dinner with the girls, and then Barack had disappeared into the Treaty Room to
flip on ESPN and catch up on work. I was heading to my dressing room when I
caught sight of a purplish glow through one of the north-facing windows of the
residence, at which point I remembered that our staff had planned to illuminate
the White House in the rainbow colors of the pride flag.
Looking out the window, I saw that beyond the gates on Pennsylvania
Avenue, a big crowd of people had gathered in the summer dusk to see the lights.
The north drive was filled with government staff who’d stayed late to see the
White House transformed in celebration of marriage equality. The decision had
touched so many people. From where I stood, I could see the exuberance, but I
could hear nothing. It was an odd part of our reality. The White House was a
silent, sealed fortress, almost all sound blocked by the thickness of its windows
and walls. The Marine One helicopter could land on one side of the house, its
rotor blades kicking up gale-force winds and slamming tree branches, but inside
the residence we’d hear nothing. I usually figured out that Barack had arrived
home from a trip not by the sound of his helicopter but rather by the smell of its
fuel, which somehow managed to permeate.
Oftentimes, I was happy to withdraw into the protected hush of the
residence at the end of a long day. But this night felt different, as paradoxical as
the country itself. After a day spent grieving in Charleston, I was looking at a
giant party starting just outside my window. Hundreds of people were staring up
at our house. I wanted to see it the way they did. I found myself suddenly
desperate to join the celebration.
I stuck my head into the Treaty Room. “You want to go out and look at
the lights?” I asked Barack. “There are tons of people out there.”
He laughed. “You know I can’t do tons of people.”
Sasha was in her room, engrossed in her iPad. “You want to go see the
rainbow lights with me?” I asked.
“Nope.”
This left Malia, who surprised me a little by immediately signing on. I’d
found my wing-woman. We were going on an adventure—outside, where
people were gathered—and we weren’t going to ask anyone’s permission.
The normal protocol was that we checked in with the Secret Service agents
posted by the elevator anytime we wanted to leave the residence, whether it was
to go downstairs to watch a movie or to take the dogs out for a walk, but not
tonight. Malia and I just busted past the agents on duty, neither one of us making