Hum If You Don't Know the Words

The mascara tube represents a physical connection for Robin to her parents. Thrust into a new life, she grasps at a way to remain tied to her old one. She must leave behind her bike, her neighborhood, and her school. She loses her parents and Mabel. She watched her mother use the mascara on the night she died and then jokingly throw it at her father. The tube represents her parents’ complex love for each other and the fact that she loves them even if she struggles to express it.

In addition, the mascara becomes a proxy for Robin’s emotions because her mother always looked down upon expressing feelings. For the same reason that Robin creates Cat, she keeps the mascara. If her emotions can take up space outside of her, then they can be separate from her. Robin hides the mascara in Edith’s apartment under the floorboards in the only space that is hers. Later, Beauty discovers her secret compartment by accident, signifying that Robin is learning to be open again.

Morrie constantly takes pictures of ugly things—a piece of old food, a trash can, a rip in the couch. Robin struggles to understand why, but he continues with his hobby, explaining that his grandfather says “the world is a cruel place and it’s our job to record its ugliness” (118).