CHARACTER
Counting by 7sby Holly Goldberg Sloan

Mai Nguyen

Character Analysis: Mai Nguyen

Quick Facts

Bold, clear-eyed, and only fourteen, Mai Nguyen is the decisive spark that forges a new household out of strangers.

Who They Are

When Willow first sees Mai, she is struck by her beauty and by the way she resists neat categorization—dark skin, a “shiny black…bed of curls,” and a presence that won’t be boxed in (Chapter 8). That visual ambiguity mirrors Mai’s mixed heritage (a Vietnamese mother born to a Black American soldier and a Mexican father) and foreshadows the book’s embrace of difference. More than an eye-catching entrance, Mai’s essence is motion: she is the engine that turns grief into action, strangers into allies, and a temporary arrangement into a home. She refuses to let institutions define Willow’s future, channeling a tough, practical love into leadership that holds the entire household together.

Personality & Traits

Mai’s defining quality is pragmatic courage. She doesn’t posture; she moves. Her loyalty is fierce but unsentimental, and her empathy is expressed as concrete help—rides, plans, lies told to protect, and a steady hand on someone else’s crisis.

  • Confident and strong-willed: “Mai had true confidence…she was born strong-willed, while a lot of the world was wishy-washy” (Chapter 9). She immediately challenges authority, refusing to be cowed in her first encounter with the school counselor.
  • Protective and loyal: She has “long been his keeper” regarding her older brother and extends that guardianship to Willow—defending them both and even lying to the police to keep Willow out of foster care.
  • Decisive and action-oriented: After the accident, she fabricates a plausible backstory, engineers the move into an adult’s apartment, and leads the search when Willow runs. She treats crises like logistics problems and solves them.
  • Empathetic in practice: Understanding that healing requires rhythm and purpose, she steers the group toward projects like the garden, offering Willow companionship, calm, and tasks that help grief find a channel.
  • Strategically honest (and strategic when honesty won’t do): She can read systems and people, using directness, charm, or misdirection—whatever best protects the vulnerable.

Character Journey

Mai begins as the family’s junior caretaker, already managing an older brother who resents school and rules. Meeting Willow doesn’t change her nature so much as expand its reach: her protective instincts widen from sibling to community. She pivots from impulsive outbursts to targeted leadership—learning where to push and where to persuade, when to speak softly and when to force a decision. She builds bridges that others couldn’t imagine: a bilingual friendship with Willow, an uneasy but useful partnership with an overwhelmed adult, and eventually a lawful arrangement that cements their household. By the time she steadies Willow in the judge’s chambers, Mai has transformed from a gutsy teen into the unofficial matriarch of a home she helped invent.

Key Relationships

  • Willow Chance: Mai recognizes Willow’s isolation and moves toward it, not away. She gives Willow a private channel—teaching her Vietnamese—and a public shield, speaking up when Willow cannot. With Mai, Willow gains a protector who also creates the conditions for healing: routine, projects, and a promise that someone will keep showing up.

  • Quang-ha Nguyen: Younger in age but older in responsibility, Mai oscillates between exasperation and fierce defense. She knows how to pull her brother into the group’s orbit—nudging him toward the garden and small responsibilities—so that he’s not just managed but included.

  • Pattie Nguyen: Mai trusts her mother’s grit while challenging her caution. She reframes moral choices as practical necessities, persuading Pattie to take temporary custody and, later, to formalize a long-term solution. Mai’s clarity helps Pattie act on the compassion she already has.

  • Dell Duke: Mai sizes him up as inept but malleable—and makes him useful. By assigning him roles he can actually fulfill, she drags him from passivity into purpose. Her command over logistics (and his apartment) jump-starts Dell’s own growth.

  • Jairo Hernandez: Seeing the stability he represents, Mai welcomes Jairo into their circle with a tact that is equal parts heart and strategy. Advocating for a guardianship that includes him shows her instinct for durable solutions, not just quick fixes.

Defining Moments

Mai’s turning points are not grand speeches but sharp, necessary moves that change outcomes.

  • First confrontation with the counselor (Chapter 9): She cuts through adult bluster, defending her brother and Willow and setting the tone for her role as enforcer and shield. It establishes that she will meet power head-on.
  • Taking Willow home after tragedy (Chapter 18): She lies to the police to prevent separation, building—on the spot—the scaffolding of a new household. This is the founding act of their family’s survival.
  • Finding Willow at the library (Chapter 28): She intuits where Willow would run, then leads the search there. This proves her deep attunement to Willow’s inner life and her reliability under pressure.
  • The “Lucky Acorn” (Chapter 36): A small gift that carries a big promise—growth from something tiny. The gesture crystallizes Mai’s philosophy: give people something to hold that points toward tomorrow.
  • In the judge’s chambers (Chapter 60): She steadies Willow and helps secure a legal path forward. The moment converts improvised care into recognized family, fulfilling the arc she’s been building.

Essential Quotes

“Mai had true confidence. Or as she liked to see herself, she was born strong-willed, while a lot of the world was wishy-washy.” (Chapter 9)

This line defines her operating system: confidence as an ethic, not an attitude. It justifies later choices that bend rules for humane ends, framing her decisiveness as principled, not reckless.

“Don’t you raise your voice at us! He didn’t do anything wrong. If my brother wants to finish the picture, he’ll finish the picture!” (Chapter 9)

Her first eruption at an authority figure is protective and precise—she calls out unfairness and sets a boundary. It signals that adults won’t control the narrative when a kid’s dignity is at stake.

“Willow doesn’t want to have a session today. But we were thinking maybe we would all go for ice cream. Chocolate-dipped cones would be nice.” (Chapter 16)

Mai reframes “treatment” as care and community, replacing clinical detachment with warmth and choice. The casual specificity—chocolate-dipped cones—shows how she makes empathy actionable.

“She needs us.” — Mai to her mother, Pattie (Chapter 28)

Spare and non-negotiable, this is Mai’s moral thesis. She collapses debate into responsibility, transforming personal kindness into collective duty.

“It’s going to be all right now. Don’t cry, Willow.” (Chapter 60)

In the legal setting that finalizes their arrangement, Mai’s voice becomes the home she helped build. Comfort, here, is not vague reassurance but the culmination of a plan that makes “all right” possible.