From that moment on, Frank only remembers the gray sky and that it seemed the sun never came out. Of course, it did, and had, but for Frank that was an inflection point in his life, when the darkness came.
In the aftermath of the accident, Frank had no time to mourn and no choice but to turn his attention to the 12 piglets who squirmed around looking for warmth, food and consolation. While the death of Milly wrapped him like a blanket, he was faced with a new and immediate problem of taking care of the piglets, who refused to accept the bottles of milk that Frank had held in the boiling water to get warm. Frank, with the Miller’s help, tried everything at first - different types of milk from different types of farms, different times of day. The Miller was so wrapped up with the damage of the flood that on the second afternoon of frustration, he turned to Frank and simply said: “Figure it out. These pigs are going to die like their mom.” And huffed off. For the Miller’s part, Frank’s face was a huge mess, a poorly stitched wound that was red and swollen, with droplets of blood that would emerge, like the puddles of rain. If the Miller hadn’t been so preoccupied, he might have helped Frank find a better doctor, but he had other things to attend to and he didn’t like being around Frank, whose gloom was already pervasive.
Each passing hour that the pigs refused to eat, Frank got more desperate. “Eat!” He said, trying to intonate a grunt as he had with Milly. “Try! Come on!” But they pushed their snouts into each other, sucking unsuccessfully from the bottles. He sensed they were getting tired, and after a full day of not eating, dread filled him.
As he left the drove once more, despair set in as he ran out of options. And in a headlong state of panic, he ran back to the barn to look again through this small books on animals. Had he failed Milly? Frank’s entire sense of purpose had been wrapped up in Milly and her babies, and he was at once shattered with the notion that his entire life was wasted, culminating with Milly’s death when he failed to hold the wheel with his enormous strength and now eclipsed by the death of 12 more piglets who he failed to keep alive. He passed Manor Mill and the Miller’s House on his left, made it to the barn and cried deeply, his hulk of a body trembling and tears rolling down the mean wound on his face. He put his hands against the low counter where a hide was draped and felt the low fur on his fingers. It was then he had an idea, as if a ray of sunlight just ripped through the clouds. He glanced around the barn as if seeing the space anew. He had an idea, and set to work, never more excited.
Perhaps, he thought, perhaps the piglets recognized him for who he was: a human, and had never known the Frank K Mason their mother knew. Of course! And (or?) perhaps his face was so mauled and disfigured, that they were scared of him (as the neighbors were) that the new Frank was a very different person than the old Frank, their former father of sorts who was there when they were born. Or perhaps he was completely mistaken to think that they even knew he was Frank K. Mason, Strongman, and not some other large figure — a deformed and disturbing relative. Maybe they were just afraid?
How was Frank K. Mason going to feed the piglets left behind when Milly, the sow, drowned in the mill race?
Aside from the bones that Frank had been collecting in the barn, he had several hides, largely ones hunters and farmers had left behind or given to the Miller, who in turn passed them to Frank. He had always been fascinated by the hides of animals— the final shape they produced, flattened and hung over an armchair or rolled out on the ground, hardly resembling the animal from which they came, impossible almost to even imagine re-wrapping it around their imposing body. He was never around when the hides were taken off the dead animal, but he had always been curious about the process. Did the hide just tear off? Or did it peel, as one might remove the skin of an overripe clementine.
He appreciated this all the more as he started cutting into the thick leather hide of what he assumed was a deer, and pulled in pieces of a calf, and then he stopped. He took a deep breath and then he turned to look at the skin of Milly’s hide, which was still wet after it had been returned from the butcher. The Miller had looked at him scornfully, handing it to Frank the prior day. “Pig’s hides aren’t worth a cent.” But Frank’s request for it was so desperate that the Miller made good on it. Yes, Frank thought, yes. Milly would want him to do this.
The butcher had done a poor job, and Milly’s hide was just a pile of large pieces, with just half of her face in tact (not unlike his, he thought). Carefully, Frank laid them out on his workbench, shifting one piece here and another piece there, a giant organic puzzle of sorts as he started to cut small corners off and round certain edges just so, until he started to see it come together. His sorrow of the task grew heavy with anticipation as he started stitching with a thick heavy thread and a sharp shaft for a needle. He had never sewn before, but he had seen some of the women doing it, so he just followed that image in his head and went through and up, through and up, until the pieces of hide had begun to form a shape.
As Frank worked away obsessively, the Miller had come in a few times asking for his help, peering into his shop apprehensively, scanning the skulls and bones, wondering to himself if Frank would ever get over the tragic death of the pig, but also wondering just how to get more of Frank’s help with repairing the wheel. He had given Frank space, but it had been nearly a week, and the work was piling up. His business was already teetering on the edge of insolvency. Truth be told, though the Miller was also afraid of Frank: his face, with a jawbone that wouldnt’ close correctly, and an eye partially shut and tilted downward, as if weighted, and a gash that was not healing properly, made him unapproachable. The Miller believed in locking eyes during a conversation, but he knew he’d never look at Frank directly again. This pang of fear had already been growing before the tragic accident, with the bones and hides, and spots of animal blood, and his reclusive behavior and long walks out (and reports from neighbors that his big “worker” was wandering in their pasture again talking to the animals), made him even more nervous. Not that Frank changed his tone or didn’t answer his questions respectfully. But he could sense a mind that was already tortured, and he had worried about that. Ultimately, the Miller had no choice but to leave him alone and stopped coming to the barn altogether. He wanted to ask about the piglets, but decided to leave him alone, assuming he was managing. In fact, the piglets were dying as well, starved as they were.
Frantically, Frank worked through the night. The piglets were nipping at the bottles, but barely eating, and he knew that this was a race against time. The mask came together slowly, and because he never owned a mirror he’d have to sneak off to the river to catch a glimpse of himself with the mask on, a candle with him to make enough light to see. Various iterations of the mask failed, some too hard to pull on; one that was too heavy in the front that it slipped forward so that he couldn’t see; one where he somehow forgot to include a mouth to breathe through; and so forth. He lost count as he passed his tenth try, but each version got closer and closer to his vision.
When Frank finished, the sun was up, and it took great willpower to not rush up to the piglets in the dark and attend to them. He set the finished mask down, still damp on the inside and with the stench of bits of rotting flesh, filled with anticipation, and at times dread, about how they would respond to him with the mask. He hoped that the work itself had brought him closer to them, that whatever connective sinews of their bond at birth that had existed before would somehow be repaired by his commitment to not only understand them but resemble their mother. He could never be Milly, but he would get close.
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