Euridice and Guida aged 18 & 20 in 1950 are close but separated by Guida running away from home with a sailor pregnant with his baby. Euridice gets married while dreaming of entering the Vienna Conservatory as a piano student - a dream that is destroyed by circumstances, while Guida returns home heavily pregant having discovered that sailors really do have a wife in every port only to be rejected and thrown out by her father.

Guida survives in poverty in Rio, while Euridice becomes a dutiful housewife and their parents age and die without ever either telling Euridice about Guida's return or allowing Guida to see them.

So the sisters grow families in Rio each believing that the other is living their dream in Austria or Greece. Guida writes t Euridice, but the letters are never forwarded, and Euradice hires a private eye to trace Guida with no success.

A resolution is provided at the end - but perhaps not the one we expected.