The Secret Keeper - A Short Story

Written in 2021 | Rewritten in 2024 | 4,806 words

The story you are about to read is a “vomit draft.” This means that it is in its rawest form of writing and has no professional editing done whatsoever. But I welcome any corrections, grammatical or otherwise, you may find.

Diane has a spending problem. Like, a real spending problem. The kind that involves staying up between the hours of midnight and four in the morning, optimal shopping network hours as far as she was concerned. Diane wasn’t the kind of married woman to impulsively buy a handbag, which was an item typically sold in the daytime, because that wasn’t the kind of item she watched religiously for. Instead, Diane much rather watch the after-hours channels most home-owners with the gold cable package don’t realize they have. Channels that go all the way into the four digits and beyond. That’s where Diane lives. That’s where Diane spends her time and her money. 

While most happy families are fast asleep, Diane is pouring herself a tall glass of Merlot, sitting cross-legged on her oversized couch, pulling her hair back in a bun (for optimal phone usage), and turning on her television. This is her nightly ritual. A ritual she has yet to allow anyone (family, co-worker, or husband) to interfere with. 

Of the many thousands of channels at her fingertips where hundreds cater specifically to buying things both of necessity and desire either over the phone or online, Diane only frequents three of them. She has spent years ordering and returning items from dozens, if not hundreds, of various channels boasting they have the best products, until she landed on the best of the best. And once she found them, they became her entire world. 

It was on one of these channels where she found her first, second, and now third husband. She has become so acquainted with each network and their stock that she would watch their sales people at night and hang around their studios during the day, taking notes on all the merchandise wheeled inside. Occasionally, she would strike up a conversation with the male television personalities on the networks as they were easier to get information out of than the women (whom she found callous and uninterested about their work once they left the building). Once Diane got everything she wanted out of the men she flirted with, dated and ultimately married, she’d get rid of them. Until the urge to know every aspect of what went on both behind and in front of the camera became an obsession she just couldn’t kick. 

It wasn’t so much the cost of an item or the item itself on these specific channels that made her need to buy them. It was the limited supply that really interested her. The idea that there were only a thousand or a hundred of any one color or one size was all that mattered to her when deciding on what to buy. Even if she hated that color and would never fit that size. These channels specialized in items that were going out of stock and would never be reproduced or sold anywhere else ever again. These were items that had been rejected by society because the next best thing was invented, rendering these things obsolete. But to Diane, she saw them as priceless. 

On this particular night, Diane was growing restless. She spent the last two hours watching her favorite channel of the three, the one that never let her down, but they had nothing that interested her. Every item they showed had thousands in stock and it seemed like they would never near the sellout number she needed before she’d hit her automatic redial button on her landline phone.  

Like Diane had told her first and second husbands often enough that they would never forget, “It’s not worth buying till there are less than ten left.” For her it was the thrill of listening to the automatic operator asking for her account number, then waiting patiently while the familiar clicks sent her to the queue where a sales representative would answer her call. Her breathing would intensify as she watched the item on her screen decrease in number from ten to eight. The elevator music on the phone seemed to get so loud in her ear she would hold it inches from her face as the number was now at five! Then finally someone would answer her call. They’d thank her for holding, wished she was having a lovely day and then finally get to the part where they’d ask her what she would like. She never rushed the sales representative. To her, they were her savior and never let her down. In fact, she discovered the nicer you are, the more likely they were to give you additional items with your purchase or a larger discount. Her second husband tried to tell her that had nothing to do with how polite she was on the phone, but that they knew how many times and purchases she had made in the past and would authorize the sales rep to ‘gift’ other items as an incentive to get her to remain loyal to their channel. She made sure he regretted that lie. 

The item would now be at four left and the personality on the screen would be urging the viewers to get in on this deal fast before it’s gone forever. The sales rep would place Diane on a brief hold while she put in the order for her. Diane watched her television closely. The number would drop from four to one and the sales rep would return on the line to inform her that she just made it in time! Her request would be in the mail and on its way to her within the week. Diane would chug the remainder of her wine and pour herself another to cap off her night. The wine helped her sleep, when she was finally ready for bed. 

