Vogue June 2019

40 JUNE 2019 VOGUE.COM

Up Front

Found in Translation

When expatriate Alexandra Marshall moved in with her boyfriend, she faced a cross-

cultural dilemma. Could she be a good stepmother to a pair of French kids?

I

t was an early-summer day in Paris, and I was due

to meet my boyfriend Stéphane’s two children for

the first time. He and I had been a couple for only

a few months, so the plan was casual—Oranginas

with his son, Zacharie, then nine, and daughter,

Irène, seven and a half, at a café near Stéphane’s

apartment in Belleville. Afterward, we’d have dumplings

in a Chinese dive they all loved. I rented a bike, and though

I knew the route between Stéphane’s apartment and mine

better than any other in Paris, I immediately got lost and

used up our apéritif time pumping up and down the wrong

hills. When I finally found the restaurant and pushed

the jingling front door open, I was sweaty and ruffled. And

then came an asthma attack. Nice to meet you, kids!

I had a lot riding on this. Blending into a family isn’t

easy, and I knew there would be stages, each requiring

instincts for patience and forethought: First I would

meet Stéphane’s kids; then, eventually, his ex-wife and

his parents. Could I become part of his family without

disrupting it—or disappearing into it?

I was in my early 40s and had never had children,

partly due to a freewheeling, mostly uncoupled life and

partly a suspicion that my desperate, contradictory

needs for independence and approval would make any

offspring as neurotic and underloved as I often felt.

I’ve always had an instinctive tenderness for kids; I

just wasn’t sure I could entirely trust myself with their

welfare. Also, although I’d expatriated to

À DEUX

HOLIDAY IN

NORMANDY,

PHOTOGRAPH

BY PETER

MARLOW, 2006.

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