“You can head over now, ma’am,” he said.
* * *
I’d been inside the White House just once before, a couple of years earlier. Through Barack’s office at the Senate, I’d signed myself and Malia and Sasha up for a special tour being offered during one of our visits to Washington, figuring it’d be a fun thing to do. White House tours are generally self-guided, but this one involved being taken around by a White House curator, who walked a small group of us through its grand hallways and various public rooms.
We stared at the cut-glass chandeliers that dangled from the high ceiling of the East Room, where opulent balls and receptions were historically held, and inspected George Washington’s red cheeks and sober expression in the massive, gilt-framed portrait that hung on one wall. We learned, courtesy of our guide, that in the late eighteenth century First Lady Abigail Adams had used the giant space to hang her laundry and that decades later, during the Civil War, Union troops had temporarily been quartered there. A number of First Daughters’ weddings had taken place in the East Room. Abraham Lincoln’s and John F. Kennedy’s caskets had also lain there for viewing.
I could feel my mind sifting through all the various presidents that day, trying to match what I remembered from history classes with visions of the families who’d walked these actual halls. Malia, who was about eight at the time, seemed mostly awestruck by the size of the place, while Sasha, at five, was doing her best not to touch the many things that weren’t supposed to be touched. She gamely held it together as we moved from the East Room to the Green Room, which had delicate emerald-silk walls and came with a story about James Madison and the War of 1812, and the Blue Room, which had French furniture and came with a story about Grover Cleveland’s wedding, but when our guide asked if we’d now please follow him to the Red Room, Sasha looked up at me and blurted, in the unquiet voice of an aggrieved kindergartner, “Oh nooo, not another ROOM!” I quickly shushed her and gave her the mother-look that said, “Do not embarrass me.”
But who, honestly, could blame her? It’s a huge place, the White House, with 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, and 28 fireplaces spread out over six floors, all of it stuffed with more history than any single tour could begin to cover. It was frankly hard to imagine real life happening there. Somewhere on the level below, government employees flowed in and out of the building, while somewhere above, the president and First Lady lived with their Scottish terriers in the family residence. But we were standing then in a different area of the house, the frozen-in-time, museum-like part of the place, where symbolism lived and mattered, where the country’s old bones were on display.
Two years later, I was arriving all over again, this time through a different door and with Barack. We were now going to see the place as our soon-to-be home.
President and Mrs. Bush greeted us at the Diplomatic Reception Room, just off the South Lawn. The First Lady clasped my hand warmly. “Please call me Laura,” she said. Her husband was just as welcoming, possessing a magnanimous Texas spirit that seemed to override any political hard feelings. Throughout the campaign, Barack had criticized the president’s leadership frequently and in detail, promising voters he would fix the many things he viewed as mistakes. Bush, as a Republican, had naturally supported John McCain’s candidacy. But he’d also vowed to make this the smoothest presidential transition in history, instructing every department in the executive branch to prepare briefing binders for the incoming administration. Even on the First Lady’s side, staffers were putting together contact lists, calendars, and sample correspondence to help me find my footing when it came to the social obligations that came with the title. There was kindness running beneath all of it, a genuine love of country that I will always appreciate and admire.
Though President Bush mentioned nothing directly, I swore I could see the first traces of relief on his face, knowing that his tenure was almost finished, that he’d run the race and could soon head home to Texas. It was time to let the next president through the door.
While our husbands walked off to the Oval Office to have a talk, Laura led me to the private wood-paneled elevator reserved for the First Family, which was operated by a gentlemanly African American in a tuxedo.
As we rode two floors up to the family residence, Laura asked how Sasha and Malia were doing. She was sixty-two years old then and had parented two older daughters while in the White House. A former schoolteacher and librarian, she’d used her platform as First Lady to promote education and advocate for teachers. She inspected me with warm blue eyes.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“A little overwhelmed,” I admitted.
She smiled with what felt like real compassion. “I know. Trust me, I do.”
In the moment, I wasn’t able to fully apprehend the significance of what she was saying, but later I would think of it often: Barack and I were joining a strange and very small society made up of the Clintons, the Carters, two sets of Bushes, Nancy Reagan, and Betty Ford. These were the only people on earth who knew what Barack and I were facing, who’d experienced firsthand the unique delights and hardships of life in the White House. As different as we all were, we’d always share this bond.
Laura walked me through the residence, showing me room upon room upon room. The private area of the White House occupies about twenty thousand square feet on the top two stories of the main historical structure—the one you’d recognize from photos with its iconic white pillars. I saw the dining room where First Families ate their meals and popped my head into the tidy kitchen, where a culinary staff was already at work on dinner. I saw the guest quarters on the top floor, scouting them out as a possible place my mother could live, if we could manage to talk her into moving in with us. (There was a small gym up there as well, which was the place both Barack and President Bush got most excited about during the guys’ version of the tour.) I was most interested in checking out the two bedrooms that I thought would work best for Sasha and Malia, just down the hall from the master bedroom.
