Secret Service agents into a freight elevator, hustled out a back exit at the hotel
and into a waiting SUV. Did I breathe the air as we stepped outside? Did I thank
the person who held open the door as we passed by? Was I smiling? I don’t
know. It was as if I were still trying to frog-kick my way back to reality. Some of
this, I assumed, had to be fatigue. It had been, as predicted, a very long day. I
could see the grogginess in the girls’ faces. I’d prepared them for this next part of
the night, explaining that whether Dad won or lost, we were going to have a big
noisy celebration in a park.
We were gliding now in a police-escorted motorcade along Lake Shore
Drive, speeding south toward Grant Park. I’d traveled this same road hundreds of
times in my life, from my bus rides home from Whitney Young to the predawn
drives to the gym. This was my city, as familiar to me as a place could be, and yet
that night it felt different, transformed into something strangely quiet. It was as if
we were suspended in time and space, a little like a dream.
Malia had been peering out the window of the SUV, taking it all in.
“Daddy,” she said, sounding almost apologetic. “There’s no one on the
road. I don’t think anyone’s coming to your celebration.”
Barack and I looked at each other and started to laugh. It was then that we
realized that ours were the only cars on the street. Barack was now president-
elect. The Secret Service had cleared everything out, shutting down an entire
section of Lake Shore Drive, blocking every intersection along the route—a
standard precaution for a president, we’d soon learn. But for us, it was new.
Everything was new.
I put an arm around Malia. “The people are already there, sweetie,” I said.
“Don’t worry, they’re waiting for us.”
And they were. More than 200,000 people had crammed into the park to
see us. We could hear an expectant hum as we exited the vehicle and were
ushered into a set of white tents that had been put up at the front of the park,
forming a tunnel that led to the stage. A group of friends and family had gathered
there to greet us, only now, due to Secret Service protocol, they were cordoned
off behind a rope. Barack put his arm around me, almost as if to make sure I was
still there.
We walked out onto the stage a few minutes later, the four of us, me
holding Malia’s hand and Barack holding Sasha’s. I saw a lot of things at once. I
saw that a wall of thick, bulletproof glass had been erected around the stage. I saw
an ocean of people, many of them waving little American flags. My brain could