55 pages • 1 hour read
Alison GervaisThe Silence Between Us
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Seventeen-year-old Maya Harris, her mother, and her brother, Connor, have recently moved to Parker, Colorado from their old home in New Jersey. It is Maya’s first day at Engelmann High School. Maya is nervous and unhappy because Engelmann is a hearing high school, unlike Pratt, the New Jersey school for the Deaf that she attended for the previous four years. Maya and her mother head toward Engelmann’s office; Maya’s mother tries to reassure her that the school will be fine and that Maya’s educational interpreter, Kathleen, is a nice person whom Maya will like. Maya is skeptical. Her negative expectations cause her to be somewhat rude when they meet Kathleen, and Maya’s mother reminds her to be polite. Dr. Rivera, the principal, is waiting in his office with a student named Nina Torres, who has been assigned to mentor Maya through her first weeks at school. Maya angrily asks why she has been assigned a “BABYSITTER,” but they insist that peer mentors are a regular part of the school’s operation, not a special accommodation for Maya (15). Realizing that her negative attitude is causing more strain for her mother, who is already stressed from the move and from caring for Connor, who has cystic fibrosis, Maya gives in and accepts Nina’s presence.
Chapter 2 Summary
Nina gives Maya a very thorough tour of the building; Maya is bored and feels as if Nina and Kathleen are treating her like a child. Maya is also irritated by the attention that Kathleen’s enthusiastic signing draws to the group. When the tour is done, Nina tells Maya that it is time for the school year’s opening assembly. Maya turns her hearing aids off to block out the small amounts of ambient noise they allow her to hear and mostly ignores Kathleen’s signed interpretation of Dr. Rivera’s speech. As the assembly draws to a close, Nina introduces Maya to Beau, the student body president. Beau blushes at Maya’s intense scrutiny as she tries to lip read what he is saying. He offers her a school t-shirt as a welcome gift, but she refuses it. Beau is confused by her attitude and seems a little lost as he tries to work out whether he should be talking to Maya or Kathleen. When Maya leaves the assembly, Kathleen follows and hands her the t-shirt, signing that it is a nice present and Beau seems like a nice person. When Nina leaves Maya at her first class, she speaks directly to Maya instead of to Kathleen, surprising Maya into smiling.
Chapter 3 Summary
Maya’s first class is Advanced Placement (AP) Statistics, with Mrs. Richardson. Mrs. Richardson has chosen a desk near the front for Maya, to make it easier for Maya to see what is happening. The young woman she moves from the seat is angry, and Maya is dismayed by this negative beginning. She discovers that Beau has the seat behind her. When he smiles at Maya, she sees his dimples and realizes that she finds him attractive. Maya enjoys math, and the class goes well, but she is also very aware of the other students staring at her and Kathleen. She imagines that they are whispering about her, but she has no way of knowing for sure.
After the bell rings, Beau asks whether Maya enjoyed the class, and she quips that she did, because she is a math genius. She notices how his eyes crinkle when he laughs. Beau asks what her next class is. Irritatingly, he is still looking at Kathleen instead of Maya when he talks. She tells Beau that AP US History is her next class, and he asks whether he can walk with her. As they walk, Kathleen raises her eyebrows in silent communication with Maya, and Maya signs to her “CUTE, I KNOW, BUT NOT FOR ME” (29). Nina joins them, and Maya is disappointed at the way Nina and Beau then walk slightly ahead, talking together and excluding her. Kathleen reminds her not to take it personally, because hearing people often do not understand how to communicate with Deaf people. This is reinforced when Nina enters her next classroom, and Mr. Wells, the AP US teacher, shouts at her as if that will help her hear him. Nina slips Maya a note criticizing Mr. Wells’s intelligence and then tells Maya encouragingly, “You’ve got this” (32).
Chapter 4 Summary
At lunch, Maya agrees that Kathleen should take a break; she wants to try to have lunch with her peers without an interpreter drawing attention to her differences. Maya meets other members of Beau and Nina’s student council friend group. One of them, who is called Jackson, immediately puts Maya off with his clichéd attempts at charm. When he talks to her much too rapidly for her to lip read, she speaks aloud, reminding him that she is Deaf. Beau is startled into asking, “You can talk?” and this question offends Maya (36). Maya lost her hearing at 13, so she can speak aloud if she chooses. Generally, she prefers not to speak, because it is impossible to monitor her own voice. She snaps at Beau that just because she chooses not to talk does not mean she cannot talk. Jackson asks why she uses sign language instead of talking, and she storms out to finish her lunch alone at her locker.
