Reunion

Grand Central Station serves as the physical setting where Charlie both arrives in and departs from New York City. For Charlie, the train station is a place that literally and figuratively brings him toward and away from his father.

The train station bookends the narrative, and it helps to develop Charlie’s characterization. When Charlie arrives in New York, he is “going from [his] grandmother’s house in the Adirondacks to a cottage on the Cape” (518), which references a literal transition and journey. The reader isn’t given any more context as to why Charlie was with his grandmother—it could have been a visit or a permanent living situation. Charlie’s mother has rented the cottage. The cottage on the Cape is potentially where Charlie is moving, or where he is staying temporarily. Charlie is in a transitional state in his life at the station, and it is in the transitional state that Charlie decides to address his relationship with his father by arranging this meeting.

The locomotive is the means by which he sees his father again, his “flesh and blood” (518).