The second act opens with a bridge party at the home of the newlyweds, attended by Franklin, James's supervising teacher, and Mrs. Norman. Sarah gives an outstanding performance, indicating her integration into the middle-class hearing world. However, she later confides in James, "I feel split down the middle, caught between two worlds." James also grapples with this duality, feeling worn out from constantly acting as Sarah's translator and unable to enjoy music because Sarah cannot share in the experience.

When Orin recruits Sarah to join a campaign accusing the State School for the Deaf of discrimination for not hiring enough deaf teachers, the personal differences between James and Sarah evolve into a broader political issue. Edna Klein, a lawyer brought in by Orin to assist with the case, exemplifies the misunderstandings and errors made by well-intentioned members of the hearing community. Sarah begins to understand that Edna wants to represent "all deaf people" before the commission, while James aims to represent her. Sarah explains that people have always assumed that her inability to hear equates to an inability to understand or speak for herself. Her identity as an individual has been overlooked by the hearing world at large, by Edna, and by her husband. Sarah asserts: "Unless you let me be an individual, an /, just as you are, you will never truly be able to come inside my silence and know me. And until you do that, I will never let myself know you. Until that time, we cannot be joined. We cannot share a relationship."

Following a heated argument where James restrains her arms and forces her to speak, Sarah leaves him. James feels remorse and begins to better comprehend her perspective, but Sarah refuses to return. She insists that for them to reconcile, they "would have to meet in another place; not in silence or in sound but somewhere else. I don't know where that is now." The play concludes with the hope that James and Sarah will eventually reunite.