Nowhere in the World to Run
A mother's hell.
Today’s post is a guest contribution by my wife, Olivia Gentile, an award-winning journalist whose work spans three decades and four continents. I hope you’ll read this important story, which was published on The 19th this morning after a 16-month investigation. As always, I’m grateful for your support. —Andy
Their first kiss was in the laundry room of a hostel.
It was 2010, and Jewel Lazaro was road-tripping through British Columbia before starting community college in her hometown, Seattle. She was assigned several roommates at a Vancouver hostel, one of them an intriguing Irishman.
Seth Colchester was dark haired and blue eyed, and seemed to know a little about everything. He’d grown up surrounded by sheep and cows on an organic farm, but was working as a deejay in Spain, he told Jewel. After a night of dancing and flirting, they found privacy amid the hum of the washing machines.
They dated long distance. In 2013, when she was 23, Jewel moved to Dubai to work as a flight attendant for Emirates. It was exciting to crisscross the globe every week, but before long she was exhausted.
Seth told her to quit, she said. She could move into his loft in Barcelona and pursue her passions — singing, songwriting, art.
“I loved him, and I trusted him,” she said. “I was really naive.”
Continue reading for free here.
Thanks to all of you who take the time to read Olivia’s great story ❤️
I'm only involved here as a reader and a sympathetic mom and feminist, but this story has made me physically ill. I can't imagine how hard it is for Jewel to get through the day. The anger, the pain, the hopelessness would be more than I could handle. We still have so much work to do to bring equality to women and safety to the children involved in cases like Jewel's. I can only hope that one day Lucia will be able to read this story and know how hard her mother fought for her.