FORTY-EIGHT

Karen Pence had been working for days on goodie bags for staffers in her husband’s office, packing them with champagne flutes, honey from their beehive at the Naval Observatory, and cutting boards with the vice presidential seal. She also dropped in a print of her painting of the Naval Observatory, a nod toward her work to bring attention to art therapy, a mental health initiative she had promoted for years.

And despite the horror of January 6, Karen Pence was adamant about going forward with a staff farewell party 4 p.m. on Friday, January 8, in the sprawling vice president’s office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

When she and Pence entered the vice president’s office that Friday afternoon for the party, about 70 staffers erupted in applause. She began to cry.

Mike Pence’s eyes welled up and his face grew red, with a smile clenched as the staffers kept applauding for minutes. This was a world where feelings about Trump were always left unspoken, where angst was packed away. The applause said everything they wanted to say to Pence, and he seemed to know it.

“It has been an emotional week,” Pence began, looking over at Karen. He thanked her and his family for their support.

“She’s the best second lady in history, and has been with me through thick and thin,” Pence said, looking at his wife. “She is always at my side.”

Karen Pence wept some more.

The room fell silent as the Pences gathered themselves.

Pence pivoted to a short farewell speech. He said nothing specific about Trump or about the Capitol riot. He addressed it in his own way. He asked them to define their time with him, and their time in government, with no remorse or loathing.

“I hope you all take pride in having served this administration. There is a lot to be proud of,” Pence said. “I hope that you will consider public service in other parts of your career. There is no greater honor than serving the public.

“I never had the honor of working in a White House as a young man,” Pence said. “And when you’re working every day here, sometimes you don’t stop and think what an incredible opportunity that is.”

Pence looked at Short, whose stoicism was a defining trait. He described how Short had texted him with the Timothy verse after Biden was certified. Pence said Short was the deepest kind of friend, something close to a brother. Short’s eyes, too, welled up.

“It meant a lot to me and my family in that moment,” Pence said. “This office has fought the good fight. We have kept the faith.”

“Now, let’s finish the race in these last two weeks,” Pence said, “and finish it well, with an orderly transition to the Harris team.”

Pence joked that he and Karen might relax that evening after a long week.

“We might go crazy and have pizza and O’Doul’s,” a nonalcoholic beer, Pence said. The staffers groaned since Pence loved to make this comment almost every Friday afternoon and kept it in speeches to his speechwriters’ chagrin.

Short informed Pence the whole staff had pitched in and bought him his cabinet chair. It cost $1,200 to buy it from the federal government.

Short noted that years ago, when he worked for Pence in the House and Pence was conference chairman, Pence put his core principles on the wall of the office: Glorify God, have fun, and promote all House Republicans.

“Well, we stopped that last one after the Louie Gohmert lawsuit,” Short said, referring to Texas congressman Louie Gohmert’s unsuccessful efforts to sue Pence in December to try to overturn the presidential election by rejecting states’ electors.

“We all got you a goodie bag as a thank-you,” Karen Pence chimed in, showing them all the items she had included. The staff lightened up.

Mike Pence then signed the inside of his desk drawer, a vice presidential tradition upon leaving. Biden signed in 2017. He scrawled his name inches from Biden’s, from Dan Quayle’s, Nelson Rockefeller and George H. W. Bush.

Marty Obst relaxed with Pence and Mrs. Pence after the farewell party ended. They exchanged small talk and smiles. But Obst felt both simmering fury and sadness. The goodie bags, the unspoken effort to make this goodbye feel normal, provided the thinnest possible sheen to a tragedy.

Obst turned to a colleague and confided that this moment was a consequence of the “toxicity of power.”

Can you imagine, Obst asked, if Trump had reacted to defeat with a touch of grace and then bowed out, with an eye on 2024?

“The guy would have a complete stranglehold on the Republican Party,” Obst said. “It would be completely galvanized. And the vice president would be the first to say, ‘I’m out. How do I work for you for four years, to make sure you’re president again?’ ”