She switched the channel to her second favorite. Having three channels came in handy so she was rarely ever let down. There would almost always be something worth buying before there were none left. But on the screen were one of those annoying infomercials. She hated them. Only idiots, she’d tell her third husband, would fall for buying one of those things. Didn’t matter what it was, she always referred to them as “those things.” What she hated most about infomercial sales marketing was their inability to accurately explain how many they had in stock. Their sales pitch was to sell their audience something at extremely reduced prices. But for Diane, money was no object. She wasn’t their audience. 

Her glass of wine was running low so she uncrossed her legs and leaned forward to pour her second glass of the night. A sign that if she didn’t find something worth buying soon she’d be going to bed angry and no one hated that side of her more than her slumbering husband. Then she glanced at the screen to see a corny animation of a box spinning on the screen. She put the wine bottle down mid-pour to grab her remote and quickly mute the tv. If there was anything she hated more than what was being sold in an infomercial, it was the high-pitched, fast-talking, voice-over. 

The Secret Keeper isn’t for anyone. The announcers voice was low and smooth. Unlike anything she’d heard before. If you’ve ever had a secret you were dying to tell someone but couldn’t because of what they might think of you or whom they might tell, this is what you’ve been waiting for your whole life. For the first time in her life, Diane found herself turning up the volume on her tv. She glanced over her shoulder towards her bedroom, hoping husband number three wouldn’t wake up. Satisfied he wasn’t bothered she turned back just in time for the spinning box on the screen to stop. 

It floated in the center of the screen, surrounded by soothing red and black colors that buzzed around it. The box itself was also ornate. Made of a solid piece of black onyx, surrounded by 24k gold trim the Secret Keeper is virtually indestructible. 

“But what does it do?” Diane asked the television announcer who surely couldn’t hear her question. And yet… 

What does it do? Simple. Write down your secret, whatever it is, on this piece of paper, using this pen (included with all purchases), then place it inside your Secret Keeper. Now you can live our your life, satisfying that urge you have to tell someone, anyone. Just tell your Secret Keeper and it will keep your secret forever. Because you and I know, don’t we, that a secret isn’t a secret if two people know it. 

Diane didn’t need any more convincing. She was already dialing the number, muting her television to block out the sound of the announcers menacing laugh. She wanted to buy more than one, but the sales rep was adamant that there could only be one sold per household. Satisfied that she had made what would be the best purchase of her entire life, Diane curled up on the couch and fell fast asleep with a smile on her face. She knew exactly the secret she would write and lock away in her very own Secret Keeper. 

One the date of its arrival, Diane was giddy with anticipation. She didn’t receive a tracking number like she is accustomed to with all her prior purchases and was unable to get one when she called customer service. They told her to just be patient, the answer to all her troubles would be arriving soon. It was a full two weeks before it arrived in an unmarked box, left on her doorstep. As her husband never received packages she knew it was hers and since she spent the last two weeks fantasizing about her Secret Keeper she did something she’d never done before in the whole of her adult life; she didn’t watch ANY shopping channels. In fact, for two weeks she found herself falling asleep on the couch before midnight after having had only one glass of wine. 

The box was heavy, which tipped her off that it had to be her Secret Keeper and proceeded to open it at the kitchen counter. There was the usual bubble wrap to protect it from damage that she tossed aside before carefully lifting it out of the box and placing it before her. Taped on the lid was black envelope with a bright crimson seal of wax keeping it closed. She peeled the envelope off the lid of the box and set it aside, wanting to stare at her Secret Keeper instead. After a few minutes she tried to open it but found it wouldn’t budge. Realizing it must be locked she grabbed the envelope and using her thumb, ran it quickly across the flap to open it. 

“Ouch!” She looked down at her thumb to find a fresh cut and blood oozing from the wound. She sucked on it while opening the envelope with her free hand. Inside she found two large gold keys and smiled at their intricate design. She’d only read about keys like that in fairytales and wondered to herself why these were never mentioned in the infomercial. Surely they would’ve gotten more sales if they had. 

Inside the envelope was also a letter on old yellow paper. She unfolded it and read what it said: 

Diane, 

You have chosen to purchase your very own Secret Keeper and now it’s time for you to make the biggest decision of your life. Using one of your two keys, open your Secret Keeper box and locate your paper and pen that you should use to write down your secret. 

You must not use any paper or pen other than what has been provided to you. There are consequences. 

