Wasena Falls







Amanda Padgett was in a bad disposition. She was sitting at the kitchen table at her Grandmother’s house and she didn’t want to be there. It was her, her Grandmother and her Great Aunt Virginia Wray. She poked at the lima beans with her fork.

Honey, why are you in such a sulky mood?” said Virginia Wray. “Ain’t you hungry? Granny made your favorites.”

I know it,” mumbled Amanda Padgett.“I guess I just don’t have any appetite this evening.”

  “What did you eat before you got here?” asked her Grandmother.

Nothing,” she replied.

You don’t reckon you’re coming down with something do you?”

No Ma’am.” Then she looked up from her plate and said, “can I be excused?”

Well, I reckon if you’re done. It’s a shame to waste that good country steak. I can wrap it in some aluminum foil and save it for you if you think you’ll want it later. Otherwise it’s just going to get thrown away.”

Amanda Padgett looked at the plate of food sitting there. The steam was coming off the gravy and the creamed potatoes. She felt guilty. She thought about how her grandmother had tried to please her and all she wanted to do was to get away from the table somewhere where they couldn’t see her.

 “Granny’s got one of those good pecan pies for desert like you like. Don’t you reckon you could try and eat just a little?”

I’m sorry Granny,” she blurted out. “I’m just ill.”

What’s the matter?”

She cut a bite of country fried steak, pushed it through the gravy and put it in her mouth. It tasted so good and she felt so ashamed over the way she was acting that she thought she was going to cry. She took another bite.

Did we do something?” asked Virginia Wray.

No Lord, Aunt Virginia,” she said. “It’s just that I was expecting to do something else this weekend and then Momma and Tom decided to go off to Raleigh. I tried to talk them into letting me stay home by myself, but they said no.” As soon as she’d said it she wished that she hadn’t. Both of their sweet faces suddenly looked so sad. Then, she burst into tears and ran out of the room.

She’s just upset,” she heard her Aunt say. “I’ll go see.”

Maybe we ought to leave her alone awhile,” suggested her Grandmother.

Amanda Padgett ran through the front room and out the door onto the porch. She flopped down in a rocking chair and tried to stop crying, but she couldn’t. She loved those two dear old women so much.  She felt so selfish and embarrassed she could barely stand it. She wished that she could just run away.  After a while she stopped crying and just sat there in the rocking chair with her knees up and her arms wrapped around them. She could feel the dried tears on her cheeks.

It was odd. She loved Granny and Aunt Virginia so much. She loved everything about them: the way they looked and acted and spoke and even how they smelled. She loved the old house and everything in it.  Everything had happy memories attached. And yet, as she sat there looking at the porch where she’d had so many good times she felt a peculiar estrangement. It was like she didn’t belong there. She knew what it was. It was that she wanted to go to the party up at Wasena Falls. Everybody was going to be there but her.

Billy Grayson and all of the seniors were going to be there. He was bringing two kegs of beer in the back of his van and everybody was going to bring food and go skinny dipping. The thought of it was such a contrast to her Grandmother’s house. When she was there it always felt like it did when she was a little girl, but when she thought about the party up at Wasena Falls it made her feel like a grown woman. What did Granny and Aunt Virginia know about partying and getting drunk and making out?

It was another world. She felt almost dirty, even sinful.

Just then, Aunt Virginia stuck her head out the screen door and said, “Amanda Honey, won’t you come have a piece of this good pie? You want me to bring you out a slice so you can eat it here on the porch?”

Oh Aunt Virginia,” she said and she stood up and ran over and hugged her.

Come on in Darling and have you some pie.” She held open the door and Amada Padgett walked back inside. “We’ve got us a new jigsaw puzzle. I thought maybe after supper we could set up the card table and try and put the thing together. Would you like that? It ain’t but five-hundred pieces.”

I don’t know,” said Amanda Padgett.“I reckon, maybe.”

You feeling better, Honey?” asked her Grandmother. “I put that pie in the oven for a few minutes just to thaw it. I’ve got some vanilla ice cream too.”

That sounds mighty good, Granny.”

I put some foil over your plate just in case you want it later.”

Y’all are so blessed sweet,” she said. “Honest to goodness I don’t deserve it. I acted awful and I apologize.”

You sit down to the table and don’t you worry about it.”

It was just that a bunch of us were planning on going up to Wasena Falls today and go swimming. I’d been aiming on it all week and then Momma said I couldn’t go.”

My heavens,” said Aunt Virginia. “Do y’all young people still go up there? We used to go there when we was girls didn’t we Jessie?”

Law me yes,” said her Grandmother as she pulled the pecan pie out of the oven. “We used to have us a time up there back when we was about your age. I remember the water was so cold we nearly froze to death even in the middle of summer. You know that water comes right out of the mountain.”

I know. It’s cold as ice,” said Amanda Padgett. “It feels so good when it’s hot though. What was it like when y’all used to go? Did they have the rope swing?”

Oh yes,” said her Grandmother. “I reckon there’s always been a rope swing. I remember the boys used to all show off on it. They’d swing way out over the water and jump off and do flips.” “They do the same thing now,” laughed Amanda Padgett. It felt good to laugh, but the sound of her own laughter nearly got her crying again. Her Grandmother sliced the pie and served it on blue desert plates.

You need a fork, Honey?”

No, I’ve got one,” she said. “Tell me about when y’all used to go up to the falls.”

Well, we’d all pack us a picnic and go up and spend the day. Sometimes we’d build us a fire and stay until way after dark.”

That’s what we were going to do.”

Shoot, my Momma and Daddy used to go up to Wasena Falls way back in the twenties. I guess folks have always gone up there

Lord Jessie, do you remember Jack Dooley?”

I sure do,” said her Grandmother. “You know I was just thinking about him the other day for some reason.”

Then, both women got real quiet. Amanda Padgett looked at their faces. She could tell that they lost in some long ago memory. You could see it in their eyes like they were looking at something that only they could see.

Finally, Amanda Padgett said, “who was Jack Dooley?”

Her grandmother blinked and then she was back at the table. “Oh, he was just a boy,” she said. “He got killed in a logging accident when he was just twenty. He and his Daddy was cutting timber.” It got quiet again. They were remembering a boy named Jack Dooley.

Aunt Virginia said, “Jack was an awful sweet boy.”

Was he good looking?” asked Amanda Padgett.

Mercy yes,” said her Grandmother. “You ought to have seen him standing there on the rocks in the sunshine up at Wasena Falls. He was something, tall and strong and handsome and just so full of life.  He had the prettiest, thickest brown hair you ever saw.”

Did you used to date him or something?”

Yes,” her Grandmother said. She said it in a soft, wistful voice, almost like she was talking to herself. Then her eyes waxed over again. She was looking at Jack Dooley. She was up at Wasena Falls. At that moment the years just washed away and Amanda Padgett could see her as a young girl with long blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. She looked like she did in the black and white school picture that sat on the bookcase in the living room.

Finally Aunt Virginia said, “Amanda Honey, I reckon I could drive you up to Wasena Falls for a while this evening if you got your heart set on it.”

No,” she said. “I can always go another time. I believe I’d rather stay and work on that puzzle with you and Granny.”

Copyright © 2016 by James William Gardner

A native of Southwest Virginia, James William Gardner writes extensively about the contemporary American south. His work explores aspects of southern culture and society often overlooked: the downtrodden, the impoverished and those marginalized by society.


Shirley Gerald Ware-Publisher