One Saturday, April invited her and Lauren to a prenatal yoga class. It was full of belly-heavy women in stretchy clothes laughing about back pain and bladder problems.
Shantel tried to blend in but felt slightly removed from the joy. She followed the stretches and smiled when appropriate, but when the instructor asked everyone to place a hand over their heart and one over their womb and whisper "thank you" to their baby… her breath caught.
She couldn't say it. The words wouldn't come.
Later, April noticed.
"You went quiet at the end there," she said, as they changed back into regular clothes.
"Just tired," Shantel lied.
"You sure?" Lauren asked, noticing the change as well.
Shantel nodded. "Yeah. I'm good."
They both nodded in understanding, but didn't believe her.
At home, Gilbert watched her more closely now. He could sense the change, too. The way she sometimes zoned out mid-sentence. The way she flinched ever so slightly when he touched her stomach. The way her smile didn't always reach her eyes anymore.
But he didn't ask.
Because to ask would be to invite whatever worries she was facing forward.
And he wasn't sure he could hold both his and hers at the same time.
One evening, they were sorting through baby gifts when Shantel pulled out a soft pink onesie that read "Mommy's Little Light."
She stared at it for a long time. Too long.
Gilbert looked over. "What is it?"
She shook her head. "Nothing. Just... hormones."
He didn't press.
Then, she folded the onesie and put it away quietly.
The next morning, Shantel stood under the shower, arms wrapped around herself.
It wasn't the pregnancy that scared her.
It was what was surfacing.
Memories.
Fragments of it. She didn't know when it started surfacing or how.
They just spring up on her unannounced. Sometimes, they were things she feared she'd buried deep down somewhere in her memory. And that it surfacing would take her to a place she never wished she would ever go to.
Her hand pressed flat against the tile, her breath heavy.
She wanted to tell Gilbert.
But she couldn't yet.
Because what if saying it out loud changed everything?
What if she couldn't confront the truth?
Later that day, she wrote in her journal—a habit she'd taken up again since the pregnancy. At the top of the page, she wrote:
"I'm afraid that the more I love this child, the more I'll end up hating it, should things turn south. And I don't know if I can survive that."
She closed the journal.
And locked it in her drawer.
That night, she and Gilbert lay side by side, their backs turned against each other. Not from anger, but from silence. Both carrying a weight they refused to name or share with the other.
"Gil?" she whispered.
"Yeah?" Gilbert responded, barely above a whisper.
"If something was wrong..., would you tell me?"
There was a pause.
"Of course," he said.
She turned to him. But he didn't turn back.
"Would you?" she asked again.
He exhaled, answering her question with one of his own, "Would you?"
The silence that followed was loud. Drowning the both of them in it that they didn't even know when sleep took over them.
The scent of whisky and cologne hung thick in the air.
Laughter echoed from the ballroom, music swelled somewhere in the background—muffled jazz, rich and low. The chandeliers flickered like fireflies, casting a golden sheen over the marble floors and expensive shoes.
Shantel smiled politely, nodding as she clinked glasses with someone just outside the main doors. The man's face was shadowed, his voice too smooth. She knew him—didn't she? The way he leaned in, the way his gaze scanned her dress instead of her eyes—it all felt familiar and wrong.
She tried to respond, to excuse herself, but the words tangled in her throat.
Then—
Darkness.
Her head swam. The glass in her hand felt suddenly too heavy. Her chest tightened. The hallway spun. Somewhere distant, she heard someone laugh.
When her eyes opened again, she wasn't in the ballroom.
She was on a bed.
Not hers.
A hotel room, maybe. The curtains were drawn. Her dress was still on, rumpled. Her heels lay on the floor. One strap of her dress had slipped slightly. The air felt heavy. Silent.
Her mouth was dry.
There was someone beside her.
Not moving. Not touching. But there.
She didn't turn to look. Couldn't.
She pushed herself upright, her head throbbing, her hands trembling as she pulled the strap back over her shoulder.
Nothing made sense.
Her voice cracked as she whispered, "No. I don't believe this happened to me."
Shantel woke with a jolt, a cold sweat clinging to her skin.
Her chest heaved. She blinked hard at the ceiling, her mind struggling to ground itself in the now—in the safety of her bedroom.
She touched her stomach, feeling the slight rise there. The baby. The reason everything was supposed to feel complete.
But instead, the dream—no, the memory—was creeping closer than ever.
And she didn't know how much longer she could ignore it.
The next morning, Shantel felt heavy for the first time. She went about her morning duties as usual, but you could notice that she was dragging her feet. Not from pregnancy.
She walked to the counter to make coffee, and Gilbert came down to meet her zooned out. For a few minutes, he started at her. He didn't call out to her immediately. He just stared at how physically detached she looked.
Shantel was still thinking about the nightmare yesterday. She couldn't rap her head around it. But she somehow knew that whatever it was, it wasn't going to be for a good course.
She blinked back to the present, her hand tightening around the edge of the kitchen counter. The kettle had boiled over slightly. Water hissed against the metal plate of the stove.
She moved on autopilot, pouring it over her tea leaves. Her fingers trembled slightly.
Gilbert finally called out to her, pretending to have just walked into the kitchen. "You, okay?" he buttoned his shirt and looked up at her, smiling fleetly.
"Yeah," she said. "Just tired."
He leaned in, kissed her temple, and reached for his bag.
"I might be late tonight," he added. "Finalizing the proposal with Isaac."
Shantel nodded. "No problem."
He left. The door clicked shut behind him.
And she exhaled like she'd been holding her breath for three days.
She didn't want to think about that night. Not again.
But it wouldn't let her go.
The moment had stayed buried for a while, eclipsed by the joy of the pregnancy, the pace of the work at the foundation, the everyday rhythm of life. But now that she was slowing down—now that her body demanded more stillness—her mind had space to remember.
And it did.
In pieces. In waves.
She found herself rewriting the moment in little fragments in her head, like an adult playing with a kid. It was like anytime she felt she was almost there, the memory vanished and appeared miles away from her.
Sometimes, she imagined how she should just scream those memories out of her mind. Louder. Maybe even beat it out of her head, if she could.
But she just couldn't.
Because power doesn't always come with violence. Sometimes it comes with a suit and a smile, and a comment meant to remind you where you stand.
She hadn't told Gilbert anything about all this because she didn't want to "make a thing" out of it. Not when he was busy with all the office work, his new promotion, her, and this pregnancy. Not when he'd waited so long for this bundle of happiness.
Later that week, Shantel sat in on a training session at Wellspring Hope Foundation. April was leading a discussion with new volunteers about "covert coercion"—how manipulation doesn't always look like bruises or broken doors. How control sometimes shows up in words. In silence. In subtle shifts of power.
Shantel sat in the back, her notebook open but blank.
One volunteer raised her hand. "So, what should someone do if the abuser is someone respected? Like a teacher. A boss. Someone with status?"
April didn't hesitate. "That's when it gets hardest. That's when shame works overtime to silence you."
Shantel looked down at her hands.