(Mina's POV)
The pain was a living thing, a monstrous wave that rose from the depths of her being to crash over her with brutal, unrelenting force. The cries that tore from her throat were not her own; they were primal, guttural sounds, as though her very bones were being splintered and remade. Mina clutched the thin, starch-stiff bedsheet, her knuckles bleaching white with the strain, sweat plastering her hair to her temples and dripping into her eyes. The dim yellow bulb overhead flickered inconsistently, throwing jumpy, uneven shadows across the cramped, functional space of the public maternity ward, making the world feel unstable, a tilting ship in a storm.
"Breathe, Mina! Breathe!" the nurse urged from somewhere near her feet, her voice a strained mix of professional command and desperate prayer.
"I am-I am trying," Mina gasped out, the words fracturing into a moan as another contraction seized her, stealing the air from her lungs.
Through the blur of tears and agony, her vision swimming, she searched for him, her anchor in the tempest. Adams was right there at her side, his large hand clasping hers so tightly she could feel the fine bones grind together, but the pressure was a comfort, a tether to reality. His face was drawn, pale under the harsh light, but his gaze was steady, fixed on her. She saw the raw, undisguised terror in his eyes, though he was visibly trying to mask it for her sake. His thumb, slightly rough, brushed across her damp forehead in a rhythmic, grounding stroke just as another seismic contraction ripped through her, pulling a ragged scream from her throat.
"You're so strong," he whispered, his voice husky and breaking with a kind of reverent awe. "You're stronger than anyone I've ever known."
A bitter, breathless laugh escaped her lips even through the overwhelming agony. "You-you said that last time I burned the jollof rice."
"This time," he said, his voice gaining a firm, emotional intensity, "I mean it with my entire soul." His grip on her hand tightened, a promise. "You can do this, Mina. For us. For her."
Her. The word, a single, powerful syllable, cut through the fog of pain. It was a lifeline. It gave her a strength she didn't know she possessed.
(Adams's POV)
He had never in his life felt so utterly, completely helpless. Multi-million naira deals, high-stakes negotiations, brutal corporate battles in air-conditioned boardrooms-he knew how to win those wars. He had a playbook, a strategy, a language for it. But this? Watching the woman he loved more than life itself writhe and scream in primordial pain, knowing he could do nothing to take it from her, to bear it for her-it shredded something fundamental inside him. Each of her cries was a knife twisting in his gut.
"Push, Mama, push! Now! Don't stop!" the midwife barked, her voice sharp with focused energy.
Mina's scream that followed was a sound that would be seared into his memory forever, a raw, tearing sound that seemed to rip through the very fabric of the room. He bent close to her, his lips near her ear, whispering fiercely, desperately, "I'm here. I'm right here. I'm not leaving you. Never."
Minutes stretched into what felt like hours, a tortuous eternity measured in her labored breaths and pained grunts. But then-suddenly, miraculously-the oppressive air of the room split with a new, entirely different sound. A thin, piercing, indignant cry that silenced every other noise, a tiny siren announcing a monumental arrival.
Adams froze, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. The nurse lifted a tiny, wriggling, bluish-purple form into the air, a creature coated in the raw, visceral evidence of birth but vibrantly, gloriously alive.
"A girl," the nurse announced, her previously stern voice softening into genuine warmth. "Congratulations. You have a beautiful daughter."
Something broke inside him then. The dam of controlled emotion he'd been maintaining shattered completely. His knees nearly buckled beneath him. He covered his face with his free hand, a ragged, uncontrollable sob tearing through his chest. A daughter. His daughter. The words echoed in his soul, rewriting his entire understanding of the world.
(Mina's POV)
The warm, astonishing weight of the child was placed on her chest, skin to skin. Mina looked down, her entire body trembling with exhaustion and euphoria, and the chaotic world stilled into a single, perfect point of focus. A tiny, perfect mouth opened in a silent protest before issuing another mewling cry, miniature fists curled tight as if ready to fight the world already. The child's skin against hers smelled of something ancient and new all at once-of earth and blood and heaven.
"She's... so beautiful," Mina whispered, her voice cracking, her tears spilling freely now, mingling with the sweat on her face. They were tears of relief, of awe, of a love so immediate and ferocious it was terrifying.
"She's everything," Adams breathed, leaning over them, his own face wet with tears he made no attempt to hide. His lips trembled as they brushed a feather-light kiss against their daughter's damp head. "She's absolutely perfect. Just like her mother."
Mina looked up at him, really looked at him-this powerful man brought to his knees by the miracle of their child-and in that moment, sweat-soaked, exhausted, and trembling, she had never loved him more profoundly.
"What will we call her?" she asked softly, though in her heart, she already knew the answer they had whispered to each other in the dark.
Adams's eyes, red-rimmed and shining with unshed tears, met hers, and he said it as if bestowing a crown. "Trisha."
The name rolled off his tongue not just as a name, but as a sacred promise, a fervent prayer for her future.
(Later – At Home)
The flat was small, its walls thin, but for days afterward, it pulsed with a palpable, radiant joy. Family and well-wishers streamed in and out, bringing gifts wrapped in colorful paper and filling the space with laughter and boisterous conversation. Mina's younger siblings crowded around the woven bassinet, jostling for a glimpse of their new niece. Even a few of Adams's more open-minded cousins came, bringing lavish trays of food that crowded their small kitchen table. For a brief, golden moment, the usual whispers of disapproval and class division were drowned out by the universal language of celebration and a new life.
Auntie Saada, Mina's eldest and most pragmatic sister, lifted the sleeping baby gently and chuckled, a rare sound of pure delight. "Ah, see how she already grips my finger with such strength? This one, I can tell, will be stubborn. She will know her own mind."
"She gets that entirely from her mother," Adams said, grinning from his seat beside Mina, his chest puffed out with unmistakable pride.
Mina rolled her eyes but couldn't suppress her own beaming smile, her heart swelling until it felt too big for her chest as she watched him, this formidable businessman, cradle their tiny daughter like the most fragile and precious treasure on earth.
For the first time in months, a robust, resilient hope filled their home. Not the fragile, tentative kind that feared the next gust of wind-but a hope that hummed in every corner, in every breath, in the very walls themselves.
(Adams's POV – Alone with Trisha)
Later that night, when the noise and excitement had finally faded and Mina had fallen into a deep, deserved sleep in the other room, Adams sat in the dim glow of a single lamp with Trisha cradled in the crook of his arm. She was swaddled tightly in a soft cotton blanket, a tiny bundle of contentment, her miniature chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm against him.
He traced the impossibly soft, perfect outline of her cheek with a trembling finger, his heart aching with a love so vast it was dizzying. "Trisha," he whispered into the quiet, his voice breaking with the weight of the vow he was making. "You are my true beginning. My second chance to get life right."
The words were a silent oath sworn to the night, a commitment etched onto his soul.
But beneath the overwhelming tenderness, a colder, sharper thought stirred like a shadow in the periphery of his mind-the memory of his mother's face, cold and sharp and unforgiving. He knew, with a chilling certainty that settled in his gut, that she would come. She always did, eventually. And when she did, when her calculating gaze fell upon this perfect, vulnerable child, would this fragile, hard-won happiness they had built be strong enough to survive? Would his arms be enough to shield them?
He held his daughter closer, a little tighter, as if his will alone could form an impenetrable barrier between her and the world's cruelties.