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"Scrub up quicker, don't stand here chitchatting when you should be inside already." Nadia resisted the immense urge to roll her eyes at the attending surgeon who had suddenly gotten the job of an emergency ceaseran section. 

They were not chitchatting, they'd been in surgery since eight am, stood in a heart bypass surgery for seven hours, stepped into an amputation for another two hours before this emergency ceaseran section. Nadia tried to jog herself out of her tiredness as she scrubbed her hands furiously In the constantly sterilized aluminum sink near the operating theatre. 

"That's how he behaves, I hate to be on his surgical team." Nadia didn't respond, people like Dr Shu'aib liked to reduce their subordinates to nothing. They had put her on his surgical team all of a sudden and she could not complain, instead, she prayed for the three weeks she would spend as a surgical nurse under him not to end badly. 

"I'm not worried about him, I'm worried that I'll fall asleep in there. I've mentally clocked out." Her colleague, Folake, chuckled, knowing exactly what she meant by 'mental clock out'. They had all been at that point at one time or the other. 

"We'll be done in forty-five minutes. Let's go catch a baby." Nadia laughed at the innuendo and waited in line to wear her sterilized blue gown over the sterilized scrubs she'd worn that morning. She let the staff doing the fitting slide her tight gloves on as well. 

A few minutes later, they began to pass the attending surgeon the six inch scalpel he needed to cut deep. A ceaseran section was called a section because it truly was sectioning. A woman's body is very intricate and before the knife reached the womb sac where the baby was, it had to pass about six layers. 

Nadia shook her head as she watched the Dr Shu'aib cut deep and carelessly into the woman. She lifted up her hooded eyes and eyed him openly, knowing she was not allowed to say anything. She passed him another tiny steel knife and watched he cut to the layer where a sac filled with amniotic fluid was waiting. 

Suddenly, the woman's blood pressure rose and the machines in the room began to blare. "What happened?" The anesthesiologist worked a few knobs at the heart rate machine and the blaring stopped. Dr Shu'aib continued, using a spoon like steel equipment to bring out the baby still in it amniotic fluid sac. 

Nadia took the wiggling liquid baby and took it to the obstetrics nurse who was waiting. She returned to the surgrical site and watched as Dr Shu'aib threaded a needle.

"Excuse me sir?" Nadia called out, scared to the high heavens but she had to speak out. Using that thread would leave a huge scar, considering he already tore a large portion of her lower abdomen open. 

"Can we use dissolvable thread instead?" She saw the way Dr Shu'aib's eyes rose in what had been described to her as scorn. She'd heard of him doing that even as far away as Kano, but she never knew she would be subject of that scorn, but she didn't care. She just wanted another woman to have dissolvable stitches that would mean she could wear a bikini or lingerie without feeling self-conscious. 

"Excuse you," He spat out, his face becoming a twisted mess in his surgrical mask. "Nurse Muhammad Shinkafi, I do not believe in dissolvable stitches, for the record, I don't take advice from little surgical nurses. So, keep your suggestions to yourself." Nadia pursed her lips and took a step back, letting Folake help Dr Shu'aib hold the ends of the flesh together for sewing. 

"Sir?" Folake said, even as she held the flap ends of the woman's lower abdomen together. "It wouldn't hurt to try. She's going to be in pain from everything. Nobody deserves to have to come back to get this trauma stitches out later." Nadia nodded in agreement to Folake's words. 

"Hold this thing together, I need to get out of here!" Nadia took over from Folake and blinked tears at the pain the patient was going to feel immediately after waking. She wished she'd become a surgeon now more than ever, instead of a surgical nurse who could effect little change. 

They finished sewing her up about five minutes later, the baby had been sent off to NICU immediately after being born, it had choked on some amniotic fluid from a little birth trauma. 

"Folake and Nadia, see me immediately you scrub out." Nadia shut her eyes in resignation, tired to her bones and in anticipation of the talking down she would receive. 

"Don't take whatever he says to heart, he's a proud Buffon. He won't accept he was in any way remotely wrong, I don't know why a surgeon would not accept new methods." The anesthesiologist assistant said as they all scrubbed out at the huge aluminum sinks outside the theatre. 

"Nothing he says can faze me, he called Nurse Zulaiha a stupid fool in the first year I came here, she's now a charge Surgrical nurse in the united kingdom, so I dare say she was not stupid. He's still here as an attending surgeon, no promotion because of the number of casualties that fall out from him every year." Folake's words were a little malicious, but it had to be said. 

