Marion Stone and Shiva Stone Timeline & Summary

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• In the womb, Shiva is almost killed by Dr. Stone, who wants to remove the baby that is killing Sister Mary Joseph Praise. Marion pulls Shiva to safety from higher up in the birth canal.
• The boys are born, and it is discovered that they are conjoined twins, tethered together at the head. They are separated, and it seems that they won't survive.
• The sun shines on the boys, and Marion wakes up, crying and getting attention for his weaker brother.
• As an infant, Shiva often "forgets to breathe." This problem brings Hema and Ghosh together: they take care of Shiva and become the boys' adoptive parents.
• When the boys are young, Shiva doesn't speak; Marion does all the talking.
• One day, when the hospital administrators kill a litter of puppies, Shiva finds his speech again to reproach his parents.
• Both boys do well in school, though Shiva's is more an eccentric intelligence, mostly involving prime numbers, while Marion is book smart.
• After an attempted coup in Ethiopia, the boys tell a fake soldier who wants to steal their friend's motorcycle to drive down a dangerous path; he crashes. Trying to pull a gun from where it's lodged in his belly, Marion accidentally shoots and kills the man.
• As they hit puberty, the boys take different approaches to sex. Marion wants to save himself for marriage to Genet, while Shiva hits up prostitutes every weekend.
• Shiva has sex with Genet, which is the ultimate betrayal of Marion's love.
• The boys quit speaking to one another.
• When Ghosh dies, the boys speak to each other again and move back into the same bedroom, though things are still not quite the same between them.
• After Genet commits a terrorist attack and the government incorrectly links Marion to it, Marion flees to the United States, where he becomes a surgeon. Shiva becomes a surgeon back home in Ethiopia.
• Marion is reunited with Genet and finally loses his virginity to her—but he contracts hepatitis B in the process.
• As he lies dying in the hospital, Shiva comes up with a plan to donate part of his liver to his brother.
• The surgery goes well until follow-up medications cause a blood clot in Shiva's head to come loose and kill him.
• Marion believes that Shiva lives on within him, as he carries his brother's liver in his belly.
• Marion returns to Ethiopia from the U.S. and continues his life as a doctor there.