was sitting in the first row, looking regal in a floor-length black-and-white sequined dress we’d picked out together, her chin lifted and her eyes proud. We still ached for my father every day, though as he would’ve wanted, we were also continuing on.
Barack had woken up that morning with a nasty head cold, but it had miraculously cleared as soon as he arrived at the church. He was now smiling at me, bright-eyed, from his place at the altar, dressed in a rented tux and a buffed pair of new shoes. Marriage was still more mysterious to him than it was to me, but in the fourteen months we’d been engaged, he’d been nothing but all in. We’d chosen everything about this day carefully. Barack, having initially declared he was not interested in wedding minutiae, had ended up lovingly, assertively—and predictably—inserting his opinion into everything from the flower arrangements to the canapés that would get served at the South Shore Cultural Center in another hour or so. We’d picked our wedding song, which Santita would sing with her stunning voice, accompanied by a pianist.
It was a Stevie Wonder tune called “You and I (We Can Conquer the World).” I’d first heard it as a kid, in third or fourth grade, when Southside gave me the Talking Book album as a gift—my first record album, utterly precious to me. I kept it at his house and was allowed to play it anytime I came to visit. He’d taught me how to care for the vinyl, how to wipe the record’s grooves clean of dust, how to lift the needle from the turntable and set it down delicately in the right spot. Usually he’d left me alone with the music, making himself scarce so that I could learn, in privacy, everything that album had to teach, mostly by belting out the lyrics again and again with my little-girl lungs. Well, in my mind, we can conquer the world / In love you and I, you and I, you and I…
I was nine years old at the time. I knew nothing about love and commitment or conquering the world. All I could do was conjure for myself shimmery ideas about what love might be like and who might come along someday to make me feel that strong. Would it be Michael Jackson? José Cardenal from the Cubs? Someone like my dad? I couldn’t even begin to imagine him, really, the person who would become the “you” to my “I.”
But now here we were.
Trinity Church had a dynamic and soulful reputation. Barack had first started going there during his days as an organizer, and more recently the two of us had formally become members, following the lead of many of our young, professional African American friends in town. The church’s pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, was known as a sensational preacher with a passion for social justice and was now officiating at our wedding. He welcomed our friends and family and then held up our wedding bands for all to see. He spoke eloquently of what it meant to form a union and have it witnessed by a caring community, these people who collectively knew every dimension of Barack and every dimension of me.
I felt it then—the power of what we were doing, the significance of the ritual—as we stood there with our future still unwritten, with every unknown still utterly unknown, just gripping each other’s hands as we said our vows.
Whatever was out there, we’d step into it together. I’d poured myself into planning this day, the elegance of the entire affair had somehow mattered to me, but I understood now that what really mattered, what I’d remember forever, was the grip. It settled me like nothing else ever had. I had faith in this union, faith in this man. To declare it was the easiest thing in the world. Looking at Barack’s face, I knew for sure that he felt the same. Neither one of us cried that day. Nobody’s voice quavered. If anything, we were a little giddy. From here, we’d gather up all several hundred of our witnesses and roll on over to the reception. We’d eat and drink and dance until we’d exhausted ourselves with our joy.
* * *
Our honeymoon was meant to be restful, a low-key road trip in Northern California, involving wine, sleep, mud baths, and good food. The day after the wedding, we flew to San