 Nadia dumped all the sterilized scrubs to be washed and changed into the mauve scrubs they wore as uniform.  She pulled on her hijab, tucked it into her scrubs and while scrolling through her phone waited for Folake who was obviously dragging her feet. 

"When we get there ehn," Folake said as she reached Nadia, she bent down to tie her black shoelaces. "Don't try to argue if you want us to leave there in twenty minutes, he deems nurses the problem of his career, so he'll try to talk down on us while we're there. Me I've perfected the art of sleeping while standing, so I'll be catching up on my sleep while I stand there."

Nadia was still in throes of laughter when she walked into Dr Shu'aib's office right after  Folake. They greeted him, he crunched on a fried turkey in response making Nadia think of the food she should have been eating. 

He put down the glass Tupperware that held the food and Nadia suddenly felt sorry for the woman married to him. This man turned off music when nurses listened to them as they worked, he seized their airpods of he found them listening to music or taking a quick call. Every nurse who had encountered him had a horror story, Nadia was sorry it was her own turn that day. 

He washed his hands at the sink and pointed at the both of them like a wicked uncle, Nadia and Folake took deep breaths and waited for the berating to begin. And, begin it did. 

An hour later, Nadia ran into the packed car park and UmmulKhair blinked the headlamps of her car to signal where she parked for Nadia to walk over there. Apologizing profusely to her cousin who had arrived some thirty minutes before while she received a good talking down to, she put her bag in the backseat and turned to enter the passenger seat where she apologized some more in Hausa; 

"I'm so sorry. Na iso, zamu iya tafiya." 

UmmulKhair nodded and immediately Nadia clasped her seatbelt, the twenty year old drove out of the parking lot unto the main expressway. She was fidgety until Nadia asked what the problem was. 

"Sarah was supposed to return from Kaduna on the train from Rigasa. We last heard from her about an hour ago, she said the train was stopped and she hasn't responded since. Before she left KD, she told me her battery was low, you know she likes to read," Nadia nodded, the only way to bribe her younger cousin Sarah was to buy her a good book, all sins were forgiven with a book. 

"I want to believe she's fine. We're better off praying for her safety other than worrying. Worrying will only make us slow." UmmulKhair nodded at her older cousin's words and stepped on the accelerator to hasten their journey back to the house. 

Just as they drove into the house, the gatekeeper, Salihu greeted them with so much joy tht Nadia frowned as UmmulKhair parked her car under the car port near the gate. 

The main door opened and the feared to be missing Sarah was there waving happily. Nadia sighed in happiness as the younger girl ran to her side and launched at her. 

"Daddy and Mummy have been trying to reach you. I got to the house an hour ago." Sarah said, panting slightly when she finished. 

"Alhamdulilah, you're back. What went wrong exactly?" Sarah shrugged as she took Nadia's bag and pulled it unto her dainty looking shoulder. The petite Shinkafi women's gene had some how missed Sarah and UmmulKhair since they were at least five feet eight inches tall each. 

"The train stopped, we heard some shooting and I ducked into the space between my chair and the next. After a few hours the train began to move again." Nadia shook her head at the tone Sarah was using to tell the story. Most people were already desensitized to the violence going on among them, it was no longer novel, more like commonplace. 

"I brought back a lot of Turkish Drama for us to watch. Ya Salma, you're taking us to Bleu Café on your next off, I'll text you people things to buy for our picnic. I need to create content for my TikTok." UmmulKhair hissed and walked into the house before them, the idea of helping Sarah create content the cause of her hiss. 

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"Wait, so her father ran away, left his children and wife with debt? Do people do this?" 

Nadia got up from the bed, sniffling to clear her blocked nose. Sarah liked the air-conditioning to be at the lowest temperature. The rest of the girls in the room suffered from the aftermath. 

"I've seen many patients transfer to public hospitals where they have to be on wait-lists when their husbands, most of the time should have just pitched in. The world is not a merry-go-round." Sarah tutted and burrowed further under the covers, causing UmmulKhair to slap her feet off. 

Nadia thought of a way to ask if they would be sleeping in her room as she blew her nose in the bathroom, only quelling the idea at the reflection of her red nose and watering eyes. They could stay, she truly wanted to bond with them and should take this opportunity. 

She fetched some piping hot water into a small bowl and lifted it to her face, feeling the steam unblock her nose, she suddenly felt better about her decision to not send her cousins out. What air-conditioning, they were sharing their home with her, it would be snobby of her try to sideline them not attempting to have a relationship with them. 

