blessing, adopting a let’s-just-get-this-out-of-the-way attitude about the whole
thing. I thought maybe he’d try and fail to get into national politics and that this
would then motivate him to want to try something entirely different. In an ideal
world (my ideal world, anyway), Barack would do something like become the
head of a foundation, where he could have an impact on issues that mattered and
also make it home for dinner at night.
We flew to Hawaii on December 23, after the legislature finally hit pause for
the holiday, though it still hadn’t managed to find a resolution. But to my relief,
we’d made it. Waikiki Beach was a revelation for young Malia. She tootled up
and down the shoreline, kicking at the waves and exhausting herself with joy.
We spent a merry, uneventful Christmas with Toot in her apartment, opening
gifts and marveling at her devotion to the five-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle she
had going on a card table. As it always had, Oahu’s languid green waters and
cheery populace helped unhitch us from our everyday concerns, leaving us
blissful and caught up in little more than the feeling of warm air on our skin and
our daughter’s delight at absolutely everything. As the headlines kept reminding
us, we were fast approaching the dawn of a new millennium. And we were in a
lovely place to spend the final days of 1999.
All was going fine until Barack got a call from someone back in Illinois,
letting him know that the senate was somewhat abruptly going back into session
to finish work on the crime bill. If he intended to vote, he had something like
forty-eight hours to get back to Springfield. Another clock was now ticking.
With a sinking heart, I watched as Barack jumped into action, rebooking our
flights to leave the following day, pulling the plug on our vacation. We had to
go. We had no choice. I suppose I could’ve stayed on alone with Malia, but what
would be the fun in that? I wasn’t happy with the idea of leaving, but I
understood, again, this was the way of politics. The vote was an important one—
the bill included new gun-control measures, which Barack had fervently
supported—and it had also proven divisive enough that a single absent senator
could potentially prevent the bill from passing. We were going home.
But then something unexpected happened. Overnight, Malia spiked a high
fever. She’d ended the day as an exuberant surf kicker but was now, not even
twelve hours later, a hot and listless heap of toddler-shaped misery, glassy-eyed
and wailing in pain, but still too young to tell us anything specific about it. We
gave her Tylenol, but it didn’t help much. She was tugging at one ear, which
made me suspect it was infected. The reality of what this meant started to set in.
We sat on the bed, watching Malia drift into a restless, uncomfortable sleep. We