For me, the girls’ sense of comfort and home was key. If we pared back all the pomp and circumstance—the fairy-tale unreality of moving into a big house that came with chefs, a bowling alley, and a swimming pool—what Barack and I were doing was something no parent really wants to do: yanking our kids midyear out of a school they loved, taking them away from their friends, and plopping them into a new home and new school without a whole lot of notice. I was preoccupied by this thought, though I was also comforted by the knowledge that other mothers and children had successfully done this before.
Laura took me into a pretty, light-filled room off the master bedroom that was traditionally used as the First Lady’s dressing room. She pointed out the view of the Rose Garden and the Oval Office through the window, adding that it gave her comfort to be able to look out and sometimes get a sense of what her husband was doing. Hillary Clinton, she said, had shown her this same view when she’d first come to visit the White House eight years earlier. And eight years before that, her mother-in-law, Barbara Bush, had pointed out the view to Hillary. I looked out the window, reminded that I was part of a humble continuum.
In the coming months, I’d feel the power of connection to these other women. Hillary graciously shared wisdom over the phone, walking me through her experience picking out a school for Chelsea. I had a meeting with Rosalynn Carter and a phone call with Nancy Reagan, both women warm and offering support. And Laura kindly invited me to return with Sasha and Malia a couple of weeks after that first visit, on a day when her own girls, Jenna and Barbara, could be there to introduce my kids to the “fun parts” of the White House, showing them everything from the plush seats of the in-house movie theater to how to slide down a sloping hallway on the top floor.
This was all heartening. I already looked forward to the day I could pass whatever wisdom I picked up to the next First Lady in line.
* * *
We
ended up moving to Washington right after our traditional Christmas holiday in Hawaii so that Sasha and Malia could start school just as their new classmates were coming back from winter break. It was still about three weeks ahead of the inauguration, which meant that we had to make temporary arrangements, renting rooms on the top floor of the Hay-Adams hotel in the center of the city. Our rooms overlooked Lafayette Square and the North Lawn of the White House, where we could see the grandstand and metal bleachers being set up in preparation for the inaugural parade. On a building across from the hotel, someone had hung a massive banner that read, “Welcome Malia and Sasha.” I choked up a little at the sight.
After a lot of research, two visits, and many conversations, we’d opted to enroll our daughters at Sidwell Friends, a private Quaker school with an excellent reputation. Sasha would be a second grader in the lower school, which was located in suburban Bethesda, Maryland, and Malia would attend fifth grade on the main campus, which sat on a quiet block just a few miles north of the White House. Both kids would need to commute by motorcade, escorted by a group of armed Secret Service agents, some of whom would also remain posted outside their classroom doors and follow them to every recess, playdate, and sports practice.
We lived in a kind of bubble now, sealed off at least partially from the everyday world. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d run an errand by myself or walked in a park just for fun. All movements first required a discussion about both security and schedule. The bubble had formed around us slowly over the course of the campaign as Barack’s notoriety grew and as it became more necessary to put boundaries up between us and the general public—and, in some instances, between us and our friends and family members. It was odd, being in the bubble, and not a feeling I particularly enjoyed, but I also understood it was for the best. With a regular police escort, our vehicles no longer stopped at traffic lights. We rarely walked in or out of a building’s front door when we could be rushed through a service entrance or loading dock on a side street. From the Secret Service’s point of view, the less visible we could be, the better.
I held on to a hope that Sasha and Malia’s bubble might be different, that they could remain safe but not contained, that their range would be greater than ours. I wanted them to make friends, real friends—to find kids who liked them for reasons other than that they were Barack Obama’s daughters. I wanted them to learn, to have adventures, to make mistakes and bounce back. I hoped that school for them would be a kind of shelter, a place to be themselves. Sidwell Friends appealed to us for a lot of reasons, including the fact that it was the school Chelsea Clinton had attended when her father was president. The staff knew how to safeguard the privacy of high-profile students and had already made the sorts of security accommodations that would now be needed for Malia and Sasha, which meant we wouldn’t be too big a drain on the school’s resources. Above all, I liked the feel of the place. The Quaker philosophy was all about community, built around the idea that no one individual should be prized over another, which seemed to me like a healthy counterbalance to the big fuss that now surrounded their father.
On the first day of school, Barack and I ate an early breakfast in our hotel suite with Malia and Sasha before helping them into their winter coats. Barack couldn’t help but to offer bits of advice about surviving a first day at a new school (keep smiling, be kind, listen to your teachers), adding finally, as the two girls donned their purple backpacks, “And definitely don’t pick your noses!”
My mother joined us in the hallway, and we took an elevator downstairs.
Outside the hotel, the Secret Service had erected a security tent, meant to keep us out of sight of the photographers and television crews who’d posted themselves by the entrance, hungry for images of our family in transition. Having arrived only the night before from Chicago, Barack was hoping to ride all the way to school with the girls, but he knew it would create too much of a scene. His motorcade was too big. He’d become too heavy. I could read the pain of this in his face as Sasha and Malia hugged him good-bye.
