How we cite our quotes: (Part.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
He kept his back turned on the infants to gaze once more at Sister Mary Joseph Praise. (1.10.45)
Aha! Now we're starting to peel back some of the layers of the onion that is Dr. Thomas Stone. It's not necessarily that he's abandoning his children (okay, yes, it is) but that he can't abandon Sister Mary. He can't accept her death, and that she, in a sense, has abandoned him.
Quote #5
Stone wanted to run away, but not from the children or from responsibility. It was the mystery, the impossibility of their existence that made him turn his back on the infants. (1.10.45)
Here we get some more clarification as to Stone's motivations for abandoning Shiva and Marion. He doesn't know how Sister Mary Joseph Praise got pregnant, though he's a doctor, so we're pretty sure he knows where babies come from. It turns out he and Sister Mary Joseph Praise had sex while he was in a drunken fever dream, so he didn't even realize that it had really happened. So romantic.
Quote #6
Sister Mary Joseph Praise lay lifeless and unburdened of the two lives she carried, as if that had been her sole earthly purpose. (1.10.46)
Sister Mary Joseph Praise dies on the operating table, just after her children have been delivered. She abandons her physical body and her babies all in one fell swoop. The description of her as "unburdened" makes her seem like a beast of burden, like a donkey or a mule, something meant only to carry things. The narrator even says that bringing the boys to earth was her only purpose.