The ceasefire after the kitchen confrontation was not a peace. It was a cold, brittle silence, broken only by the polite, poisonous exchanges that now defined life in the Dared compound. The house, once a sanctuary of quiet wealth, had become a minefield where every step, every word, could trigger an explosion.
Mina tried. For Adams's sake, she tried to be "louder." She forced herself to stay in the living room after dinner, perched on the edge of a silk-upholstered sofa, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She would nod along to conversations about people and business deals she didn't know, offering a strained smile that felt more like a grimace.
Hajiya Zainab watched her like a hawk from her regal armchair, her eyes missing nothing.
"You are quiet tonight, Mina," she remarked during one such evening, her needlepoint hovering in her hands. "I hope our conversation is not beneath you."
The room's chatter died down. All eyes turned to her.
"Not at all, Hajiya," Mina said, her voice too bright, too forced. "I'm just listening."
"Listening is good," Hajiya Zainab said, her smile not reaching her eyes. "A wise woman learns by listening. But a member of the family contributes. Or is that not how it is done in your family?"
The subtle dig at her upbringing was a masterstroke. Aisha looked down at her hands, uncomfortable. Tunde cleared his throat and took a sudden interest in his phone.
"My family is much smaller, that's all," Mina replied, her cheeks burning.
"Yes," Hajiya Zainab said, returning to her needlepoint. "I suppose they are."
The dismissal was absolute. Mina's attempt to engage had been framed as a deficiency. She had lost without even opening her mouth.
The passive aggression seeped into every corner of the house. Mina would come down in the morning to find the high chair she used for Trisha had been moved to a dark corner of the pantry, a heavier, more ornate—and utterly impractical—wooden one placed squarely in the breakfast nook.
"The other one was looking cluttered," Hajiya Zainab explained without looking up from the newspaper when Mina hesitantly asked. "This one is sturdier. More suitable for a Dared child."
It was too tall, and Trisha hated it, fussing through every meal until Mina gave up and fed her on her lap, earning a disapproving sigh from her mother-in-law.
One afternoon, Mina found the small, cherished photo album she'd salvaged from the flood—the one with pictures of her own parents, of her and Adams's humble wedding—missing from the bedside table. Panicked, she finally found it on a high shelf in the closet, tucked behind a stack of linens.
When she hesitantly approached Aisha about it later, her sister-in-law looked sheepish. "Mama said it looked… out of place. She said it might get damaged. She was just trying to help."
Help felt a lot like erasure.
The worst of it was Adams's absence. He was physically present, but he had retreated into a deep, impenetrable fog of despair. He spent hours in the study with his father, staring blankly at financial reports he had no power to influence, or he shut himself in their room, claiming his leg was paining him. He was a ghost haunting his own life, and Mina was haunting it beside him, utterly alone.
The breaking point of the cold war came over something seemingly trivial: a cup of tea.
Mina had developed a pounding headache, a constant companion from the unending stress. Remembering her mother's remedy, she went into the kitchen and asked the cook, a kind-eyed woman named Rakiya, if she could have some ginger.
"Of course, uwargida," Rakiya said softly, quickly peeling a knob of ginger for her.
Mina was at the stove, steeping the ginger in hot water, when Hajiya Zainab entered. She watched for a moment, her expression unreadable.
"What is that?" she asked.
"It's ginger tea," Mina explained. "For my headache."
Hajiya Zainab's lips pursed. "We have Panadol in the medicine cabinet. Modern medicine. There is no need for… village remedies." She walked to the cabinet, retrieved the packet, and placed it on the counter with a definitive click. "Use this."
It wasn't a suggestion. It was an order. A dismissal of her way, her mother's way, everything that was hers.
Something inside Mina, stretched to its absolute limit, snapped. She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to. Her voice was dangerously calm.
"The ginger is already steeping, Hajiya. I will use the Panadol if this doesn't work. Thank you."
She turned her back and picked up the kettle, pouring the hot water into her mug. The act of defiance was so small, so quiet, yet it echoed in the spotless kitchen like a gunshot.
Hajiya Zainab was not used to being disobeyed. Especially not in her own kitchen. Especially not by her.
"I said," Hajiya Zainab repeated, her voice dropping to a low, icy register, "we do not use such things in this house. It is… unhygienic. You will drink the Panadol."
Mina turned around, holding the steaming mug between her hands. She looked her mother-in-law directly in the eyes for the first time since she'd arrived.
"With all due respect," Mina said, her voice barely a whisper but crystal clear, "it is my head. And I will drink what I choose for my pain."
The two women stood frozen in a silent standoff. The air crackled with a tension so potent it felt like the room itself was holding its breath. This was no longer about tea. It was about territory. It was about autonomy. It was about the last shred of control Mina had over her own body and choices.
Hajiya Zainab's eyes widened slightly, a flicker of pure, unadulterated shock—and then fury—passing through them. She had been challenged. Directly. And in front of the help.
Without another word, Hajiya Zainab turned on her heel and walked out of the kitchen, her spine rigid.
Mina stood there, her heart hammering against her ribs, the mug trembling in her hands. She had won the battle. But as the cold certainty settled in her stomach, she knew she had just declared all-out war.
The consequences arrived within the hour. Adams found her in their room, the untouched mug of cold ginger tea on her bedside table.
"What did you say to my mother?" he asked, his voice strained. He looked exhausted, cornered.
"She told me I couldn't make ginger tea. I told her I could," Mina said, wearily.
"Mina, for God's sake!" he exploded, running a hand through his hair in frustration. "Was it worth it? Was a cup of damn tea worth making our situation here even harder?"
"It wasn't about the tea!" she shot back, her own frustration boiling over. "It was about her thinking she owns me! That she can tell me what to do, what to think, what to put in my own body! When are you going to stand up for me, Adams? When are you going to be my husband again instead of her ashamed son?"
The words hung in the air, brutal and true.
He flinched as if she'd struck him. The anger drained from his face, replaced by a hollow, wounded look. "You think I don't want to?" he whispered, his voice breaking. "You have no idea what it's like… to be me right now. Every day in this house is a funeral for the man I was. And you're asking me to pick a fight over tea."
He didn't wait for her answer. He turned and left, closing the door softly behind him.
Mina sank onto the bed, alone. She had drawn a line in the sand, but she was standing on it by herself. The cold war was over. The real war had begun. And as she listened to the oppressive silence of the house, she knew the next move was hers mother-in-law's, and it would be merciless.