My mom and I then accompanied the girls in what would become their new form of school bus—a black SUV with smoked windows made of bulletproof glass. I tried that morning to model confidence, smiling and joking with the kids. Inside, however, I felt a thrumming nervousness, that sense of inching perpetually farther out on a limb. We arrived first at the upper school campus, where Malia and I hustled past a gauntlet of news cameras and into the building, the two of us flanked by Secret Service agents. After I delivered Malia to her new teacher, the motorcade took us to Bethesda, where I repeated the routine with little Sasha, releasing her into a sweet classroom with low tables and wide windows—what I prayed would be a safe and happy place.
I returned to the motorcade and rode back to the Hay-Adams, ensconced in my bubble. I had a busy day ahead, every minute of it scheduled with meetings, but my mind would stay locked on our daughters. What kind of day were they having? What were they eating? Were they being gawked at or made to feel at home? I’d later see a media photo of Sasha taken during the morning trip to school, one that brought me to tears. I believe it was snapped as I was dropping off Malia, while Sasha waited in the car with my mom. She had her round little face pressed up against the window of the SUV and was staring outward, wide-eyed and pensive, taking in the sight of photographers and onlookers, her thoughts unreadable but her expression sober.
We were asking so much of them. I sat with that thought not just for that entire day but for months and years to come.
* * *
The pace of the transition never slowed. I was bombarded with hundreds of decisions, all of them evidently urgent. I was supposed to pick out everything from bath towels and toothpaste to dish soap and beer for the White House residence, choose my outfits for the inauguration ceremony and fancy balls that would follow it, and figure out logistics for the 150 or so of our close friends and relatives who’d be coming from out of town as our guests. I delegated what I could to Melissa and other members of my transition team. We also hired Michael Smith, a talented interior designer we’d found through a Chicago friend, to help us with furnishing and redecorating the residence and the Oval Office.
The president-elect, I learned, is given access to $100,000 in federal funds to help with moving and redecorating, but Barack insisted that we pay for everything ourselves, using what we’d saved from his book royalties. As long as I’ve known him, he’s been this way: extra-vigilant when it comes to matters of money and ethics, holding himself to a higher standard than even what’s dictated by law. There’s an age-old maxim in the black community: You’ve got to be twice as good to get half as far. As the first African American family in the White House, we were being viewed as representatives of our race. Any error or lapse in judgment, we knew, would be magnified, read as something more than what it was.
In general, I was less interested in the redecorating and inauguration planning than I was in figuring out what I could do with my new role. As I saw it, I didn’t actually have to do anything. No job description meant no job requirements, and this gave me the freedom to choose my agenda. I wanted to ensure any effort I made helped advance the new administration’s larger goals.
To my great relief, both our kids came home happy after the first day of school, and the second, and the third. Sasha brought back homework, which she’d never had before. Malia was already signed up to sing in a middle school choral concert. They reported that kids in other grades sometimes did a double take when they saw them, but everyone was nice. Each day afterward, the motorcade ride to Sidwell Friends felt a little more routine. After about a week, the girls felt comfortable enough to start traveling to school without me, swapping my mother in as their regular escort, which automatically made drop-offs and pickups a bit less of a production, involving fewer agents, vehicles, and guns.
My mother hadn’t wanted to come with us to Washington, but I’d forced the issue. The girls nee
ded her. I needed her. I liked to believe that she needed us, too. For the last few years, she’d been a nearly every-day presence in our lives, her practicality a salve to everyone’s worries. At seventy-one, though, she’d never lived anywhere but Chicago. She was reluctant to leave the South Side and her home on Euclid Avenue. (“I love those people, but I love my own house,” she told a reporter after the election, not mincing any words. “The White House reminds me of a museum and it’s like, how do you sleep in a museum?”)
I tried to explain that if she moved to Washington, she’d meet all sorts of interesting people, wouldn’t have to cook or clean for herself anymore, and would have more room on the top floor of the White House than she’d ever had at home. None of this was meaningful to her. My mother was impervious to all manner of glamour and hype.
I’d finally called Craig. “You’ve got to talk to Mom for me,” I said. “Please get her on board with this.”
Somehow that worked. Craig was good at strong-arming when he needed to be.
My mother would end up staying with us in Washington for the next eight years, but at the time she claimed the move was temporary, that she’d stay only until the girls got settled. She also refused to get put into any bubble. She declined Secret Service protection and avoided the media in order to keep her profile low and her footprint light. She’d charm the White House housekeeping staff by insisting on doing her own laundry, and for years to come, she’d slip in and out of the residence as she pleased, walking out the gates and over to the nearest CVS or Filene’s Basement when she needed something, making new friends and meeting them out regularly for lunch. Anytime a stranger commented that she looked exactly like Michelle Obama’s mother, she’d just give a polite shrug and say, “Yeah, I get that a lot,” before carrying on with her business. As she always had, my mother did things her own way.
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