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By Root 928 0

for Julianna Smoot and Jennifer Skalka and Jessica Wintringham and Laura Godwin, it was a passion. Cate worked with Jessica in the press office. Laura was Emma Claire’s first babysitter. I could almost feel the mesh winding around these young people, binding them to us, and us to them. My role was purely supportive, and with a new baby, I liked it that way. John, who had lost his first, second, and third wedding rings running, needed a replacement ring. I could do that. I went to a jewelry store. “I’d like to see what you have in size nine gold wedding bands,” I said. She brought out five bands and placed them on a little square of velvet. I looked at them for only a second, and then, to her great surprise, I said, “I’ll take all five.” He only needed three in the campaign, but Emma Claire lost the fourth, so perhaps five was a good number.

The next months were hard. We had a taste of what to expect when Lauch Faircloth, who was the incumbent Republican senator, ran a commercial against John the week before the seven-person Democratic primary, before John was even the nominee. It wasn’t that the commercial was so bad; it was silly, really, attacking John for the legal work he had done, of which I was very proud. And we were prepared for the possibility of attack and had a response on the air right away. But it was a shot across the bow, a warning of what we could expect in the weeks and months to come. Wade’s nineteenth birthday came, reminding us what real hurt was, providing us that shield against the foolish barbs headed our way and reminding us of what a wonderful community we had. Ellan and Sally and Hargrave came by. Glenn Bergenfield, Wade’s godfather, would call. Erin Maness, one of Wade’s favorite friends, a beautiful girl, talked with me for the longest time, sitting in Wade’s room, both of us fragile, both of us lonely. Jim Jenkins, his gravelly low voice warming his words until they were melted butter: “Knew it was his birthday. Went to the cemetery today.” He says it every year, same thing, and it is always music.

In the summer, John had a decision to make. President Clinton, whose wife had been the subject of relentless attacks by Senator Faircloth, wanted to come down to North Carolina to campaign. The Monica Lewinsky scandal was in the news, but there were still denials from the White House. John’s staff was against a Clinton visit, but John said he wanted him to come, to talk about the accomplishments of a successful Democratic administration. He planned to come July 30th. It was, it turned out, the week before Lewinsky’s blue dress turned up. Cate and I were planning to be in Rhode Island that day, looking at colleges. We had flown up to Pennsylvania and rented a car, and we were driving from one college campus in which she had an interest to the next, with a little sightseeing in between. I figured it was better to go before her junior year, when her excitement about colleges could be translated into a good performance in her important junior-year grades. We were in Maine when Clinton’s visit to Raleigh was confirmed. Cate and I parked the rented car, left our suitcases in the trunk, and flew home. It was exciting. Air Force One taxied up to the UPS terminal where we were all waiting on the tarmac; we met the President, and then we were shuttled to the fairgrounds in black SUVs, traffic stopped along the way for the motorcade, John with the President in one car, Cate and Emma Claire—then only three months old—and I in another.

It was wickedly hot, and the fans in the tent where people had gathered to meet the President might as well have been props, they did so little good. Inside the arena where Clinton and John would speak, it was certainly warmer, but you didn’t feel it because there was such a sense of excitement. We all entered the arena together, and after John and the President spoke, we left together. But there was an overflow crowd of thousands in nearby Dorton Arena, so the men headed over there to speak again. We sent Emma Claire, who was hungry and tired, home in another car headed directly