‘Jaws' — the unlikely glue that binds my estranged siblings and me

Boston Globe

3 days ago

One rainy day, desperate to escape a stifling, muggy hotel room where the clanky air conditioning couldn't drown out the cranky kids, or my grandfather's persistent complaints, or the needling voices of the women, Dad decided to do something. He took my mother, my 6-year-old brother, and 7-year-old me to the movies, leaving our baby sister with my grandparents. The theater was cold, dark, and quiet — everything the hotel room was not. But instead of refuge, we walked straight into 'Jaws.'
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What on God's holy earth possessed our parents to buy tickets to that movie is beyond comprehension. Their only excuse was that the rating system was different then. More likely, their brains were pickled from holiday boozing.
The next day, terror clung like July's humidity, so we chose the pool over the beach. But my brother and I couldn't even dip our toes in — every shadow was a dorsal fin, echoing John Williams's ominous bass. Our blue-and-yellow raft, like the Kintner boy's, sent us into hysteria. Every time Dad stepped onto the pool stairs, we screamed 'Shark!' as a warning. What finally made him dive in, I'll never know.
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At 6 foot 5 inches and 250 pounds, he swam steady laps, cutting through the water with quiet power. Mesmerized, my brother and I inched toward the shallow end and perched on the edge, our pink, sunburned skin smarting against the hot turquoise tiles that separated us from the water. We watched him glide, hypnotized by his rhythm.
When he got out of the water, he looked lighter, unburdened. Gone was the tense, tired man. In his place stood someone almost mythic. Then he spun a tale of Captain Ahab proportions — a fantastical story about a whale that ate sharks.
The author in the hotel pool in Clearwater, Fla., the summer before she saw "Jaws."
Laura Petrovich-Cheney
'Hop on and hold tight — I'm the whale that eats the sharks,' he announced, promising that, once we all got into the pool, I would be a mermaid, my brother a noble pirate, and he, our protector, the whale. Too prickly hot and desperate for relief, I slid onto his back with my legs under his arms, and my brother wrapped himself around my waist. It was the last summer we'd be young enough to accept such closeness without question — our bodies entwined in trust, unburdened by self-consciousness.
Clinging to each other, we shrieked and floated across the pool's surface, swimming from the shallow end toward deeper water. With every stroke, the imagined threat lessened. Dad kicked hard, sending cooling sprays over us. With each splash, fear gave way to laughter, suspicion to relief. We approached 10 feet of water.
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'Hold on for the biggest splash of all,' Dad instructed. I leaned forward, arms wrapped around his neck. My brother tightened his grip. Dad plunged beneath the surface, carrying us into the tranquil depths where all sounds — inside our heads and in the world above — fell silent. In the suspended light of the pool, we saw there were no sharks. Terror dissolved in that slow-motion, weightless world. Our eyes wide open, we watched bubbles spiral upward and hair float like octopus tentacles. It was magic, bound up with imagination, laughter, and something that felt like love.
Then, with one strong kick, we burst through the water's surface. The three of us gasped together, releasing a breath we hadn't realized we were holding. The exhilaration whooshed through the air — brief, pure, unforgettable.
'Again, Daddy Whale!' I shouted. My mother waved from a lounge chair. Even my grandparents clapped and sang, urging us to keep swimming.
I don't know how long Dad carried us that day — back and forth across the pool, dipping in and out of its blue depths — but the memory remains clear: held in the fragile pause between innocence and all that would unravel later.
It was a fleeting shimmer of pleasure before time and circumstances dragged the family apart. No matter how fractured we are today, 'Jaws' still ties us together. One strange, radiant moment of joy, born from fear and make-believe. And this 50th anniversary summer of 'Jaws,' I'll remember that sometimes, even the darkest waters can carry us back to something that almost feels like love.