Consequences? She thought to herself and read on: 

Think carefully about the secret you ask the Secret Keeper to keep for you. For once you write it down we will already know what it says. Place the paper and pen back inside your Secret Keeper and lock it with the same key you used to open it. If you use the other key there are consequences. 

There goes that word again the thought… 

There is one more thing you should know. When you touched the Secret Keeper it activated a 24hr clock. This clock is now ticking down to zero. Before it reaches zero there are a few things you must do or there are consequences. 

She let the letter fall from her hand to the counter, picked up a key, careful to pocket the other, as the letter stressed, she should use the same one after opening it to lock it. She turned the key and lifted the lid, on the inside of the box, just under the hinge of the lid, was a digital clock, counting down from 24hrs. It was currently at 22hrs 38min. Had she really spent nearly an hour and a half just staring at the box before reading the damn letter? She picked it up again and continued reading: 

1. Write down your secret using the paper and pen provided. 

1. Give the second key to a complete and total stranger who must promise never to lose or give away your key anyone as long as they live. 

She looked inside of the box and at the bottom was one piece of paper and a pen that she reached for and placed on the counter with a shakier hand than usual. 

“Pull yourself together, Diane. I mean, this is probably all just a joke. A part of the sale. It is a Secret Keeper after all.” She shook her head back and forth and rotated her shoulders to try and calm her nerves down before reading the last line. 

Failure to follow the aforementioned rules will result in just one consequence: 

DEATH 

The word was right there, large and bold and in all capital letters. 

“Death?” She said, her voice as shaky as her hands. She wiped her brow which had started to collect some sweat, though it was a rather breezy day, then proceeded to pour herself a large glass of wine. 

It was rather early in the day for a drink, but the situation called for it. With a still shaky hand she chugged down a full glass. Her hand stopped shaking instantly. There was only one thing to do: Call customer service. There was no number on the letter or envelope and nothing on the box it was shipped in. She pulled out her laptop and searched for the Secret Keeper online but couldn’t find any mention of it anywhere. Which she found odd because most infomercials always had a dot com. Then she remembered her phone had number recall and located the number she dialed that night nearly two weeks ago. 

On the third ring the automatic answering service picked up and went through the motions of what buttons to press for which department. She promptly dialed 0 as this was the usual number to press when looking for immediate connection to customer service. The usual clicks proceeded as she moved the phone away from her ear in anticipation of loud tinny music. 

“Thank you for calling the Easy Mower customer service hotline. How may I help you today?” 

She put the phone back against her ear. She must’ve heard incorrectly. “Excuse me, but I’d like to return—.” 

“Please hold while I direct you to our retention department.” 

Before Diane could object, she was placed on hold and the loud music hit her eardrum like a jolt that shocked her senses. Within minutes a man was on the other end of the line. 

“Good afternoon, ma’am. I see here you’d like to return your Easy Mower. Might I ask what was wrong with it and how long have you had it?” 

“Had it? I haven’t had it,” she replied, her voice growing more and more frustrated. 

“Please hold ma’am. You need the sales department.” 

Again, Diane was placed on hold. While loud music played in her ear, she cursed out loud and glanced down at the clock inside the Secret Keeper. It was now down to 20hrs 47min. 

“Good evening, ma’am. And might I say what an excellent purchase you will be making with our Easy Mower—” 

“STOP!” She shouted. “Just shut up and listen.” 

“Now, ma’am I’m going to have to ask you not to speak to me—” 

“I would like to return the Secret Keeper I received in the mail today. I ordered it two weeks ago. I don’t want it anymore. How can I return it?” 

“What was it you said, ma’am?” 

“My Secret Keeper. I’d like to return it. This was the number I called two weeks ago.” 

“Of course, ma’am. Please hold.” 

A series of clicks and then a voice, nearly identical to the one she heard during the infomercial, came on the line. 

“Yes, Diane, what seems to be the trouble?” 

She started to speak but no words came. Diane? How did they know her name? She couldn’t recall giving her name and no one she had spoken to already had bothered to ask for her name. 

“I’d like to return my Secret Keeper.” 

“I am afraid that is just not possible, Diane. Our records indicate that you took official possession of it 3hrs and 23mins ago.” 

