by how much work there was to be done. He was dreading the thought of leaving me and the girls for long stretches, he said, but he also kept reminding me of how secure our love was. “We can handle this, right?” he said, holding my hand one night as we sat in his upstairs study and finally began to really talk about it. “We’re strong and we’re smart, and so are our kids. We’ll be just fine. We can afford this.” What he meant was yes, a


campaign would be costly. There were things we’d give up—time, togetherness, our privacy. It was too early to predict exactly how much would be required, but surely it would be a lot. For me, it was like spending money without know- ing your bank balance. How much resilience did we have? What was our limit? What would be left in the end? The uncertainty alone felt like a threat, a thing that could drown us. I’d been raised, after all, in a family that believed in forethought—that ran fire drills at home and showed up early to everything. Growing up in a working-class community and with a disabled parent, I’d learned that planning and vigilance mattered a lot. It could mean the difference between stability and poverty. The margins always felt narrow. One missed paycheck could leave you without electricity; one missed homework assignment could put you behind and possibly out of college. Having lost a fifth-grade class-


mate to a house fire, having watched Suzanne die before she’d had a chance to really be an adult, I’d learned that the world could be brutal and random, that hard work didn’t always assure positive outcomes. My sense of this would only grow in the future, but even now, sitting in our quiet brick home on our quiet street, I couldn’t help but want to protect what we had—to look after our girls and forget the rest, at least until they’d grown up a bit more.


A


nd yet there was a flip side to this, and Barack and I both knew it well. We’d watched the devastation of Katrina from our privileged remove. We’d seen parents hoisting their babies above floodwa-


ters and African American families trying to hold themselves together in the dehumanising depravity that existed in the Superdome [stadium


which sheltered those displaced by the hurricane]. My various jobs had helped me see how hard it could be for some people to secure things like basic healthcare and housing. I’d seen the flimsy line that separated getting by and going under. Barack, for his part, had spent plenty of time listening to laid-off factory workers, young military veterans trying to manage lifelong disabilities, moth- ers fed up with sending their kids to poorly functioning schools. We understood, in other words, how ridiculously fortunate we were, and we both felt an obligation not to be complacent. Knowing that I really had no choice


but to consider it, I finally opened the door and allowed the possibil- ity of this thing inside. Barack and I talked the idea through, not once, but many times, right up to and through our Christmas trip to Hawaii. Some of our conversations were angry and tearful, some of them earnest and positive. It was the extension of a dialogue we’d been having over 17 years already. Who were we? What mattered to us? What could we do?


to endure everything that would make it hard, and the rare degree of empathy that would keep him tuned carefully to the country’s needs. He was also surrounded by good, smart people who were ready to help. Who was I to stop him? How could I put my own needs, and even those of our girls, in front of the possibility that Barack could be the kind of president who helped make life better for millions of people? I said yes because I loved him and had faith in what he could do.


I FURTHER LISTENING...


Michelle Obama’s Becoming was published in November 2018 by Viking Books. It claimed the UK Christmas Number


One and was a critical and commer- cial hit. In addition to writing, Obama narrated the audiobook edition.


17


n the end, it boiled down to this: I said yes because I believed that Barack could be a great presi- dent. He was self-assured in ways that few people are. He had the intellect and discipline to do the job, the temperament


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