From the new column: Kingdoms and Diamonds about love, marriage, traversals, emotional health and healing.

There is a concert pianist—too keen-looking for comfort—and they say her fingers are losing their touch. My boys and my husband had to travel to the region anyway, so I asked them to see her perform, to take in some culture.

I’m stuck in a hotel room in Cairo until I get a little scratch to travel to another familial region. Yes, we have plenty of money, but my kids—they don’t want their parents to be “richy-rich.” I understand. He and I both come from middle-class upbringings. We didn’t have much, but we had grade school, and we started our careers early.

I still dream of him at twenty-three. He comes to me that way, even when he’s right next to me—still that young man. Our sons and daughters are spitting images. I suppose neither of us can forget our youth, those purer times.

Suffice it to say, I made it far in my career, and people try to say I am promiscuous. They say terrible things about him, too. I’ve always been devoted to my studies, so it hurts. It feels inescapable. I cross the world, and it seems people follow just to be cruel.

No complaints, I guess. We have a tribe, and an eldest son—a blessing from my previous marriage—who watches out for him. He watches out for me, for our children, for dozens—countless people—who are loyal to him. Lately, I feel I should be watching over him now.

It has been so many years of toil, of care, of observance, of kindness, of tenderness, of thoughtfulness—of asking people to help him keep me safe. Many times, they fail, and it is up to me and him.

Maybe that isn’t entirely true. But those closest have been failing, and here I am, holed up in a hotel room in Cairo, unable to see him drive past because I live in a circular marketplace. I look for him lightly, without expectation. I understand that in a dense city it cannot always be that way—that he arrives late, or in the afternoon, when I need sleep or need to work.

I am happy with my family, though. No one seems to believe it.

No one seems to believe it.