The senator responded with an eager smile, saying I could have the job if I wanted it. But he urged me to make sure that Cheri and I both knew what we were getting into. When I got home that night, she didn’t hesitate. She said I had to try out Washington and that she would support me. I then took a quick trip to consult with the staff there, learn what the job entailed, and make my decision.

My visit took place on a typical June day for Washington, which meant ninety-​degree temperatures and high humidity. The Edwards office was in the Dirksen Building, a big slab that occupies half a block along Constitution Avenue between First and Second streets NE. Built in the 1950s, the place is covered in marble that is so white, at certain times of day you risk temporary blindness from the reflected sunlight when you step outside.

Will Austin, the man I would replace, and my old friend Julianna Smoot met me at the Edwards suite, which was on the second floor. They showed me around, introduced me to the people who would be my coworkers, and talked about the job. Based on what they said, my assignment would be demanding, but I thought I could handle it. However, Julianna and Will didn’t explain the real challenge involved until we had left the building for lunch and settled into an outdoor table at a little restaurant.

For several minutes, the two of them talked about the pressure they felt working on the Hill and the cutthroat nature of the competition both inside the Edwards office and with the staff who worked for other members of the Senate. A case in point was Josh Stein, who had done more to get John Edwards elected senator than anyone because he had run the Senate campaign. Josh had served as “acting” chief of staff or deputy chief of staff. But he never got the chief of staff job on a permanent basis because of Mrs. Edwards. She told me that she believed that Josh kept things from her, and that made her suspicious. (In fact, Senator Edwards often told key staffers to withhold things from his wife.) Eventually, her disapproval would drive him back to North Carolina, where he won election to the state senate.

Will and Julianna did their best to make me understand the environment inside the Edwards operation-they used the term snakepit and warned, “They’ll suck you dry”-but I didn’t really want to hear it. I was too busy thinking about how inspiring it would be to walk to work on Capitol Hill every morning and take my daily run on the National Mall in the shadow of the Smithsonian Institution. I insisted that Cheri and I were ready for the move, that everything would Krytbe okay.

“But Andrew, you have everything you could want right now,” said Julianna. “You have a beautiful wife, a baby, a house, and the chance at a normal life. That’s what we all want and don’t have. Why would you want to come up here and give that all away? D.C. is miserable. The people here suck.”

It was almost impossible for me to understand what they were saying. Washington seemed beautiful, exciting, and full of opportunities. The job was a perfect fit for someone with my skills, and it would put me at the center of the action. Cheri and Brody were going to come north with me. The senator was even giving me a big raise to go with the new title, and he insisted we use their condominium in Alexandria -just across the Potomac from Washington -rent-​free while we got settled. What could possibly go wrong?

You know how most babies are lulled to sleep when you put them in a car seat and start driving? Not Brody. He hated the car and cried for much of the four-​hour trip up Interstates 85 and 95 and into the District of Columbia. Cheri did her best to quiet him, and from where I sit now, years later, I have to say she also did her best to bury her own anxieties about moving to Washington and leaving behind a house still undergoing renovation and a good, stable life. I had asked her to “just believe” in the move in the same way that I had asked her to “just believe” when we met and got married. Things had worked out so far, so she set aside concerns about money and the fact that she didn’t know a soul in Washington and came along.

When we got to the city, we went straight to the Embassy Row district and the Edwards mansion on Thirtieth Street NW, where the neighbors included the ambassadors from Italy, the United Kingdom, Brazil, and South Africa. A massive seven-​bedroom house with marble walls and a sweeping central staircase, the place reeked of power and money, but when the Edwardses met us at the door, they seemed like the same people we knew in North Carolina. If anything, they were even more down-​home friendly, and they welcomed us as if we were good friends. They insisted we have dinner with them, and the senator grabbed his car keys and said, “C’mon, Andrew, let’s get some ribs.”

When we got in the car, I realized that this was the first time I had ever ridden while he drove. And when we took off in the direction of Connecticut Avenue and his favorite hole-​in-​the-​wall barbecue joint, it struck me that I had no idea where we were going. It was a little unnerving to give up control, and the experience made it clear to me that I had left a certain comfort zone. The senator and Mrs. Edwards seemed to sense what Cheri and I were feeling, and they talked about how much time we would spend with them and how they would help us ease into our new life. When they gave us the key to their condo and directions to Alexandria, they told us not to worry about using it and to stay as long as we wanted. No rent. No worries.

It was late evening when we finally got to our temporary home, and no doubt our first impression was affected by o K afur fatigue. However, even after a good night’s sleep, the free condo was still a dark and depressing space with furnishings from the 1970s, as well as an orange shag carpet, a bare-​bones kitchen, a living room with a sofa and TV, and a tiny bedroom. It was on the second floor of an odd-​looking building that had dozens of units, but we never saw a single other soul coming or going. The neighborhood struck us as cold, not family friendly, and we quickly decided it was not the kind of place where Cheri would be comfortable hanging out alone with Brody while I was at work.

Two days of house hunting with Elizabeth convinced us that we could not possibly afford to buy or even rent a house in Washington like the one we had in Raleigh. We eventually found something we could afford-a gutted condominium in the Watergate complex-and signed a contract to buy it. While we waited for the closing, we took out a month-​to-​month lease on a nicer apartment in a big complex in the Virginia suburb of McLean. It was the kind of place where almost everyone (me included) left so early in the morning and returned so late at night that it might as well have been a ghost town. Alone and isolated, Cheri spent her days with a brand-​new baby who fussed and cried all day long and never slept through the night. As the weeks passed she grew more miserable, feeling she had lost her comfortable home, the support of friends, and even her husband.

I became one of those workaholic drones who kissed his wife and baby good-​bye at dawn, fought the traffic all the way to the office, and spent the next twelve hours or more in a constant frenzy of phone calls, meetings, and paperwork. To make matters worse, I learned that politics in D.C. is not like politics in good old North Carolina. It’s a full-​contact sport where you have to watch your own back.

That lesson came on my first day at my new desk beside the door to the senator’s private office. The person who sat closest to me, who had been Will’s assistant, was supposed to show me the ropes, but she was unhappy about being passed over for the job I had gotten. (The Edwardses had clearly led her to believe she would get it.) Although we ended up being close friends, we had a rough start, and she won round one. She told me a bit about working with the senator and his key people and how to set the schedule and then left me to fend for myself. I could feel her smile at my back as she watched me, the upstart from North Carolina, fail miserably. I could not cope with three desk phones that seemed to ring constantly (and often simultaneously) and a stream of people who just showed up at my desk demanding time with the boss. I kept a cheat sheet on my desk, but I still had to learn a new vocabulary-what’s the cloakroom?-and the meaning of the bells that kept ringing (they signaled votes on the Senate floor). While all this was going on, I experienced frequent moments of startled amazement as famous men and women rang the phone. Once John McCain called to speak to the senator, and I looked up to see him on television at the same moment.