First lady Melania Trump is packing her bags and planning her departure from the White House, according to CNN reporting.
That shouldn't surprise anyone, and not just because President Donald Trump still won't accept that he lost to Joe Biden, even after the US Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear yet another challenge to the election results, and even as he continues to tweet accusations of fraud and compare the election to that of a third world nation.
And yet, the first lady appears to have reached the acceptance stage -- and perhaps eagerly, it would seem. Why wouldn't she?
After four years -- in a relationship that she knew from the start was at least "in some aspect ... transactional, no matter how much she loved him or how much he loved her," as Kate Bennett wrote in her 2019 biography of Melania Trump -- she has mainly held up her end of the First Couple franchise. Mission accomplished. And whatever Melania Trump's attempts now to fashion a legacy, as she is reportedly pondering as she leaves her East Wing role behind, she may in fact be most memorable for being not so memorable at all. 
Now, according to Bennett's reporting on CNN, Melania Trump is figuring out what to put in storage, what of her personal belongings to take from the "people's house" to send to the family's New York City apartment, and what should go to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, where she will go, post-haste, with their 14-year-old son, Barron (he'll reportedly finish out his school year there).
And she is busy redecorating; her personal decorator has been for the last several weeks focused on the couple's new main address at Mar-a-Lago. Focus, no doubt, officially shifted.
She has also (perhaps tellingly) inquired, according to two sources familiar with the discussions, about whether there were taxpayer funds allocated to supply her a budget and staff for post-White House life (there are not).
Sources also said, according to Bennett, that like other former first ladies she is indeed giving some thought to her legacy -- the causes to support, the memoir to write. It's possible, said a publishing industry source, there will be a coffee table book about her design influence in the White House, which has included renovating the Rose Garden, building the tennis pavilion, and most recently, choosing the administration's official china service, per the custom of outgoing first ladies.
Of course, given the minor press her White House projects have received -- including her relatively modest "Be Best" initiative (aimed at helping children) -- and the first lady's scant interest in taking part in the role, even a coffee table book seems to be more than her public should expect. After all, she has spent nearly four years largely silent and steely-eyed.