No Air (Breathe)

"When the pool closed in September, Abba cupped his hands around my shoulders and said, 'If you know how to breathe, you can get through anything.'"
Chapter 13 page 116 of Ask Me No Questions, by Marina Budhos

I really enjoyed the whole story of Nadira learning how to swim that the author decided to include at the beginning of the chapter. I feel it was really great to get a sort of ominous feel of what is going to happen in the rest of the chapter.

Later in the Nadira ends up choking up when trying to get a green card illegally. At this point I feel that Nadira needs(or needed) to remember back to when her father was teaching her how to swim and/or breathe. She needed to either breathe and get out of there, or breathe and commit. I am glad that Budhos decided to include that so I could feel like I knew the history of Nadira and reflect back on her memory.