we got the hillary clinton doll sometime last spring. my wife saw it in the window of a toy store in our neighborhood and thought it would be amusing to give to our 2-year-old daughter, sami. the doll, really more of a hard-plastic action figure, is maybe five inches tall, with a swivel head and rotating arms. she<u+2019>s wearing a blue pantsuit and a frozen smile. for a while, sami loved the doll; she called it blue baby, and when her language got better, hilly kinton. then she lost interest, and the doll sank to the bottom of the toy basket in our living room, buried under winnie the pooh, a volleyball and a jack-in-the-box. on wednesday morning, sami woke up early. when i went in to get her, she looked directly at me and said, <u+201c>where hilly kinton?<u+201d> she had no idea what was going on, of course <u+2014> she<u+2019>d probably just been hearing the name a lot lately. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t know,<u+201d> i said. <u+201c>she<u+2019>s hiding?<u+201d> sami asked. <u+201c>maybe she is,<u+201d> i said. <u+201c>i want to find her,<u+201d> she said. we marched to the living room, dug through the toy basket and finally found her, one gray high heel wedged into a xylophone. sami sat down on the rug and, for a very long time, just stared at her. all morning, she refused to let go. when she got bored with breakfast, she cranked hilly kinton<u+2019>s arms straight up and ran back and forth holding her aloft. <u+201c>she<u+2019>s flying, dada!<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>hilly kinton flying!<u+201d> she insisted on taking the doll to preschool, which doesn<u+2019>t usually allow outside toys. the teacher looked at sami clutching the little blue figure and gave me a sad smile. <u+201c>of course,<u+201d> she said. i went home. my wife and our younger daughter, who was born in july, had passed out together on the living room couch, catching up after a sleepless night. when i had stumbled home after finally leaving work, shock-drunk at 3 a.m., my wife was still lying awake in the dark, tears running onto her pillow. it had been so close, this new world. a woman in charge, at last. maybe to comfort myself, i thought of all the women and girls in my life who were not experiencing the heartbreak of this night. my grandmother dina, dead almost 20 years. she was born in 1918 <u+2014> old enough to remember the last time jews did not feel entirely safe in america. she was a communist, like her husband and most of their friends, many of them targeted by the mccarthy investigations. i<u+2019>ve been trying to imagine how i would explain to her what happened on tuesday. and roy cohn was his lawyer, grandma! i picture her coming back, seeing her nemesis resurrected, only this time in the shape of the most powerful man in the world. my mother has been gone seven years, and this is the first time i<u+2019>ve felt relief she<u+2019>s not here. she was already sick when barack obama won in 2008. his election gave her so much hope, for the country and for her own perilous future, that she wrote the president-elect a long and very personal letter. she<u+2019>d never written to a politician before. my daughters are both far too young to understand any of this. the baby knows nothing but the warm safety of her mother<u+2019>s arms, the comforting press of her breast. her smile, which she only recently discovered, is everything that is simple and open and pure, untouched by loss or pain or the complications of grown-up life. on wednesday afternoon, she flashed it at me while she was on the changing table, and i cried. i am sure sami, two years older, senses that something is wrong <u+2014> with her parents, with the people she sees on the street <u+2014> at least in our little dark-blue corner of the country. a mood she picks up, even if she cannot articulate it. but for her, life remains blessedly free of abuse or insult. she hasn<u+2019>t been catcalled by a construction worker or groped by a congressman. no insecure man has called her ugly or fat. she will have defeats in her life, and i want her to learn to handle them with grace and equanimity. still, i<u+2019>m grateful she missed this one. when i talk to friends with older daughters, hear how they struggled to break the news over breakfast, how they dealt with the sobs, i feel lucky. i was spared, this time, from inflicting heartache. i didn<u+2019>t have to explain reality to sami; in fact, she got to explain it to me. for her, hilly kinton is not just doing o.k. she is flying. follow the new york times opinion section on facebook and twitter (@nytopinion) , and sign up for the opinion today newsletter . a version of this editorial appears in print on november 13, 2016, on page sr10 of the new york edition with the headline: the doll in the blue pantsuit. today's paper | subscribe
the doll in the blue pantsuit
jesse wegman