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face pressed up against the window of the SUV and was staring outward, wide-
eyed and pensive, taking in the sight of photographers and onlookers, her
thoughts unreadable but her expression sober.

We were asking so much of them. I sat with that thought not just for that
entire day but for months and years to come.

he pace of the transition never slowed. I was bombarded with hundreds of
decisions, all of them evidently urgent. I was supposed to pick out everything
from bath towels and toothpaste to dish soap and beer for the White House
residence, choose my outfits for the inauguration ceremony and fancy balls that
would follow it, and figure out logistics for the 150 or so of our close friends and
relatives who’d be coming from out of town as our guests. I delegated what I
could to Melissa and other members of my transition team. We also hired
Michael Smith, a talented interior designer we’d found through a Chicago friend,
to help us with furnishing and redecorating the residence and the Oval Office.

The president-elect, I learned, is given access to $100,000 in federal funds to
help with moving and redecorating, but Barack insisted that we pay for
everything ourselves, using what we’d saved from his book royalties. As long as
I’ve known him, he’s been this way: extra-vigilant when it comes to matters of
money and ethics, holding himself to a higher standard than even what’s dictated
by law. There’s an age-old maxim in the black community: You’ve got to be twice
as good to get half as far. As the first African American family in the White House,
we were being viewed as representatives of our race. Any error or lapse in
judgment, we knew, would be magnified, read as something more than what it
was.

In general, I was less interested in the redecorating and inauguration
planning than I was in figuring out what I could do with my new role. As I saw
it, I didn’t actually have to do anything. No job description meant no job
requirements, and this gave me the freedom to choose my agenda. I wanted to
ensure any effort I made helped advance the new administration’s larger goals.

To my great relief, both our kids came home happy after the first day of
school, and the second, and the third. Sasha brought back homework, which
she’d never had before. Malia was already signed up to sing in a middle school
choral concert. They reported that kids in other grades sometimes did a double