Hillary Clinton: What Happened

For all my concerns, though, watching the Women’s March, I couldn’t help but be swept up in the joy of the moment and feel like the unmistakable vitality of American democracy was reasserting itself before our eyes. My Twitter feed filled up with photos of marchers holding funny, poignant, indignant signs:

“So Bad, Even Introverts Are Here.”

“Ninety, Nasty, and Not Giving Up!”

“Science Is Not a Liberal Conspiracy.”

One adorable little boy had this message around his neck: “I ♥ Naps but I Stay Woke.”

I also saw young girls holding up quotes from my speeches over the years: “Women’s Rights Are Human Rights.” “I Am Powerful and Valuable.” On a tough weekend, seeing those words lifted my spirits.

The people in the streets were sending a message to me and all of us: “Don’t give up. This country is worth fighting for.”

For the first time since the election, I felt hopeful.

On November 9, it was cold and raining in New York City. Crowds on the sidewalks turned to face my car as we drove past. Some people were crying. Some raised their hands or fists in solidarity. There were little kids held aloft by their parents. This time, seeing them made my heart sink instead of soar.

My team had scrambled to find a hall for my concession speech. The soaring Jacob K. Javits Convention Center atrium where we had hoped to hold a victory party wasn’t an option. At 3:30 A.M., after scouting a few locations, our advance staff walked into the lobby of the New Yorker Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, not far from where my family and I were staying. They asked the concierge to call and wake up the manager at home. At 4:30 A.M., they started to prepare one of the hotel’s ballrooms for an event everyone had hoped would never happen. I learned later that the New Yorker was where Muhammad Ali recuperated after losing a bitterly fought fifteen-round heavyweight championship fight to rival Joe Frazier in 1971. “I never wanted to lose, never thought I would, but the thing that matters is how you lose,” Ali said the following day. “I’m not crying. My friends should not cry.” If we wrote it in a movie, no one would believe it.

That morning, Bill and I both wore purple. It was a nod to bipartisanship (blue plus red equals purple). The night before, I had hoped to thank the country wearing white—the color of the suffragettes—while standing on a stage cut into the shape of the United States under a vast glass ceiling. (We had really gone the distance on the symbolism.) Instead, the white suit stayed in the garment bag. Out came the gray and purple one I had intended to wear on my first trip to Washington as President Elect.

After I finished speaking, I hugged as many people in the ballroom as possible. There were lots of old friends and devoted campaign staffers, many of their faces wet with tears. I was dry-eyed and felt calm and clear. My job was to get through this morning, smile, be strong for everyone, and show America that life went on and our republic would endure. A life spent in the public eye has given me lots of practice at that. I wear my composure like a suit of armor, for better or worse. In some ways, it felt like I had been training for this latest feat of self-control for decades.

Still, every time I hugged another sobbing friend—or one stoically blinking back tears, which was almost worse—I had to fight back a wave of sadness that threatened to swallow me whole. At every step, I felt that I had let everyone down. Because I had.

Bill, Chelsea, and her husband, Marc, were by my side, as they had been throughout. So were Tim Kaine and his wife, Anne Holton, who were extraordinarily kind and strong under these wrenching circumstances. I chose Tim for my running mate out of a superb field of candidates because he had executive experience, a stellar record as mayor, governor, and senator, a well-deserved reputation for decency and good judgment, and he was fluent in Spanish from his time as a missionary. He would have been an effective partner and truth teller as my vice president. Also, I liked him a lot.

After delivering hugs and smiling so long and hard that my face ached, I asked my senior team to go back to our headquarters in Brooklyn and make sure everyone was okay. One final wave to the crowd, a final thank-you to Tim and Anne, a quick hug and kiss for Chelsea and Marc—who both knew everything I felt without me having to say a word—and Bill and I got into the backseat of a Secret Service van and were driven away.

I could finally let my smile drain away. We were mostly quiet. Every few minutes, Bill would repeat what he had been saying all morning: “I’m so proud of you.” To that he now added, “That was a great speech. History will remember it.”

I loved him for saying it, but I didn’t have much to say in return. I felt completely and totally depleted. And I knew things would feel worse before they started feeling better.

It takes about an hour to drive from Manhattan to our home in Chappaqua. We live at the end of a quiet street full of trees, and whatever stress I’m feeling usually vanishes whenever I turn up the cul-de-sac. I absolutely love our old house and am always happy to be home. It’s cozy, colorful, full of art, and every surface is covered with photos of the people I love best in the world. That day, the sight of our front gate was pure relief to me. All I wanted to do was get inside, change into comfy clothes, and maybe not answer the phone ever again.

I’ll confess that I don’t remember much about the rest of that day. I put on yoga pants and a fleece almost immediately. Our two sweet dogs followed me from room to room, and at one point, I took them outside and just breathed the cold, rainy air. Every once in a while, I’d turn on the news but then turn it off almost immediately. The question blaring in my head was, “How did this happen?” Fortunately, I had the good sense to realize that diving into a campaign postmortem right then would be about the worst thing I could do to myself.

Losing is hard for everyone, but losing a race you thought you would win is devastating. I remember when Bill lost his reelection as Governor of Arkansas in 1980. He was so distraught at the outcome that I had to go to the hotel where the election night party was held to speak to his supporters on his behalf. For a good while afterward, he was so depressed that he practically couldn’t get off the floor. That’s not me. I keep going. I also stew and ruminate. I run through the tape over and over, identifying every mistake—especially those made by me. When I feel wronged, I get mad, and then I think about how to fight back.

On that first day, I just felt tired and empty. The reckoning was still to come.

At some point, we ate dinner. We FaceTimed with our grandchildren, two-year-old Charlotte and her baby brother, Aidan, born in June 2016. I was reassured to see their mom. I knew Chelsea was hurting for me, which in turn hurt to think about, but those kids are an instant mood boost for all of us. We quietly drank them in, that day and every day after.

Perhaps most importantly, after sleeping hardly at all the night before, I climbed into our bed midday for a nice, long nap. I also went to bed early that night and slept in the next morning. I could finally do that.

I avoided the phone and email that first day. I suspected, correctly, that I was receiving a virtual avalanche of messages, and I couldn’t quite handle it—couldn’t handle everyone’s kindness and sorrow, their bewilderment and their theories for where and why we had fallen short. Eventually, I’d dive in. But for now, Bill and I kept the rest of the world out. I was grateful for the one-billionth time that I had a husband who was good company not just in happy times but sad ones as well.