Learn English – Usage of ‘hadn’t had’ and meaning of this sentence

Literal language implies a text, in which the words mean exactly what they are supposed to, whilst figurative language contains figures of speech, such as similes, metaphors, hyperbole, personification, alliteration, etc.

Here, in your case, there's no figure. You see, like you've already mentioned yourself, the sentence means that the girl believes that the mother could have died while giving a birth to her son clearly. Therefore, this sentence "Delia's resentment toward Eddie could be traced back to their mother's death." is literal.

Moreover, whether the boy had been the reason to his mother's death, it doesn't matter, but the way the writer describes the story, and their word choice determines if the sentence is literal or figurative.

For example, if the author had written:

Delia resented toward Eddie, since she believes that the death's snake has crawled in Eddie's spirit while coming to the world.

OR

Delia's resentment toward Eddie could be traced back to Eddie's birthday when her mother left the life as Eddie grasped it too firmly.

(First of all, both of my examples are mumbo jumbo, just for instance) Well, the death of the mother would be related to the brother's birth:

1- metaphorically (in the first example)

2- using personification (in the second example)

In this case, the text would be figurative.

As per the excerpt, the text is indeed figurative, since there's at least one simile within the text:

"..it seemed, to another country from where she looked at me with increasing annoyance and contempt."

"This time around" means "on this occurrence" of something that has occurred or will occur multiple times. "Around" is used for emphasis and refers to the cyclic nature of repeated events. For example:

I will go with you this time around, but in the future you will need to go by yourself.

or

He had failed several times before, but his wife helped him this time around.

The meaning is essentially the same as "this time" by itself, except that "this time" can more readily refer to a single instance of similar, but not identical, events.