"Ya Nadia?" She hummed as response, seeing the other girls had picked up the Hijabs she threw their way during Mahgrib prayers. They lay out mats and waited till she wore her own Hijab, they stood at the same time, ready to pray. 

Afterwards, they sat to eat a pack of hot samosas, spring rolls and spicy chicken wings. "So, for my content creation." UmmulKhair hissed lowly again, only Nadia's low laughter could be heard. She suddenly choked on a spicy wing, stopping to clear her airways.

"Stop this content creation nonsense. It's not as if mummy is going to let you continue." Sarah put down the springroll in her hand, sullen. 

"Mummy said I could. As long as my grades don't drop, I have used my money to paint my side of my room at school, I did it up and my viewers like it. I don't know why you're so worried." UmmulKhair got up and walked away, slamming the door to Nadia's room. 

"What is wrong with her? Jealousy jealousy, I don't care, envy envy o, I don't care." Nadia narrowed her eyes at the younger girl who continued to eat as though she didn't just sing something. Causing Nadia to realize there was no malicious intent attached to her speech, it must have just rubbed UmmulKhair the wrong way. 

"Have you finished eating?" She asked Sarah, who nodded and walked to the bathroom to wash her hands. She returned a few seconds later to tumble into Nadia's bed. 

"Wait a moment for me, let me get this tray downstairs." Sarah nodded absentmindedly, she was fixated on the remote trying to remember the last place she watched. 

On the way down, she knocked on UmmulKhair's room. The door knob turned open easily, Nadia gave a sigh of thanks to the heavens. 

"Khair?" She called out softly, the tray she held hit the door and she steadied herself before moving again.  

"Naam." Was the soft response that made Nadia drop the metallic tray on the floor to sit beside her cousin on the two seater sofa where a soft nightlight showed the tracks of tears on her face. 

"Hey, hey. Don't cry. I'm sure Sarah didn't mean to hurt you." UmmulKhair sniffled and wiped her nose with a tissue Nadia didn't know she was holding. 

"I don't know about that, but this content creation thing I used to be the one who did it. I had a whole YouTube channel, with about a thousand followers. Then my mom came one midnight and asked me to delete it all. I did and now, Sarah has her permission to do the same things that got me beaten. It's bad enough that I was the test run child, the one who they-" She burst into more tears and for a moment, Nadia didn't know what to tell her. 

"Khair." She finally voiced out, patting her cousin's knee awkwardly. UmmulKhair sniffled again, then she picked up a bundle of tissue paper and blew her nose. 

"You know why I'm sad? My mom has never let me explain myself. All she says is, 'UmmulKhair, No!', 'You should set a good example for your siblings', 'What will people say', but Sarah does all these things and no one is going on and on about it. Why?" Nadia shook her head, but memories of her friend Amirah who used to cry in this manner over exacting standards seemed to be an opening for Nadia. 

"Khair?" Her cousin hummed, now calm and quiet, willing to listen. "Many times, when parents say no, it's not because they hate you. They're scared too, they've probably seen something somewhere else that got someone else into trouble and decided, 'none of my children would do this'. 

There is no parenting manual. I mean, they had you, did well at it and decided to have Sarah and the rest of your siblings. Imagine if they'd failed at raising you, they'd be scared to raise their voices. This however, isn't about them. It's about you. 

There's so much you're capable of, don't let two NOs dictate how your life should go from then on. If you can't have your own account, help Sarah build hers as a test-drive, find fulfilment in other things. Your power is with you, use it to the best way you can. Okay?" UmmulKhair shut her eyes in what seemed like deep thought until she opened them with such deep resolution in them. 

"I'll just start writing like I truly wanted to." Nadia let a smile widen her full lips, she nodded in approval. It was as though that dark overcast had finally blown away. 

"I need to get us some juice, can we go back to watching our series now?" Khair nodded, taking the tray from her cousin and walking out of her room with it. Nadia took a moment to herself, reveling in all the things she had said, but would never be able to put in action for herself. 

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Helloooo.

It's Friday nightttt. Welcome to a new chapter ☺️.

Did you see Nadia in a new light? Isn't she the quiet type? Please don't write her off. Take a second to take things from her own perspective.

Did you comment? Please 🥺 vote as well, we didn't get to 1k reads but a promise is a promise. There's another chapter after this.

Thank you to everyone who did their part to getting us to this point. I'm grateful, may God bless you all beyond measure, may God hear your prayers even when your lips cannot make the words.

See you in Chapter 4.

TheOmoope 💙❤️🥰