A suitcase, cheerful weekend bag, treats for the road and loose toys or a book in your hand: car in, car out and “mind your step” on the way to the departure halls. You may remember this scene from your own childhood. Jitters in your tummy from the adventure to come. My mother was not in a vacation mood that day; she was nervous, somber and absent-minded. But she was more often that way from the time she was with our new father. I was eight when she met him and my sister thirteen. He was from Egypt, the city of Alexandria. There couldn’t have been a greater contrast to how our mother lived before she met him. She stopped dancing and wearing her beautiful high-heeled shoes, she also stopped working and – suddenly – seemed to value family life more. He was Muslim and she immersed herself in its basics.