Diane glanced at the clock inside the Secret Keeper again and as it ticked to show 20hrs 37mins. How could they know that? 

“But…but surely you have a return policy?” 

“Of course we do, Diane. We will accept any box that has not been touched by human hands. Once it has, I’m afraid we can’t take it back. There are consequences if we do.” 

When he spoke the last part, it sent a chill down Diane’s spine. She remembered those words very well. She looked down at the partially opened letter on the counter, the word DEATH was all she could see, staring at her. 

“This is ridiculous. Can I speak to a higher authority about this?” 

The voice on the other end laughed. The same laugh she muted in order to order the Secret Keeper. 

“Diane, I’m afraid the owner of this company is far too busy to speak with someone like you at the moment. If I were you, I’d worry less about him and worry more about that ticking clock. Secrets can be such fun,” he said, laughing ominously before the line went dead in her ear. 

Diane spent the next four hours trying everything she could to destroy the box and the letter. She put it on her driveway and backed her car over it. All that happened was a flat tire that she’d now have to call a mechanic to come and fix. The found a shovel and began smashing it. The shovel suffered more damage and there wasn’t a scratch on the box. She even took old newspapers and stuffed them inside a cardboard box, placed the Secret Keeper in the center and lit it with a match. She sat back, smoking a cigarette, and watched the smoke rise up into the night sky, a glass of wine half empty beside her. The light from her neighbors next door came on, but she paid it no mind. 

She finally took her garden hose and put out the fire she started. The box and old papers were a mixture of black ash and dust, but the Secret Keeper remained unharmed. 

Opening the lid in a mad frenzy, the pulled out the paper and pen and scribbled her secret on it. Might as well, she thought to herself, and threw them both back inside the box and slammed the lid shut, not before seeing the clock ticking down from 15hrs 22mins. The watch on her wrist said it was already two in the morning. How was she expected to find a stranger if the world wouldn’t be waking up for another six hours at least? 

“Diane, is everything alright over there?” Startled at the voice, she dropped her glass of wine on the ground and turned to see her neighbor standing by the hedge that separated her yard from theirs. 

She snuffed what was left of her cigarette out on the arm of her chair and walked over, a smile on her face. “Ruth, right?” She asked with a sly smile on her face. The woman nodded and wrapped her arms around herself. It was a rather cold night and she couldn’t understand how Diane could be sitting outside without a coat or a robe or something. “We don’t know each other, do we?” Ruth’s eyebrows furrowed. “What I mean is, we’re basically strangers?” 

Ruth seemed insulted by the questions as she was outside in the middle of the night checking on the well-being of someone who considered her to be nothing more than a stranger. “Yeah, I guess you could look at it that way.” 

“Great. Great. I wonder if you could do me a favor, then?” 

“What?” Ruth asked, looking over her shoulder at a window on the second floor of her house. Diane glanced up to see a man looking down at them from the window. Did Ruth have a husband? Diane smiled even bigger when she realized just how much of a stranger her neighbors were to her. 

“Well, you see, I have this key,” Diane said, pulling a key from her back pocket. “And I’m hoping you could keep it for me.” She could tell Ruth was getting annoyed by this conversation and Diane needed to think fast if she hoped to get her to agree. “You see, I lose things. Misplace them, really. And my husband just hates when he buys me jewelry and I seem to forget where I’ve put them. So, he bought me that box, over there,” Diane said, pointing at the Secret Keeper surrounded by ash and smoke. “It’s for me to keep my jewelry in. Comes with a lock and two keys. If you could hold the other key it would really mean a lot. That way if I lose my key I can just come and get this one and he’ll never know the difference.” Diane ended her lie with a smile to make it sound as believable as possible. 

“Sure…” Ruth said, glancing up to make sure her husband was still watching her by the window. She takes the key from Diane and pockets it, not even bothering to look at it before turning and heading back into her house. Just before she opens her front door, Ruth turns back, “Speaking of your husband, we haven’t seen him in a while. Away on business?” 

Diane retains her fake smile, a slight twitch in her left eye and answers, “Business? Yes, of course. He’s always away on business.” 

Ruth enters her home and Diane spins on her heels, a burst of joy and energy unlike anything she’d had before overcomes her as she kneels down in front of the box and pulls out her key. She opens it and is relieved to see the clock had stopped ticking with 15hrs 04mins. 

