Major Events in the Secret Life of Bees + OOE

10

-Lily finds May participating in an old habit of Deborah's, making trails of crumbs to lead bugs out of the house -Lily decides to ask May if May ever knew Lily's mother, and May confirms that Deborah lived in the honey house for a while

8

-Lily gets stung by bees in the bee house, tells August and her response is that you are not a true beekeeper until you have been stung by the bees themselves -made Lily an honorary beekeeper and because of that, Lily feels more at ease in the Boatwright house than she would ever be at home, maturity

3

-Lily goes to pick up Rosaleen, and sneaks Rosaleen out of the hospital -the two of them hitchhike to Tiburon, South Carolina → Lily picks this city because she once found her mother's picture of a black Mary with the town etched into the back

16

-Lily trashes the honey house out of anger. She breaks jars of honey and throws buckets → -She eventually tires herself out and falls asleep → Rosaleen wakes her, and the two of them clean up the honey house

18

-T. Ray has come to take Lily back to Sylvan → Lily yells "Daddy" and he realizes that Lily isn't Deborah -Lily realizes that T. Ray must have loved Deborah deeply, and he must have fallen into depression when she died -It becomes clear that T. Ray does not need Lily around him after all, for she reminds him of Deborah, so he allows her to remain in the care of the Boatwrights

12

-The Boatwrights and their friend Attorney Clayton Forrest all do their best to get Zach out of jail → must wait -June, August, and Rosaleen resolve not to tell May about Zach's incarceration

6

-after a week at the Boatwrights', Lily meets Zach, a black boy who works in the bee yard -she instantly is taken by how handsome he is, and she is surprised by her own ability to be attracted to a black boy

5

-in return for her room and board, Lily is required to assist August with the beekeeping. -Lily learns how the bee world reflects the human world, and she learns to send love to the bees

11

-on one outing to put honey jars in an office, Zach runs into his friend Jackson and two other boys -confronted by a group of white men who are prepared to protest against a white movie star attending a movie with a black woman -Jackson throws a bottle at one of the white men, and the four black boys, Zach included, are all put in jail.

14

-riddled with grief, the family sits with May's body in the living room in order to prepare for the burial -The Daughters of Mary sit and make jokes about white funerals → Lily finally feels that she has been accepted as one of them -on the day of May's funeral, Lily recalls the hum of the bees surrounding them

17

-that evening, August comes to the honey house with a box of Lily's mother's belongings → receives a mirror, a brush, and a whale pin that belonged to her mother + a photo of Deborah and Lily smiling at each other -Lily realizes that her mother did love her and cherish her as a mother should → Lily falls into grief, missing her mother more than ever

13

-while the family is watching television, May answers the phone and speaks with Zach's mother → This is how May learns that Zach had been jailed -May feels upset that no one told her about the incident before, and she is upset for Zach himself She decides to partake in her usual ritual to relieve her pain: going out to her "wailing wall." → May does not come back. The other women find her dead in the river, having killed herself

15

A few days after the funeral, the Boatwright house celebrates Mary's Day, a two-day commemoration of the Feast of the Assumption → The women bake, decorate, and reenact the story of Our Lady in Chains -Zach kisses Lily, and promises they will find a way to be together -After the first night of the Mary Day celebration, Lily decides to come clean with August. August tells Lily about her mother's upbringing and tells Lily that Deborah left Lily in Sylvan to come to the Boatwright house → Lily is left with mixed emotions of both anger and pity for her mother

7

August tells Lily that she can tell August anything that is on her mind → mother-daughter bond, she is accepted by the Boatwrights

19

In the fall, June gets married and Lily starts school → Zach has decided to go to the white school with Lily, don't care about racist remarks anymore

4

Lily and Rosaleen successfully get a ride to Tiburon and spend a night in the woods -The next day, Lily enters a general store and finds that her mother's black Mary picture matches the labels on jars of Black Madonna Honey -Lily asks the store owner, Mr. Grady, to direct her to where the honey is made → sends Lily to the Boatwrights' pink house

9

Lily calls T.Ray and asks him what her favorite color is → Lily comes to find out that he really does not love Lily in the way she wants him to love her

1

Lily catches a bee in a jar. Rosaleen disapproves, but Lily knows that Rosaleen loves her → realized this love one Easter, when Rosaleen brought her a chick, then stood up to T. Ray when he demanded Lily get rid of it Lily often daydreams that Rosaleen becomes her mother and that they run away together → absence of mother

2

The day the Civil Rights Act is passed, Rosaleen decides that she is going to register to vote, Lily accompanies Rosaleen On the way to register, Rosaleen gets harassed by local racist white men → Rosaleen pours snuff spit all over their shoes, getting herself beaten severely by her accusers and arrested