down and talk with him, describing her dissertation work and swapping book
recommendations as if catching up with an old friend.
Everyone in the family still called him Barry, which I found endearing.
Though they’d left their home state of Kansas back in the 1940s, his grandparents
seemed to me like the misplaced midwesterners Barack had always described
them as. Gramps was big and bearlike and told silly jokes. Toot, a stout, gray-
haired woman who’d worked her way up to becoming the vice president of a
local bank, made us tuna salad sandwiches for lunch. In the evenings, she served
Ritz crackers piled with sardines for appetizers and put dinner on TV trays so that
everyone could watch the news or play a heated game of Scrabble. They were a
modest, middle-class family, in many ways not at all unlike my own.
There was something comforting in this, for both me and Barack. As
different as we were, we fit together in an interesting way. It was as if the reason
for the ease and attraction between us was now being explained.
In Hawaii, Barack’s intense and brainy side receded somewhat, while the
laid-back part of him flourished. He was at home. And home was where he
didn’t feel the need to prove anything to anyone. We were late for everything we
did, but it didn’t matter—not even to me. Barack’s high school buddy Bobby,
who was a commercial fisherman, took us out on his boat one day for some
snorkeling and an aimless cruise. It was then that I saw Barack as relaxed as I’d
ever seen him, lounging under a blue sky with a cold beer and an old friend, no
longer fixated on the day’s news or law school reading, or what should be done
about income inequality. The sun-bleached mellowness of the island opened up
space for the two of us, in part by giving us time we’d never before had.
So many of my friends judged potential mates from the outside in, focusing
first on their looks and financial prospects. If it turned out the person they’d
chosen wasn’t a good communicator or was uncomfortable with being
vulnerable, they seemed to think time or marriage vows would fix the problem.
But Barack had arrived in my life a wholly formed person. From our very first
conversation, he’d shown me that he wasn’t self-conscious about expressing fear
or weakness and that he valued being truthful. At work, I’d witnessed his
humility and willingness to sacrifice his own needs and wants for a bigger
purpose.
And now in Hawaii, I could see his character reflected in other small ways.
His long-lasting friendships with his high school buddies showed his consistency
in relationships. In his devotion to his strong-willed mother, I saw a deep respect