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n the spring of 2015, Malia announced that she’d been invited to the prom by
a boy she kind of liked. She was sixteen then, finishing her junior year at Sidwell.
To us, she was still our kid, long-legged and enthusiastic as she’d always been,
though every day she seemed to become a little more adult. She was now nearly
as tall as I was and starting to think about applying to college. She was a good
student, curious and self-possessed, a collector of details much like her dad. She’d
become fascinated by films and filmmaking and the previous summer had taken it
upon herself to seek out Steven Spielberg one evening when he’d come to the
White House for a dinner party, asking him so many questions that he followed
up with an offer to let her intern on a TV series he was producing. Our girl was
finding her way.

Normally, for security reasons, Malia and Sasha weren’t allowed to ride in
anyone else’s car. Malia had a provisional license by then and was able to drive
herself around town, though always with agents following in their own vehicle.
But still, since moving to Washington at the age of ten, she’d never once ridden a
bus or the Metro or been driven by someone who didn’t work for the Secret
Service. For prom night, though, we were making an exception.

On the appointed evening, her date arrived in his car, clearing security at the
southeast gate of the White House, following the path up and around the South
Lawn by which heads of state and other visiting dignitaries normally arrived, and
then gamely—bravely—walking into the Dip Room dressed in a black suit.

“Just be cool please, okay?” Malia had said to me and Barack, her
embarrassment already beginning to smolder as we rode the elevator downstairs. I
was barefoot, and Barack was in flip-flops. Malia wore a long black skirt and an