The silence Adams left behind in the kitchen was heavier than the scent of scorched soup. Mina stood frozen, the heat of her anger instantly doused by the icy wave of his retreat. The tap-scrape of his crutch faded down the marble hallway, a sound that carved a ravine right through the heart of the home.
Hajiya Zainab did not look at her. She turned back to the pot, her movements precise and dismissive. "See to the child," she said, her voice devoid of the earlier heat, now just coldly factual. "The noise is becoming a disturbance."
It was the final dismissal. Mina fled, the weight of the woman's disapproval a physical pressure on her back. She found Adams in their room, standing by the window, his back to her, his shoulders slumped in a posture of utter defeat. The crutch lay discarded on the floor.
"Adams," she whispered, her voice trembling.
"Don't," he said, the word choked, raw. "Just… don't."
He didn't need to elaborate. The unspoken words hung between them: She's right. I am a burden. A man who cannot provide doesn't get to defend his wife's honor. His shame was a fortress she couldn't penetrate.
The days that followed were an exercise in silent warfare. Mina, by nature, sought solace in quiet corners. She would take Trisha to the small, sun-drenched atrium at the back of the house, where they could be alone with a book. She ate quickly and offered to help clear the table, seeking an escape from the long, judgmental dinners.
To Hajiya Zainab, these weren't the actions of a thoughtful, overwhelmed young woman. They were slights. Deliberate insults.
One afternoon, Alhaji Ibrahim was showing Adams some financial documents in the study, a painful attempt to involve his son in the family's vast business holdings. The low murmur of their voices drifted into the living room where Mina sat, trying to interest Trisha in a soft toy.
Hajiya Zainab entered, her gaze sweeping over the scene. "Should you not be in there?" she asked, her tone deceptively mild. "A wife should be interested in her husband's affairs. Especially when his own are in such… disarray."
Mina looked up, startled. "I didn't want to intrude. It seemed like a private conversation."
"Private?" Hajiya Zainab gave a short, humorless laugh. "There are no privacies in a family. Only secrets. And secrets are like poison. Do you think you are above it all? Sitting out here in your silence, judging us?"
The accusation was so far from the truth it left Mina breathless. "I'm not judging anyone. I'm just… giving them space."
"Space," the older woman repeated, the word dripping with disdain. "We call it something else. We call it pride. Kunya. You think because you are quiet, you are better than the noise of this family? You think your ways are superior to ours?"
Mina could only stare, her mouth slightly agape. Her instinct to retreat, to process her emotions alone, was being interpreted as arrogance. Her silence was seen as a weapon.
"I don't think that," she finally managed. "I would never think that."
"Your actions speak differently," Hajiya Zainab said coolly. "A respectful daughter-in-law seeks out her mother's company. She learns the rhythms of the household. She does not hide like a mouse, waiting for her husband to bring her crumbs."
The criticism was a masterclass in cultural misinterpretation. Mina's introversion, her way of coping with overwhelming grief and stress, was being pathologized as rudeness.
The tension came to a head during a visit from Hajiya Zainab's circle of friends. The living room was filled with older women, resplendent in expensive hijabs and bubus, their conversation a lively mix of gossip and advice. Mina was introduced, and she offered a soft, polite "Hello, it's nice to meet you all," before settling into a corner chair with Trisha, hoping to observe and not offend.
One of the women, Hajiya Fatima, a formidable matriarch with sharp eyes, leaned forward. "So, you are the one from Lagos. Adams's wife. He always had such… modern tastes."
A few of the women tittered. Mina offered a tight smile. "Yes."
"And you are a teacher?" another asked.
"I was," Mina corrected gently. "Before the baby."
"A noble profession," Hajiya Fatima said, though her tone suggested otherwise. "But a man like Adams needs a wife who is a partner in all things. A social asset. Do you not enjoy entertaining? Hosting?"
Mina felt the eyes of every woman in the room on her. "I… I prefer smaller gatherings," she said honestly, her voice barely above a murmur.
Hajiya Zainab, who had been watching the exchange like a hawk, sighed dramatically. "She is very quiet. She finds our ways… loud." She said it with a wave of her hand, as if Mina's quietness was a personal criticism of them all.
Hajiya Fatima's eyebrows rose. "Quietness can be a virtue. But in a young wife, it can sometimes be mistaken for arrogance. As if she is too good to engage." She looked directly at Mina. "You must learn to come out of your shell, my dear. A tree that does not bend with the wind will snap."
The conversation moved on, leaving Mina feeling flayed open. She had said barely two sentences, and yet a verdict had been passed. She was arrogant. Snobbish. A bad fit for her husband's world.
That night, as she helped a maid clear the coffee cups, she heard Hajiya Zainab speaking to Aisha in the hallway, her voice carrying clearly.
"...just sits there. No effort to connect. It is as if we are not good enough for her. She looks down on us from her quiet little perch."
"But Mama," Aisha replied, her voice hesitant, "perhaps she is just shy? All this has been so hard on her."
"Hard?" Hajiya Zainab scoffed. "It has been hard on all of us! But we do not retreat into silence. We face our problems as a family. Her behavior is not shyness, Aisha. It is pride. And it is an insult to this household."
Mina froze, a delicate china cup trembling in her hand. An insult. Her every attempt to navigate this nightmare with grace was being twisted into a character flaw.
She retreated to their room, her heart pounding. Adams was already in bed, staring at the ceiling.
"Your mother thinks I'm arrogant," she blurted out, the words spilling from her in a pained whisper.
He didn't look at her. He just sighed, a long, weary sound. "Mina, not tonight."
"Did you hear what I said? She thinks I look down on them. On you."
"What do you want me to do?" he asked, his voice flat, exhausted. "Go to war with my mother in her own house? We are living on her charity. My charity ran out. Hers is all we have. Maybe… maybe you could try a little harder. Smile more. Talk to her friends."
The suggestion was a betrayal. He was asking her to fundamentally change who she was to appease a woman who had already decided to hate her.
"So my job is to perform gratitude?" she asked, her voice cracking. "To pretend to be someone I'm not to make our humiliation more palatable for them?"
"It's not about humiliation!" he snapped, finally turning to look at her, his eyes tormented. "It's about survival! Can't you see that? We have to play by their rules right now. And their rules require you to be… louder."
The chasm between them was now a mile wide and infinitely deep. He saw her quiet nature as a problem to be solved, a liability in their desperate bid for survival. She saw it as the last piece of her identity she had left, and he was asking her to surrender it.
She looked at her husband, the man who had once adored her thoughtful silences, who had called her his "quiet storm." Now, he saw only the storm she brought into his family's ordered world.
"Okay," she whispered, the fight draining out of her. "I'll try to be louder."
But as she turned away from him, she knew she couldn't. The performance would be a lie, and Hajiya Zainab, with her razor-sharp intuition for weakness, would see right through it. The stage was set for a conflict with no possible winner, and Mina was alone in the spotlight, expected to play a part she never learned.