After Michael returns home from his first sexual encounter with Hanna, he feels suddenly nostalgic for his family. Though he is surrounded by his parents and siblings at dinner, he feels distant from them, as if he were “already gone.”

This is the novel’s first instance of the wedge that Hanna will form between Michael and those around him. As Hanna herself is distant from Michael, the fact that Michael mirrors this distance in his other relationships suggests that emotional distance fosters emotional distance. After Hanna leaves him, this distance worsens and later sabotages Michael’s marriage, friendships, and other relationships.