I am the canker of my brother Sage's life. He has told me so ... - eDisk

Excerpt from “The Isabel Fish” in How to Breathe UnderwaterBy Julie OrringerRandom House, 2003.I am the canker of my brother Sage’s life. He has told me soin no uncertain terms. Tonight as we eat hamburgers in the caron the way to our first scuba class, he can’t stop talking aboutthe horrible fates that might befall me underwater. This, eventhough he knows how scared I am after what happened lastNovember.“You could blow out your eardrums,” he says. “Or yourlungs might implode from the pressure.”“Shut up, Sage,” I say.“Did you know that one in twelve scuba divers gets attackedby sharks?”“Not in a pool,” I say.Sage is sixteen, plays drums, smokes unfiltered cigarettes,and drives his beat-up black Pinto to school every morning,with me practically hanging onto the rear bumper because I’mslow getting ready. I know he sees me as a problem, a youngerand more stupid version of himself, and a girl, not popular, sortof plain, with my hair pulled back in a knot most days and awalk some people make fun of. He used to be cruel to me in thenormal sibling sense, but now it’s worse. He is far fromforgetting Isabel, and who can blame him? She’d been hisgirlfriend for six months before the accident, and it’s only beenfour months since. Four months is a short time in the grandscheme of things, shorter than it’s taken Sage’s shaved hair togrow long again, shorter than it’s taken me to grow twenty-sixfighting fish from eggs for my science experiment, “TheRelationship Between Aggression and Hypertension in B.Splendens.” I got the eggs one month before the accident. WhenI showed them to Isabel, red and clumped together in a smalltank, she laughed and said she could hardly believe that bunchof caviar would become real animals. Well, guess what? Theyare now.Every day I feed them and give them liquid vitamins andalter their blood pressure with drugs, and still get my homeworkdone and make it to school just as if I were fully recovered.Which I’m not, in many ways. My parents are aware of this. As

ottom of the freshwater tank, the pearl gouramis flirting in astand of bamboo plant. I have a marine tank too, with threeyellow tangs and two fireworks anemones and a duskyangelfish. Tonight, for the first time, I’ll begin to know whatmy fish have known all their lives: how to breathe underwater.When I get calm enough I go to the women’s locker roomand find an empty locker. All around me, teenagers are tyingback their hair and putting their naked bodies into tank suits.Someone in the next row of lockers says she heard we’re notactually scuba-ing today, just learning the equipment and doingsome laps with fins to get used to the feeling. That makes mefeel a little better. When I go to St. Maarten I will have my ownfins, according to my father; we have already looked atexamples in the window of Arbor Valley Sea and Ski, and Ihave admired a translucent blue pair with a matching mask.They seem like they’d be almost invisible underwater.Looking at those fins made it easy to imagine swimming,but now that I’m here at the Y it seems crazy. Sure, in St.Maarten there are a lot of fish you can see living their livesaround coral reefs if you happen to know how to scuba. Thatkind of thing is attractive to an ichthyophile like me. But I amalso a person who almost drowned. When my dad told meabout St. Maarten, with its great diving, I wanted to ask if heand my mother were crazy. Did they really think I wouldvoluntarily walk into the ocean and let it close over my head?Before I could respond, my mother said she’d found us a scubacertification class at the Y. She and my father gave Sage andme these hopeful, anxious looks. I was speechless for amoment, and then I blurted, “Scuba?”“We think it’ll be good for you,” my mother said. “We thinkit’ll help you form positive associations with water.”“You don’t have to dive at all, of course,” my father said.“But we hope you’ll consider it.”After all their planning, how could I say no thanks? EvenSage, who for months had hated everything, seemed interestedin the trip. The next day he called the Y and signed us up forscuba lessons, and the rest of the week he walked around with astrange half-smile on his face. Now I think he was alreadycoming up with mean things to say to me, things that wouldmake me feel as scared as I do now.