“She wished she could be rid of the implant, even as she knew the requirement that she keep wearing it was her mother’s consolation prize, a sliver of hope Charlie might one day wake up able to sense the relentless static it pumped into her head.”

Early in the novel, the narrator establishes that Charlie harbors feelings of disdain for her cochlear implant. Despite her desire to have it removed, Charlie understands that it functions as a kind of safety blanket for her mother, who remains deeply worried about and uncomfortable with Charlie’s deafness.

“And yet, February saw the results of such trials every day—children whose parents had feared sign language would mark them, but who ended up marked by its absence.”

February empathizes with the difficult upbringings and home lives many of her students endure. She takes her job as headmistress of a Deaf school very seriously, knowing that she can provide an education that will improve their lives and enrich their understanding of themselves and their culture.

“Still, as February filled out the paperwork to complete Charlie’s transfer, she felt herself seething on the girl’s behalf—all those years of energy poured into achieving the aesthetic of being educated rather than actually having learned anything.”

Though Charlie’s enrollment is arduous to manage from a logistical standpoint, February cannot help but empathize with her. The fact that Charlie faced so much hardship throughout her schooling, despite the available resources, is maddening to February and a reminder of how most of the hearing world treats Deaf people.