Some other sentences also resonated with me (and the trauma experience). ‘Then the person was hauled away, or died, or retreated, and it was just the two of them again. Odd women out. Unique girls. Strange.’ Isn’t that how it always happens for the trauma survivor? Or ‘I didn’t want to face the moment when Delphine had to get up and leave him alone in the place where so often, he’d slept unconscious but that now, fully aware, occupied in a virgin state of shame?’ For me this was another masterful reference to a waking up (temporary or permanent) from the trauma state.