The Secret Life of Bees Chapter 2 Summary

  • We pick up with Lily's tale with Avery Gaston (aka "Shoe") driving Rosaleen and Lily to the police station.
  • When they got there, they found their combatants from the gas station waiting for them. Shoe watched as one of the men, Franklin Posey, cracked Rosaleen over the head with a flashlight. He seemed bent on harming Rosaleen until she apologized, but Shoe told Franklin that it wasn't "the time" (2.13).
  • Then, T. Ray came to get Lily, but Rosaleen had to stay behind. Then, T. Ray and Lily fought. During the quarrel, T. Ray revealed that Lily's mother had actually left them both when she was a toddler; her memory of Deborah packing was actually a memory of her coming back to fetch some clothes after having left them both.
  • Distraught from this revelation, Lily decided to leave home. After writing T. Ray a nasty note, she set out to break Rosaleen out of jail. She decided she was going to go to nearby Tiburon, since (based on the black Mary picture) her mother probably knew people there.
  • While she was trekking back to the police station to fetch Rosaleen, Brother Gerald drove by. Lily told him she going to visit Rosaleen to bring her clothes.
  • He said he himself was on his way to the same place—to press charges against Rosaleen for the stolen fans. So, Lily fed him more lies to get him on Rosaleen's side, telling him that Rosaleen stole the fans due to a misunderstanding and that Rosaleen's fight started because she insisted on singing her favorite hymns. The trick worked, and he ended up telling the police he wouldn't sign the warrant against Rosaleen.
  • However, Rosaleen wasn't actually at the police station when Lily and Brother Gerald got there; she had had an "accident" and needed stitches, so she was sent to the hospital. Lily didn't believe that explanation of her friend's injuries for a second, of course.
  • Lily then scurried off to the hospital to rescue Rosaleen. After more subterfuge and sneakiness, she managed to get Rosaleen out undetected.
  • They then hitched a ride with farmer, who dropped them three miles from Tiburon.
  • They walked for a bit before deciding to camp out for the night. After a dinner of two cantaloupes gifted by the farmer, Lily tells Rosaleen more about her motivations for running off and why she chose Tiburon. Rosaleen was annoyed and offended that Lily hadn't thought to clue her in earlier, treating her like a "pet dog" that would just follow. They fought but made up soon after.