BURIED
The storm had passed by morning, but the yard still held its weight. Leaves plastered the
patio. Mud streaked the sliding doors. The pool behind Mrs. Langley’s house sat black and still, as if the water waited for someone brave enough to look inside it.
Mama and I walked the stone path in silence. She carried her bucket. I carried the pump. Our clothes stuck to our skin, heavy with leftover damp from the night.
We worked for people who lived close to the coast. Houses with white trim and blue shutters that looked painted onto the horizon. When storms rolled through, their lawns flooded first, and the smell of seaweed crawled up their porches.
Mama cleaned their tile until her knees burned. I handled the heavy work she never wanted them to see. Pools, yards, trash. Work that left dirt under your nails and a pull between your shoulders.
The first time I drained a pool, I thought the water would stay clear, but hurricanes mix everything. Frogs, palm fronds, beer cans, roof tile. All of it circling the drain like a secret the storm refused to keep. When the pump kicked on, the hose shook with its own pulse and the smell rose thick as rot.
Mrs. Langley stepped onto the porch in rubber boots and a pink robe. Her lipstick looked sharp enough to cut. “Thank goodness you came,” she said. “The smell is unbearable. I can’t even finish my breakfast.”
Mama nodded. “We’ll handle it.”
She moved inside with her mop, leaving me with the heat and the pool. The screen door hummed behind her.
I knelt at the edge and dipped the net. The surface barely moved. When I hit the switch, the pump stirred the water into a slow spiral. Leaves drifted across the tile. A drowned lizard turned once, then vanished. The smell thickened as the water fell.
As the deep end came into view, I saw a shape pressed against the steps.
Not leaves.
Not a float.
Fur clung to tile, swollen from the storm. A collar turned with the lowering water, a single flash of metal before it slipped under again.
A dog.
My throat tightened. Mama always said storms reveal what the world tries to hide. I felt that truth settle between my ribs as I leaned closer.
I called for her. My voice carried across the yard, thin and unsure. She didn’t hear me. The pump kept pulling the body toward the center. The dog’s legs drifted. The mouth hung open.
The weight of the moment pressed against me. I reached with the net. The pole bent. The body sagged hard, as if the water wanted to keep the dog a little longer. I hauled it up inch by inch until it hit the tile with a heavy sound. The smell curled inside my throat.
A tag on the collar showed a phone number and the name Langley stamped above it.
I closed my hand around it. The metal felt warm, almost living. I pictured Mrs. Langley stepping outside with her perfect lipstick, telling us the smell ruined her morning. I pictured Mama beside her, thanking her for the work because rent sat two months behind and the landlord had stopped knocking.
If she saw this, she would find a way to blame us.
Storms never took the blame in houses like hers. People did.
I dragged the body behind the hedge near the garbage cans. The fur slipped across the tile. My arms shook. I covered the shape with a towel even though it hid nothing. I slipped the collar into my pocket. The weight of it changed the way I stood.
Mama stepped outside to dump her mop water. Her eyes skimmed the hedge. She paused long enough for me to wonder if she sensed everything I tried to bury. She said nothing and went back inside.
When I returned to the pool, the pump finished with a final groan. The floor lay pale and bare. I scrubbed each tile until the chlorine stung my fingers and the smell of the dog faded under
the bite of cleaner.
Mrs. Langley came outside with lemonade and a plate of cookies. “You did wonders,” she said. “You people always know how to clean things right.”
Mama nodded and thanked her.
I kept my hands in my pockets. The collar pressed against my thigh like a small buried truth.
When we drove away, clouds hung low over the marsh. Behind the hedge, the towel still covered a shape she would never search for.
That night, I buried the collar behind our trailer. The dirt closed fast over it, soft from the rain. I waited for something to rise, a smell, a sound, anything that proved truth couldn’t stay covered.
Nothing came.
Only the warm night and the quiet breath of the earth.
I pressed my thumb into the soil until it formed a small hollow. Mama called my name from the doorway. Her voice carried the tired weight of someone who still believed the world stayed clean if she worked hard enough.
I stood and wiped my hands on my jeans. The moon edged through the clouds, thin as a blade. I knew storms would uncover us again one day. I knew the earth kept what people tried to hide.
But I walked back to the trailer and kept my silence, carrying a new heaviness I still didn’t have a name for.
BETHANY BRUNO is a Floridian author. She holds a BA in English from Flagler College and an MA from the University of North Florida. Her work has appeared in more than a hundred literary journals and magazines, including The Threepenny Review, The Sun, McSweeney’s, River Teeth’s Beautiful Things, and The Huffington Post. A Best of the Net nominee, she has won multiple writing contests, including the 2026 Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest. Learn more at her website.