Lily has grown up believing she accidentally
killed her mother when she was four. She not
only has her own memory of holding the gun, but
her father's account of the event. Now fourteen,
she yearns for her mother, and for forgiveness.
Living on a peach farm in South Carolina with
her father, she has only one friend: Rosaleen, a
black servant whose sharp exterior hides a
tender heart. South Carolina in the sixties is a
place where segregation is still considered a
cause worth fighting for. When racial tension
explodes one summer afternoon, and Rosaleen is
arrested and beaten, Lily is compelled to act.
Fugitives from justice and from Lily's harsh and
unyielding father, they follow a trail left by
the woman who died ten years before. Finding
sanctuary in the home of three beekeeping
sisters, Lily starts a journey as much about her
understanding of the world, as about the mystery
surrounding her mother.