I don’t know her name. I don’t know anything about her. She is a sign language interpreter. That’s all I know.

She sits onstage during tonight’s keynote address for the Savannah Book Festival. She is translating speech into ASL. She interprets for upwards of an hour.

Meantime, most of the audience doesn’t even notice her. I mean, they see her, of course, but her job is to remain largely invisible.

Besides, most book-festival goers are busy watching the main event—three keynote speakers, seated in chairs, talking about books.

The keynotes have bottles of water. Their easy chairs are plush. They are talking excitedly. Their conversation is interspersed with bursts of laughter, and quick interjections.

She translates it all. The entire discussion. A conversation between three quick mouths.

The woman moves her arms and hands a mile per minute. Spelling long last names so fast all I can see is a blur. She has no plush chair. No bottle of water. And even if she did, she’s too busy to take a drink.

I am mesmerized by her. Namely, because she is so good at her job.

So, I start looking around the audience to see who, exactly, she is signing for. I find a few. Amidst a mass of onlookers, I notice them. They are glued to the interpreter.

I see their faces, focused and concentrating. A few of them are wearing hearing aids. Then, I glance back to the translator, who is staring directly at these particular individuals.

And I find myself wondering what leads someone into this beautiful line of work. What compelled this woman to work with the Deaf community.

Maybe it was her mom. Perhaps her mother became deaf at a young age. Maybe the young woman learned sign language as a little girl because this was how her mom communicated.

I’m only guessing, of course.

But I knew a young woman like that once. Her whole family depended on her. Her mother and brother had hearing loss. She translated for her mother and her brother at the doctor’s office, at the tax collector’s office, at the DMV, and at restaurants.

“The world is not built to accommodate for the Deaf,” my friend used to tell me. “People do not think of our community, and sometimes they don’t even try.”

Then, she would often tell a story about when her brother was pulled over for a speeding ticket, and tried to carry on a conversation with the police officer, who was aggravated with him. The officer lost his temper. It wasn’t pretty. He thought the boy was faking his impairment.

“It wasn’t the officer’s fault,” my friend said. “He just didn’t know any better. But my brother felt alone and powerless.”

When the keynote speakers are finished onstage, they all stand and take a bow. They have done a marvelous job. The applause is well deserved.

But the ASL interpreter is not applauded. Instead, she quietly slips off stage. We are never told her name. Nobody cheers for her. Nobody even offers her a bottle of water.

Seated near me, I meet a young man who has low vision, and wears two hearing aids. He is an amazing young man who recently graduated college.

“What a great keynote speech,” I say to him.

He nods heartily. “It sure was. And the speakers did okay, too.”