come to help with the decoration of the staff lounge with a small "WELCOME BACK, MAMA!" banner at the persuasion of April because she thought the foundation needed to celebrate as well, and April brought in banana bread that was supposedly "pregnancy safe," though everyone suspected it was her regular recipe, just with the label changed.
"Look at you," Lauren said, hugging her tightly. "You've got the mama glow and everything now."
Shantel smiled. "It's mostly sweat. But thank you."
"Liar," April added, handing her a mug of ginger tea. "You look happier than you've looked in these few years."
And in a way, she was. Being back among her friends, her team, her clients, her cause—it grounded her. She spent the morning after the little celebration going over case updates, reviewing program progress, and approving new therapy partnerships. The hours flew by in a blur of purpose.
But the glow came with shadows.
Later that day, a new intake case came in. An eighteen-year-old girl named Elsie. The intake form was light on detail, but the words "assaulted by cousin" jumped off the page.
Shantel blinked. Her fingers froze on her keyboard. Her stomach knotted—not from pregnancy, but from something deeper. Something familiar.
She took a slow breath, then stood.
"I'll take this one," she told April.
"You sure? You just got back."
"I'm sure."
She stepped into the interview room, trying to gather herself. Elsie sat on the other side of the table, head down, eyes glassy. Her arms were crossed so tightly across her chest that it looked like she was trying to disappear into her skin.
Shantel sat down quietly.
"Hi, Elsie. I'm Shantel. You're safe here, okay?"
The young girl didn't look up.
Shantel waited. The silence wasn't a threat here—it was space. Space to breathe. To not be pushed.
After a few minutes, Elsie finally spoke. "He said it was my fault."
Shantel's heart broke clean in two.
"It wasn't," she said firmly. "It never is."
Elsie's lip trembled. "He said… I made him do it."
Shantel felt her vision blur, but she blinked it back. She couldn't let her own emotions leak into the room. She needed to be a wall. A shield.
"You did nothing wrong," she said. "And we're going to help you. All the way through this. You're not alone."
When she got home that night, Shantel didn't mention Elsie. She told Gilbert about the banner, the banana bread, and the laughter. But not the girl. Not the words that had cut her deeper than she expected.
She knew he was already carrying something. And even though she didn't know what it was, she didn't want to add to it.
Instead, they had dinner in front of the TV. Gilbert asked about the nursery paint colors again. Shantel gave vague answers. The conversation felt like two people on parallel tracks—talking, but not quite meeting.
When he went to bed early, she stayed on the couch.
And cried.
Over the next few weeks, the glow remained, but cracks began to form. Shantel was more involved than ever at Wellspring (Hope foundation)—leading weekly debriefings, organizing a survivor retreat, and speaking at a university panel about breaking cycles of trauma.
But with each powerful conversation came fragments of her own story, memories that surfaced quietly and uninvited.
There were moments—quick, sharp ones—where someone would say something, and it would be like flipping a switch inside her. Like the moment she walked past the supply closet and caught the scent of a cologne she couldn't name but instantly recognized. The way her chest tightened. The way her legs froze mid-step.
It didn't make sense. Nothing had happened to her—not like it did to these women.
Or had it?
She shoved the thought down hard and kept moving.