Lily, a fourteen-year-old white girl, lives alone with
her father, a peach farmer, in Sylvan, South Carolina. As the novel
opens, she lies in bed, waiting for the bees that live in the walls
of her bedroom to emerge and fly around, as they do most nights.
T. Ray, her father, is abusive and does not believe her story about
the bees. Her nanny and housekeeper, Rosaleen, believes Lily but
also thinks Lily is foolish for trying to collect the bees in a
jar. Lily recalls her very last memory of her mother, Deborah, who
died when Lily was a small child. Lily thinks that she played a
horrible part in Deborah’s death. In a flashback, readers learn
that T. Ray told Lily that she accidentally shot Deborah while Deborah
and T. Ray were fighting one day. The next morning, Lily accompanies
Rosaleen into town, where Rosaleen intends to register to vote.
Instead, a group of racists harass Rosaleen, who winds up getting
arrested for affronting them. T. Ray picks up Lily at the prison
and tells her that the men who accosted Rosaleen will most likely
kill her. This news understandably frightens Lily, particularly
as Rosaleen is the only person in her life who truly loves Lily.
At home, T. Ray tells Lily that on the day she died Deborah had
returned home to pick up just her clothes, intending to leave Lily
behind. Lily notices that the bees have escaped from the jar she
put them in, which leads her to have an epiphany: she needs to run
away.
Lily finds Rosaleen at the hospital, where Rosaleen has
been taken after being beaten up by the arresting police officers.
Together, Lily and Rosaleen hitchhike toward a town (Tiburon, S.C.)
that Lily has found written on the back of a picture of a black
Mary that once belonged to her mother. On the way, Lily feels free,
as if a new life has begun for her. Rosaleen feels annoyed that
Lily has broken the law only to head toward a town loosely associated
with her deceased mother. In Tiburon, Lily learns that the black
Mary picture comes from the label of a honey maker in town. Searching
for this honey maker, she comes across the bright pink house of
August Boatwright and her sisters. August invites Lily and Rosaleen
to stay, although Lily makes up a false story to explain their needs.
August decides that Rosaleen will help her sister May Boatwright
around the house and Lily will learn beekeeping.
Soon Lily and Rosaleen become members of the community
centered around the Boatwright house: a close-knit group of African Americans,
mostly women, who call themselves the “Daughters of Mary” and worship
a three-foot-tall statue of a black Mary. Lily meets the honey farm
helper, Zach, a handsome, intelligent, African American boy on whom
she develops a crush. He develops feelings for her as well and buys
Lily a notebook in which she can write stories. Lily grows closer
and closer to August, beginning to love her and to find in her a
surrogate mother. August urges her to open up about whatever led
Lily to end up in Tiburon, but Lily worries that she will be sent
back to Sylvan if the truth comes out. Meanwhile, Lily also learns
how to care for bees and to understand her own ingrained prejudices.
She visits a white lawyer in town who is helping Zach fulfill his
dream of becoming a lawyer. At the lawyer’s office, she breaks down
and calls her father. T. Ray is angry and indignant. The experience
makes her miss her mother but also reaffirms her decision to run
away.
On a very hot day, Lily asks May if she ever knew anyone
named Deborah Fontanel and learns that she has. With this, Lily
receives absolute confirmation that her mother once spent time at
the Boatwright house. Lily is simultaneously eager to find out more
and anxious about exposing her true identity as Deborah’s daughter.
On her way to talk to August, Lily decides instead to ride with
Zach into town to buy pieces for the car. There, Zach is amongst
a group of black boys that assault a white man, and the entire group
gets taken to jail. When Lily returns home, Clayton, the lawyer,
has arrived to tell the Boatwrights that Zach has been arrested.
They decide to hide the news from May, the most sensitive sister,
because they know how upset she’d be. But May finds out and leaves
the house alone. She commits suicide by drowning herself in the
river. The next week is taken up with mourning and a funeral. Once
another boy confesses, Zach is let out of jail, unpunished. Lily
fails to find a chance to speak to August.
One morning, Lily wakes to find that it is Mary Day and
that the mourning is over. A two-day celebration begins. During
it, Lily finds herself alone with Zach. He kisses her, and they
vow to try to be together in the future, though they both recognize
that their union is, at present, impossible. Lily then goes to August’s
room to wait for her. When August arrives, Lily tells her the truth
of her life, of how she ended up in Tiburon and of how she killed
her mother. August admits that she has known Lily’s true identity
all along and corroborates Lily’s worst fear: that Deborah had already
left her when she returned home and was shot to death. Deborah had
gone to the house only to pick up her clothes. Feeling betrayed
and upset, Lily begins to mourn for her mother. Days later, after
she has recovered from her grief, her father arrives at the Boatwright
house. Though T. Ray is angry and violent, Lily finally has the
strength to confront him about the past and to call him “Daddy.”
August convinces him to let Lily stay in Tiburon.
As T. Ray leaves, Lily asks him if she really killed her
mother. He reports that she did. However, Lily has come to realize
that he, just like her mother, is a flawed and complex human. In
a way, she forgives him, but she nevertheless feels happy to continue
living at the Boatwright house. In the fall, she returns to school,
which she attends with Zach and where she makes other friends. August
and her community become Lily’s new family, and, at long last, Lily develops
into a loved and loving person.
