This is the first question Elio asks himself after Eva—his sister, his inseparable companion, his soulmate—falls from the rooftop.
In the absence of Eva, so intelligent, so inquisitive, so demanding and intolerant of injustice, who is Elio now? Who is Mónica, his mother, who in the throes of adolescence had been worlds apart from her daughter? What role does Mateo, Elio’s psychiatrist, play in this web of absence, as he helps him navigate the grief of a loss that must first be unraveled to determine whether it was accidental or intentional?
Elio doesn’t know what to call a twin when the other is gone, but he does know that Eva is no longer here—she’s flown. Just as she always wanted.
Now, he must decide what he wants: how to tell the story of what happened to his sister, and what to do with his own life.