Chapter 5 Summary
At the end of the day, Kathleen encourages Maya to remember that even though her first day was hard, tomorrow will be a new day. When Maya gets into her mother’s car, her mother asks how her day went, and Maya details all the things that went wrong. Her mother reminds her that first days are often hard and encourages her to see that the other students are not being deliberately mean. When Maya expresses her opinion that hearing people should know more about Deaf people, her mother responds, “TEACH THEM” (41). Her brother Connor squeezes her shoulder supportively, and Maya feels her anger dissipate. She thinks about how, despite his illness, Connor is always cheerful. He excitedly fills her in on his first day at his new school. After dinner, Maya hangs her favorite Van Gogh and Picasso prints in her room and then FaceTimes her best friend in New Jersey, Melissa. Since Melissa is also Deaf, Maya relies on her understanding; she also thinks that Melissa’s incurable optimism will be refreshing after her bad day. Melissa reminds Maya that she is a strong person and says that she has faith in her. When Maya finally signs off to finish her homework, she is overcome with longing for the life she has left behind in New Jersey and sure that she is too different from the other students at Engelmann for her life in Colorado to ever get better.
Chapter 6 Summary
The next morning, while Maya is waiting for AP Statistics to begin, Beau taps her shoulder to get her attention. He signs “sorry,” apologizing for his thoughtless comment at lunch the day before. He offers a few more halting signs, and when he accidentally mixes up two signs, Maya laughs and explains. She accepts his apology, aware that he has made a significant effort to learn a few signs for her. In AP US History, Maya has to work with a small group; she intensely dislikes this kind of activity, because communication is especially difficult. When Kathleen inconveniently takes a bathroom break and Maya is unable to follow what the group is talking about, Beau intervenes to remind them that Maya is Deaf. Maya is angry that he thinks she cannot take care of herself. She speaks sharply to him, telling him to stay out of her business. She decides that Beau’s earlier apology was worthless and that the gulf between their two worlds is unbridgeable.
Chapter 7 Summary
Two weeks pass. Maya talks to her guidance counselor, Mrs. Stephens, about her determination to get into the prestigious respiratory therapy program at Cartwright University, a nearby college. Mrs. Stephens assures Maya that she has a good chance of being admitted, and Maya is overjoyed. She is especially grateful that Mrs. Stephens does not try to discourage her ambitions just because she is Deaf.
While she waits for her mother after school, Maya runs into Beau in the school library. He signs hello and, still signing, asks how she is and how her day is going. Maya is suspicious about Beau’s intentions, but he claims that he is simply interested in learning American Sign Language (ASL). Maya helps him with a sentence, and before she leaves, he asks her whether she will come to the student club fair being held after school on Friday. She says maybe, and Beau seems pleased. Maya texts Melissa to tell her about a hearing boy learning signs in order to talk to her; she asks Melissa what she should think about this. Melissa asks whether the hearing boy is cute and tells Maya that if he is willing to make the effort to learn ASL, then the fact that he is hearing should not matter. When her mother arrives, Maya is disappointed to see that Connor has supplemental oxygen hooked up; the move to Colorado has been hard on him.
Chapter 8 Summary
When Maya asks to borrow the car on Friday to go to the student club fair, her mother is excited that Maya is making friends and getting more involved at school. Maya takes Conner with her and offers to pick up pizza for dinner on her way home to take some of the load off her mother. Maya is relieved that the fair is crowded with people, and she hopes to blend in, unnoticed. She waves to Nina when she spots her working at one of the club tables, and Nina beckons her over. Maya is relieved when Nina does not react in any way to Connor’s oxygen tube. Beau comes over and does seem to notice the tank and tube, but he says nothing about it. Instead, he tells Maya how happy he is that she decided to come to the fair. When Maya learns how many clubs and activities Beau is involved with, she is surprised that he can do all of this and maintain his excellent grades. Nina tries to get Maya interested in the upcoming homecoming dance, but Maya tells her that she does not like dances. A pretty young woman called Erica approaches, and as she rapidly chatters away, Maya realizes that she has a crush on Beau. Connor gets bored and Maya agrees that they can leave and get pizza. As they leave, she wonders about Erica’s relationship with Beau.
Chapters 1-8 Analysis
Chapters 1-8 focus on introducing Maya and her family and detailing Maya’s first weeks at Engelmann. They establish the book’s central conflict and hint at the roles that the various characters will play in Maya’s adjustment to her new life. Maya is initially characterized as somewhat defensive and negative, particularly when juxtaposed with her optimistic younger brother, Connor. This aspect of her character is explained in part by her family’s recent move away from her friends and her Deaf community at Pratt and the negative experiences she has had with hearing people in the past. Certainly, her first experiences at Engelmann demonstrate that her negative expectations are not entirely wrong: She has several trying experiences during her introduction to her new school, as well-intentioned students, teachers, and administrators all fumble in their attempts to interact with her. Maya’s defenses are so heightened in these first days at her new school that she interprets every awkward interaction as a direct attack. There are moments, however, that foreshadow the way her character will change as she learns to trust others.
