You can find Julie Orringer's story "The Isabel Fish" in her collection "How To Breathe Underwater". Nick Hornby wrote: " 'How To Breathe Underwater' is an outstanding collection of stories." (in: "The Complete Polysyllabic Spree" by Nick Hornby).
(picture from www.greenlightbookstore.com/ book/9781400034369)
I immediately fell in love with Maddy, the 14-year-old girl who nearly drowned in a pond after a car accident. Despite her panic attacks she now learns scuba - diving because she hopes to go to the Virgin Islands and watch the fish and coral reefs underwater there: watching and examining the underwater world is her passion.
The story descibes the victory of love, passion and stamina over desaster and fear.
Maddy learns scuba-diving in a YMCA-swimming-pool, that's why my quilt has this inner part with "tiles". But the fascination lies in the deepness and freshness of water, just running and flowing its own ways.
The line I worked in is a quotation, it reads: "Tonight, for the first time, I'll begin to know what my fish have known all their lives: how to breathe underwater."
