Evan's mother visited

His mother and sister dropped by unannounced last night. It was the first time that she (the mother) had been to the house.

It must have been odd for her to be at our house. She was polite and "pleased to meet us." I had the definite sense though that my catching her up on her son would be unwise. Aside from the fact that he is a big boy and should be communicating with her himself, I don't think she would appreciate my acting as though I knew her son better than she did (although at the moment I might).

I did print off the photo we have of him with his little sister, for which she was genuinely grateful.

She was there for one reason: to tell Evan not to go to Scotland.

Mostly she just said, "No. You can't go." She did try to give some reasons: his history of making impulsive decisions; the ability to satisfy his stated goals here; the difficulty of going back to school later.

A couple of times Evan asked me to help him out. I told him I was keeping my mouth shut which was as much help as I could be.

What was really going on, of course, was just that she doesn't want her son to go away. She hasn't been visiting or calling him (she is currently without a phone), but not seeing your son when you could is very different from not being able to see him even if you wanted.