This is Pettingill Cemetery in Danville, Vermont. Nestled atop a low hill, it  was so well hidden it took me four hours to find. You have to push through undergrowth and saplings and stabby branches in a small ravine before you go up the hill. Gravestones jut through the tall grass haphazardly, but if you wander there a while you will find that they’re organized in rows, by family. One headstone has a bullet wound, but many are are unmarred, though worn.

My ancestors are buried here. I came to touch the earth and the slate slabs, to walk quietly amid the stones, hoping it would somehow make me feel like I had roots. The meadow is unkempt, like a wild, secret garden, and it made me feel like I belonged.

Because of this I understood why Jake could feel comfortable in cemeteries after his friend died. I understood the surprising charm of silence, and I wasn’t alarmed when he wanted me to come with him to sit there, or when he wanted to go there to be alone.

It didn’t occur to me that he could wish to be in one of those graves himself, and even now I’m not convinced he wanted this. Most times when people grieve they just want not to hurt any more. I knew he was hurting, and I know that my presence brought some relief, so spending time in the cemetery with him was a good thing. I don’t question this even now, nearly two years later and him still missing and me still questioning all my other mom decisions.

I’ve been to two writers’ conferences since he disappeared. I had no intention to share any writing at the first one, but I found myself blurting out my story about Jake no matter how hard I tried to shut up. This past January I did share, and a reader’s response to one of my sentences illumined the road before me.

I wrote that I couldn’t conceive of Jake being happy or safe, and she asked, “Why not?” This I was prepared to answer. I balk at hope. But I was not prepared for her second question: “Why do you keep him there?”

Obviously I’m not literally keeping him there, but figuratively, I’ve not been allowing him to be any place else but where I know and can see him if I want.

And that brought me back to a question I’ve asked myself for two years: Is my need to know that he is safe more important than his need to be away and sane?

No. It is not.

I don’t know how I will parse this out, but for now, the idea of letting him out of my fear cage gives me room, too. Since I was asked those questions, I’ve had fewer roadside moments of grief, fewer waking nightmares of where he might be, and more curiosity about the cage I’ve constructed.

Of course, this also makes me wonder what I did, how I thought, when I knew where he was. But I can only deal with so much self-assessment at once, so for now: the current cage. The door’s ajar, at least, and that’s a good thing.

I think Freud would call this decathecting. The dictionary entry on this word is not complete. It points to emotional detachment because of the fear of loss; I’ve been stuck there and I know it. But it’s deeper than that: Freud theorized that you weren’t done with bereavement till you could reinvest the emotional energy you’ve attached to the one you’ve mourned into something new and separate. You decathect.

I can and will remain emotionally invested in my son, but not in his whereabouts, not in knowing. I grieve for myself, mostly. I’m a mom, and I miss my son.