The Secret Life of Bees 151-200

After she fainted during her time out with August they came back into the house because they thought the fainting spell might have been caused by her being hungry. When they ate as much as they could eat, Zach who was also eating dinner with them got up and went to go deliver some honey to Clayton Forrest’s office. Clayton Forrest was a lawyer who allowed Zach to look through some of his cases because Zach was an aspiring lawyer. Lily asked if she could go with Zach, even though they refused at first they eventually gave in into letting her go.

When they got to Claytons office, Zach introduced her to the people and you could tell that they were quite surprised that a young white girl would be staying with a black family. Mr. Forrest and Zach went into the room to discuss some cases. Lily to this time to call her father and talk to him. When he answered the phone, the first thing that he said to her was “Lily, where the hell are you”. He kept asking her many questions about where she was and told her about how much trouble she was in. The only thing that Lily asked T.Ray was if he knew her favorite color. He was very angry with the question that she gave him and told her that he was going to whip her when he found her and she hung up. She then decided to write a letter to T.Ray just so she could vent all the anger she had toward him and then proceeded to rip it up.

After she came home, a few days later she was in the kitchen and she noticed May making a trail of graham cracker crumbs and marshmallows to guide the roaches out of the house instead of killing them. She remember what T.Ray said about how her mother used to do the exact same thing. When she asked May if she knew her, May said she did and it caused her to have one of those crying fits that cause her to go out to the Wailing Wall. Lily thought of what might have happened to her mother that caused that reaction from May.

The next Friday Lily and Zach went out into the town. She noticed that when they got to town there were many whites standing outside waiting for this white man to show up with this colored women. When Zach’s friends came they started causing trouble and one of them even threw a bottle at a white man’s nose causing it to start bleeding. When none of the boys confessed about how threw the bottle they all ended up going to jail and Lily ended up having to walk all the way home by herself. When she came home she saw everyone in the family sitting around in a circle talking with very sad and angry looks on their faces. They visited Zach in the jail and you could see it was a very horrible place to be in. It smelled and Lily wasn’t evened welcomed in because of the color of her skin. They let her in because of her saying that she was a family friend. When she and August saw Zach, Lily was quiet and the other two did all the talking. The only thing Lily said to Zach was that she would write everything in the book that he gave her.
 Of course, they hid everything from May because of her disorder. But one day, when the phone rang and she answered it she found out the truth from Zach’s mother. When May found out she was very silent and fainted. When she woke up again she asked for some time alone at her wall. Almost an hour past and they went out searching for her. Just then they found her, not at the Wailing Wall, but face down in a nearby river.

Quote:

"that you shouldn"t be ... well, lowering yourself"(Kidd 198).

Reaction:

           This quote shows how the officer who was interviewing Lily when May died was not familiar or ok with the fact that a young white girl was staying with an african american family. He actually thought that she was lowering her status by doing so. I think that his view of this matter is based on his opinion that is influenced by where he lives and the time period this was going on in.