secret life of bees

Lily, the novel's narrator, is also the story's protagonist. Lily begins the novel at age fourteen, a sad girl who has experienced far more than most have at her age. She lives in Sylvan, South Carolina, with her father, T. Ray, and her housekeeper, Rosaleen. Lily's mother died when she was just four years old, and Lily has a confusing memory about the day that she died. As far as Lily remembers, she shot her mother by accident, which is never denied throughout the novel. She is ridden by guilt, loss, and confusion about her mother. T. Ray tells Lily that her mother, Deborah, actually left them. Lily disagrees and runs away. She and Rosaleen escape to Tiburon, South Carolina, because Lily found this city scratched into her mother's picture of a black Mary.