Alan Pangborn and Al

Alan Pangborn and Al are a father and surviving son whose closeness was forged in grief but cannot restore the life they had before loss. Their relationship is defined by Alan’s effort to understand Al’s withdrawal without mistaking it for rejection of Polly, and by the quiet pain of recognizing that his son’s life is moving beyond Castle Rock.

A family reshaped by loss

Al attends Milton Academy, south of Boston, and Alan knows he will not be coming home for the Columbus Day weekend. Polly raises the possibility that Al might return because there are no classes on Monday, but Alan explains that Al is going to stay with his roommate, Carl Dorfman, at Dorfman’s home on Cape Cod. The exchange gives their separation an ordinary, practical shape: Al has plans elsewhere, and his father has to accept them.

The distance is not presented as a simple break between parent and child. Alan recalls that Al came home only once after school began again, and even then the visit was for a specific purpose: Al wanted to see his old computer-hacking friend Jimmy Catlin because some of his programs would not run on the new Commodore 64 Alan had bought him for his birthday. The detail makes clear that Al’s ties to home persist, but no longer organize his life in the way they once did.

Polly’s fear and Alan’s reassurance

Polly worries that Al’s absences mean he sees her as trying to take his mother’s place, and wonders whether the situation is partly her fault. Alan is initially surprised by the question, then reassures her that her interpretation is wrong. He describes Al as dealing with the family’s losses in his own way and says that this way is good enough for him to be proud of his son.

Alan distinguishes Al’s continuing grief for his mother from the possibility that he is grieving for his brother, Todd. He admits some uncertainty about what Al is feeling, but rejects the idea that his son stays away because he disapproves of Polly or of the couple’s relationship. This reassurance matters to both relationships: Alan does not ask Al to return in order to prove his acceptance of Polly, and he does not allow Polly’s insecurity to become an explanation for Al’s independent choices.

Withdrawal as a coming-of-age change

Alan describes Al as pulling away from him, from former friends such as Jimmy Catlin, and from Castle Rock itself. He likens the movement to a rocket’s third-stage booster: a forceful separation that carries a young person into a different orbit. The image holds two truths together. Al’s departure is part of growing up, but to his parents it also feels like a loss, a sudden and sorrowful surprise.

At seventeen, Al seems young to be drawing away so decisively. Alan concedes that it is early, then places the change against the catastrophe that preceded it: Al lost both his mother and his brother in an accident, and Alan’s own life was shattered as well. Father and son came together afterward in an effort to recover what they could of their former lives. Alan thinks they managed fairly well, but recognizes that the recovery did not undo what had changed.

Castle Rock remains Alan’s home; Al’s home is no longer there in the same way. Alan had hoped his son might transfer to Castle Rock High that fall, but Al’s look when the possibility was raised quickly corrected that hope. Alan believes the town contains too many memories for Al, though he allows that this may change with time. For now, he will not push his son to return.

Love across the distance

The scene makes Alan’s acceptance inseparable from his longing. When Polly asks whether he misses Al, he answers simply that he does, every day. The plainness of the response opens a brief crack in his composure: he is suddenly close to tears and turns away to reach into a cupboard, trying to regain control.

That gesture gives the relationship its emotional shape. Alan does not treat Al’s distance as proof that their bond has failed, nor does he deny its cost. He accepts that his son must move outward while continuing to grieve the everyday absence. Their closeness, once renewed in the aftermath of shared loss, has become a bond that must withstand separation rather than prevent it. The passage therefore presents parental love not as possession or a demand for return, but as the painful willingness to let Al’s life take its own direction.