F

And when these next four years were over, we’d be truly done, which made me
happiest of all. No more campaigning, no more sweating out strategy sessions or
polls or debates or approval ratings, ever again. The end of our political life was
finally in sight.

The truth is that the future would arrive with its own surprises—some
joyous, some unspeakably tragic. Four more years in the White House meant
four more years of being out front as symbols, absorbing and responding to
whatever came our country’s way. Barack and I had campaigned on the idea that
we still had the energy and discipline for this sort of work, that we had the heart
to take it in. And now the future was coming in our direction, maybe faster than
we knew.

ive weeks later, a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Connecticut, and started killing children.

I had just finished giving a short speech across the street from the White
House and was scheduled to then go visit a children’s hospital when Tina pulled
me aside to tell me what had happened. While I’d been speaking, she and several
others had seen the headlines start to come up on their phones. They’d sat there
trying to hide their emotions as I wrapped up my remarks.

The news Tina gave me was so horrifying and sad I could barely process
what she was saying.

She mentioned she’d been in touch with the West Wing. Barack was in the
Oval Office by himself. “He’s asking for you to come,” she said. “Right away.”

My husband needed me. This would be the only time in eight years that
he’d request my presence in the middle of a workday, the two of us rearranging
our schedules to be alone together for a moment of dim comfort. Usually, work
was work and home was home, but for us, as for many people, the tragedy in
Newtown shattered every window and blew down every fence. When I walked
into the Oval Office, Barack and I embraced silently. There was nothing to say.
No words.

What a lot of people don’t know is that the president sees almost everything,
or is at least privy to basically any available information related to the country’s
well-being. Being a fact guy, Barack always asked for more rather than less. He
tried to gather both the widest and the most close-up view of every situation,