The Silence Between Us

Maya’s mother is never named in the text; she is a flat and static character who functions mainly as a source of support and advice for Maya. Although Maya is sometimes reluctant to communicate her more vulnerable emotions, Maya’s mother is often able to coax out the truth, modeling The Importance of Communication in Healthy Relationships. When Maya does communicate her fears and disappointments, her mother invariably offers encouragement and insightful advice that demonstrates how well she knows her daughter and how much she cares about her happiness. When Maya is upset about meeting the group of teenagers with cochlear implants and shares her own feelings against getting the implants, for instance, her mother tells her that there is “NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT” and she should “LIKE [herself] DEAF. […] NO WORRY ABOUT KIDS WITH CI […]. YOU MAKE FRIENDS, DEAF AND HEARING” (159). She consistently affirms Maya’s Deaf identity while gently encouraging to Maya to stretch her understanding of The Role of Deafness in Shaping Identity. For example, when Maya complains about feeling excluded after her first day of school, Maya’s mother agrees with her about the importance of inclusivity, but she pushes Maya to see her own power to help make changes by telling her, “TEACH THEM” (41).

Maya’s mother also models hard work, determination, and compassion for her daughter. She is an overworked single mother whose two children both have medical conditions that require extra care. She has just moved her family across the country, has started a new position with greater responsibilities, and is under serious financial pressure. Even when Maya is being obstinate and negative in the beginning of the story, however, Maya’s mother is a model of patience. She sits in the car with Maya for 15 minutes before Maya’s first day of school, offering gentle encouragement instead of criticism when Maya is too anxious to go inside the school. She never complains to Maya about the long hours she works—at her job, running their household, and providing medical care to Connor. Seeing the stress her mother is under motivates Maya to grow—to step out into the hearing world more fully so that she is not putting more strain on her mother and so that she can get a job to help the family financially.

Connor Harris is Maya’s eight-year-old brother. He is a sweet-natured and supportive sibling with typical interests for a child of his age. He loves pizza and superhero shows and has a “mess of brown hair that [sticks] up everywhere” and “a bunch of freckles,” characteristics that portray a kind of boyish charm (41). He does not yet know much sign language, which interferes with his communication with Maya at times, but he has created his own way of “talking” to her, through a notebook he keeps just for this purpose. The notebook is decorated with Marvel comic stickers, which communicates his youth, the specialness of this notebook to Connor, and his love for Maya. He also demonstrates this love in his supportive comments and gestures, such as when he squeezes Maya’s shoulder when she is upset about her first day at school and tells her that he missed her during the day.

Although Connor has cystic fibrosis, a condition that weakens him physically, requires constant medical interventions, and limits his activities, he is consistently cheerful and determined to participate in life as fully as he can. At the club fair, for instance, he asks Maya whether he will be able to play soccer in high school; although Maya knows that this is unlikely, she does not tell him no, because Connor’s hopeful optimism is one of his best qualities. In this way, he functions as a kind of foil for Maya: Although both have medical conditions that can place barriers in the way of their goals, Connor is cheerful and positive where Maya is, at least initially, angry and negative. Maya realizes this after a few weeks in Colorado. Inspired by Connor’s excited and happy reaction to their move, she thinks: “My eight-year-old little brother [is] making an effort to meet new people and involve himself at school […]. As his older sister, [don’t] I have a responsibility to set a good example for Connor? Show him I [am] making the most of our move to Colorado too?” (60). Connor’s medical condition is the impetus for more growth in Maya later in the story, as well, when she decides to get her first job to help pay the bills in the wake of his medical crisis in Chapters 18-21.

Nina Torres is a senior student at Engelmann High School. Because she is a part of the student council, she is assigned to Maya as a mentor during Maya’s first days at Engelmann. Nina is a hard-working student and enthusiastic about school—particularly history, which she wants to major in at college. She is very active in student life, running a table at the club fair, helping to put together the homecoming dance, and serving on the school’s academic decathlon team. She is also a kind and genuine person who eventually becomes Maya’s first hearing friend in many years.

Nina is patient and understanding when Maya is rude to her during their first encounter, and she immediately makes a sincere effort to get to know Maya. She learns some sign language, introduces Maya to other students, invites Maya to school activities, and even loans Maya a dress for homecoming. Nina offers support when Maya encounters obstacles and insensitivities at school—but she never tries to intervene to solve Maya’s problems for her, showing real respect for Maya as a person. Of all the people Maya meets on her first day at Engelmann, it is significant that it is Nina alone who speaks directly to Maya rather than addressing Maya’s interpreter. Nina’s function in the narrative is to demonstrate what inclusive behavior looks like and to show Maya that it truly is possible for hearing people to offer her rewarding friendships, helping to broaden her understanding of The Role of Deafness in Shaping Identity.

Beau Watson is another senior student at Engelmann High School and functions as Maya’s romantic interest. Maya’s first encounter with Beau is not promising: she finds him “gangly” and “awkward,” and points out that he is blushing heavily when he first approaches her (20). She rejects his kind gesture of bringing her a school t-shirt as a welcome gift. When she sees him again in class a few minutes later, however, she notices how his smile transforms his face “from an awkward rabbit into a surprisingly cute guy” (26). This moment foreshadows Maya’s eventual conversion from disliking Beau to being his friend and eventually his girlfriend—a common trajectory in the romance genre.

Beau is a dynamic, round character who is more than he first appears to be. As Maya changes and grows to understand The Importance of Communication in Healthy Relationships, she talks more openly with Beau and more layers of Beau’s personality are revealed. Beau is not just a privileged young man who is an all-star student and school leader. He is someone who has lost his mother and who is desperate to please his remaining parent, the stern and distant Dr. Watson. He is someone who has suffered a serious injury and who lives with the lingering pain of that injury. He is a kind and open-hearted person who tries to help others—even sometimes trying to help too much, as when he repeatedly intervenes on Maya’s behalf when she does not want him to. He learns sign language to communicate with Maya and takes her on a truly thoughtful first date to the Christmas market.

Beau is not perfect—he makes insensitive mistakes like talking to Kathleen at first instead of to Maya, expressing shock that Maya can speak, and giving Maya the cochlear implant information for her birthday. From the beginning, however, the reader can see that his heart is in the right place and that he simply needs to learn more about how to interact with Maya in an inclusive and respectful way. Maya’s initial dislike for Beau helps to characterize her: because the reader can see that Beau is actually a kind person with a clear romantic interest in Maya, Maya’s antipathy reveals how misguided her judgments of hearing people can sometimes be. Her eventual romantic relationship with Beau provides satisfying evidence of how Maya has grown.