Maya’s worries before her first day, and her reactions to the events of her first few weeks at Engelmann introduce the story’s central conflict: Maya feels that hearing people live in a different world and are unwilling to make the effort to understand her experience. Since becoming Deaf, Maya has identified herself with the Deaf community to such an extent that she is scared to try to function outside of it. Over the course of the story, Maya will learn that she can be a proud member of the Deaf community and still fit in with and thrive in the hearing world, but at this point in her journey, she has lessons to learn about The Role of Deafness in Shaping Identity. Maya is so frightened on her first day of school that she sits for 15 minutes in her mother’s minivan, trying to work up the courage to enter the building. Her nerves lead her to be rude when she is introduced to Kathleen and again when she is introduced to Nina and Beau; their cheerful kindness does little to assuage her mistrust and fear. Although Mrs. Richardson goes out of her way to make sure that Maya feels welcome and can succeed in her classroom, Maya takes more notice of Mr. Wells’s clumsy shouting. She snaps at Beau several times for his unintentional insensitivity, frustrated that even the well-meaning hearing people around her are poorly educated about Deafness.
Maya’s strong negative reactions to many of her interactions in the early chapters of The Silence Between Us form one element of her characterization—but these interactions also highlight the isolation and discrimination that Deaf people can face in the hearing world. Maya notices that even when hearing people mean well, they are often unaware of the ways in which their actions further isolate her. People like Beau and Mr. Wells may mean well, but they can be insensitive and hold stereotypes that prevent them from treating Maya with the respect she deserves. Given experiences like this, Maya is naturally defensive about being treated as if she is a child or somehow less competent than others her own age. When Beau and Nina walk ahead of Maya holding a conversation she cannot participate in, when her group members in Mr. Wells’s class speak too rapidly for her to lip read, and when her peers at lunch do the same thing, Maya understandably feels excluded. She wonders why hearing people have so little understanding of what it’s like to be Deaf or how to effectively support Deaf people. Her perseverance through these difficult first weeks is a testament to Resilience in the Face of Discrimination. Even when others do their best to include Maya, the world in which they live is designed around the needs of the hearing, not the Deaf, and this leads to systemic and pervasive discrimination.
Maya succeeds in facing these challenges because she is determined and ambitious—she is willing to work as hard as necessary to do well in school and get admitted to Cartwright University, for instance. She is also a caring daughter and sister. She worries about the stress her mother is under and does what she can to help—taking care of Connor, going out to pick up pizza, and so on. She worries about her brother’s health and makes time for him, even taking him with her to the club fair. Her relationships with her mother and Connor inspire Maya to try harder to be open to her new environment, as well. She is very aware of the strain her mother is under, and her love for her mother leads her to try to be more cooperative and open-minded, despite her fear. She is also chastened by Connor’s example. Connor’s cystic fibrosis means that he is often tired, sometimes has trouble breathing, and is at times unable to enjoy the activities others his age engage in. Even so, Connor is “probably the happiest little kid” Maya has ever met (41). He is unflagging in his support for Maya and in his enthusiasm for their new life in Colorado. Maya resolves to learn from his example and try harder to be positive and get involved with her new school.
The persistent efforts of Kathleen, Nina, and Beau also begin to erode Maya’s negativity. These characters are consistently positive and determined to support Maya regardless of her efforts to push them away. Kathleen often offers Maya advice and encouragement. Nina passes Maya friendly notes, talks directly to her instead of to Kathleen, introduces Maya to several other students, and invites Maya to participate in school activities. Beau, despite some initial missteps and Maya’s hostile reaction, persists in learning sign language and making sure that Maya knows he is interested in getting to know her. The combination of Maya’s efforts at being more open and the friendly support of Kathleen, Beau, and Nina results in Maya growing more comfortable at Engelmann and even being willing to attend the club fair outside of school hours.
On Maya’s first day, when she is “all but paralyzed with fear” (10), sure that she is being treated like “a toddler” (17), and can’t “help but think [other students are] talking about [her], whispering behind [her] back” (27), she would certainly never imagine that in just a few weeks she will call Nina a friend, feel jealous over Erica’s interest in Beau, and voluntarily attend the school club fair—and yet this is exactly what happens in Chapter 8. Although Maya has not yet made up her mind about whether she can fit into the hearing world at Engelmann, the reader has reasons to suspect that she can. Nina’s, Beau’s, and Kathleen’s behavior hints that they will soon be joining the already strong support network formed by Maya’s mother and Connor. Maya’s own determination, ambition, and caring nature seem destined to see her through any obstacles she encounters—especially when combined with her growing optimism.
