1. One of the secrets kept in the short story "Open Secrets" is the secret of what happens to young Heather Bell. She dissapears on a camping trip and is never to be seen again, no one has any leads, and even after some time her body is never found either. On page 159, it is said that even in her school picture her tight-lipped smile may seem to have a connection to her dissapearence, as in, she was planning it or wanted to escape from something unknown to the reader, but no one will ever really know what happened.
2. Another secret, which is much less clear but I believe still exists, is Maureen's unknown secret. On the last page of the short story, page 160, the narrator talks about the things that happen to Maureen like the death of her husband, remarriage, ect., and then says, "she'll watch the soft skin form on the back of a wooden spoon and her memory will twitch, but it will not quite reveal to her this moment when she seems to be looking into an open secret, something not startling until you think of trying to tell it." It is clear that here Maureen has some sort of secret she is keeping, weither it be just from her new husband or others, or from the reader only I am unsure, but it definitly seems to me that she is keeping something. Possibly she knows something of the death of Heather Bell?
3. Both of these secrets are being kept from the reader and are both related to the main character, Maureen. I don't see any other reason for her to be the main character of a story being told about what happened to a young girl on a hike than it having to do with her in some way other than what we are told. She is the wife of the town lawyer and all, but it seems to me that there must be some other connection as well for her to be the main character even though that connection may be an unclear secret to the reader. Both of these secrets, are important to the narrative and generate questions within the mind of the reader, trying to figure out what happened to the young girl and what sort of connection Maureen has in the whole story of events besides just hearing about it and discussing it with her cousin Frances.
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I have to agree with Mande's points that she made. The biggest secret throughout the story is what actually happened to Heather Bell and I feel like Maureen actually knows, but still keeps it a secret from the reader. I also have to agree that Maureen made for a bad choice for the main character. She seemed to be unknowing of some secrets and really if she did know them was just relaying them without first-hand knowledge.
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