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interacting with potential constituents, he was the same man I knew at home—
funny and charming, smart and prepared. His overly verbose answers to questions
at town-hall forums and campaign debates seemed only to drive home the point
that he belonged on the Senate floor. But still, effort notwithstanding, Barack’s
path to the Senate seemed paved in four-leaf clover.

All this, too, was before John Kerry invited him to give the keynote address
at the 2004 Democratic National Convention being held in Boston. Kerry, then a
senator from Massachusetts, was locked in a back-and-forth fight for the
presidency with George W. Bush.

My husband was, in all of this, a complete nobody—a humble state legislator
who’d never stood before a crowd like the one of fifteen thousand or more that
would be gathered in Boston. He’d never used a teleprompter, never been live
on prime-time television. He was a newcomer, a black man in what was
historically a white man’s business, surfacing from obscurity with a weird name
and odd backstory, hoping to strike a chord with the common Democrat. As the
network pundits would later acknowledge, choosing Barack Obama to speak to
an audience of millions had been a mighty gamble.

And yet, in his curious and roundabout way, he seemed destined for exactly
this moment. I knew because I’d seen up close how his mind churned nonstop.
Over years, I’d watched him inhale books, newspapers, and ideas, sparking to life
anytime he spoke with someone who offered a shard of new experience or
knowledge. He’d stowed every piece of it. What he was building, I see now, was
a vision—and not a small one, either. It was the very thing I’d had to create room
for in our shared life, to coexist with, even if reluctantly. It aggravated me
sometimes no end, but it was also what I could never disavow in Barack. He’d
been working at this thing, quietly and meticulously, as long as I’d known him.
And now maybe the size of the audience would finally match the scope of what
he believed to be possible. He’d been ready for that call. All he had to do was
speak.

ust’ve been a good speech” became my refrain afterward. It was a joke
between me and Barack, one I repeated often and with irony following that night
—July 27, 2004.

I’d  left    the     girls   at  home    with    my  mother  and     flown   to  be  with    him     in