Frantically, she starts digging right beside it with her bare hands. She digs and digs and digs for the next hour as deep as she can. Her fingernails caked with dirt, but she doesn’t care. When exhaustion sets in, she takes the Secret Keeper and drops it inside the hole, using what little energy she has left to fill it with dirt. She then takes her empty glass of wine and stands it on top of the mound where she just dug and laughs herself silly back inside the house. The light in the neighbor’s upstairs bedroom goes out shortly after, but Diane doesn’t notice. 

The following day Diane is in high spirits as she makes herself a cup of coffee in the kitchen. She looks out her window to see the wine glass still there and she chuckles to herself as the memory of last night returns. She hears a car door slam next door and sees Ruth waving from her front porch. Ruth glances over at the wine glass and mound of dirt then heads inside her house. 

Once Diane finishes her early morning coffee she walks to her car and curses when she sees the flat tire. She makes a mental note to call a mechanic as she walks to the end of her street to wait for a bus. 

Ruth spends most of her morning in her kitchen. She does the dishes and folds laundry from the day before from the kitchen table. But on this particular morning she is distracted by her view from her kitchen window; her neighbor’s yard. She was not imagining things, as her husband stood next to her at the time, when she watched Diane dig, with her bare hands, a hole large enough to fit that box. The same box they watched her light on fire and then lie and say it was a jewelry box. A present from her husband whom they don’t recall seeing for several months. Something was wrong and Ruth wanted to get to the bottom of it. But she promised her husband she would mind her own business. Like Diane said, they were strangers. But she did entrust her with a key. Who would entrust a neighbor with a key unless they were more than just strangers? And keys were meant to open things. 

Enough was enough. She couldn’t just do chores around the house all day and pretend she wasn’t the least bit curious to know what was inside that box that Diane clearly tried to destroy and finally resigned herself to just bury. 

Ruth took off her apron, threw it on the kitchen table beside the half-folded laundry basket and with the key in her pocket, searched her own back yard for a shovel before heading towards the wine glass and mound of dirt in her neighbor’s backyard.  

Unlike the chill from last night, the sun was unforgiving this morning and Ruth had given herself quite a workout digging till she hit the box. Once she did, she brushed aside dirt and lifted it from the hole. She thought the box was beautiful and couldn’t understand why Diane would want to destroy it. She shrugged her shoulders and used the key she had to open the box. Inside she found a piece of paper, a pen and a digital clock that was ticking down from 8hrs 12mins. 

She unfolded the paper in her hand and dropped it back in the box the instant she read what it said: 

I have killed three husbands and they all live with me in my house. 

Ruth looked up at the house and down at the box still ticking. What madness was this she wondered before shutting the box, putting it back in the hole, and trying her best to put it all back the way she found it. She spent the rest of the afternoon washing the clothes she wore to dig in her neighbor’s yard and trying to pretend she didn’t know what was buried. All the while, she’d glance at the time. The memory of the ticking clock in that box stayed with her. She couldn’t be sure of exactly how close it was to winding down to zero hour, but she surmised it would be fairly soon and she wondered what would happen when it did. Just as a horrible thought was about to enter her head the front door banged open. 

“Ruth! Where are you?” It was her husband. He sounded upset. 

“I’m here. What’s wrong?” She asked, finding him standing in the middle of their living room. 

“Turn on the radio. Quick,” he said. She did as he asked, turning on a radio she kept in the kitchen with her while she worked. She had completely forgotten to turn it on all day and wished she had. It would’ve been a welcome distraction from the morning she had. 

This just in: The woman who plummeted from the roof of an accounting firm in downtown has been identified as Diane Hillman. Forty-eight years old. Married three times. Twice widowed. No one knows what she was doing on the roof— 

Ruth’s husband turn off the radio. “Can you believe it?” 

“Honey, I have something to tell you?” 

“You dug it up, didn’t you?” He asked, looking at her hands for evidence. He found it when he realized she smelled of fresh strawberries, like she had showered fairly recently. His wife never showers in the afternoon unless she had been doing gardening work. 

Ruth nodded her head. She could never lie to her husband. “But that’s not what I want to tell you. That news report was false. She isn’t widowed twice. She’s widowed three times.”