The Distance Between
Copyright© 2025 by Art Samms
Chapter 40
ELIAS
Saturday mornings in Galway are usually slow, unhurried, slightly chaotic in the best possible way. By the time we stepped into the farmers market off Church Lane, the whole street was humming: sizzling food stalls, clattering crates, kids weaving around legs, vendors shouting about oysters and sourdough as if they were announcing miracles.
Leila looked enchanted, as always. Darya looked like someone who had just discovered civilization for the first time.
“This is outrageous,” she said, pointing at a display of handmade soaps shaped like little sheep. “Who needs a sheep-shaped soap?”
“You do,” I said. “For cultural integration.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “Is this how you welcomed Leila when she moved to Berlin?”
“Absolutely not,” Leila answered before I could. “He told me the döner shop near our flat was the best thing about the neighborhood.”
“It was. And history has proven me correct.”
Darya shook her head dramatically and sniffed the sheep soap. “What is this scent? ‘Euphoric meadow?’ I want to meet the person who names these.”
We wandered from stall to stall, the air filled with everything from fresh bread to curry spices to roasted nuts. I kept losing track of the two of them—Leila drifting toward the handmade jewelry, Darya magnetically pulled toward anything colorful, glittery, or edible.
Leila held up a small carved wooden brooch shaped like a wave.
“What do you think?” she asked me.
“That if you buy it, it will mysteriously migrate to Darya’s closet within forty-eight hours.”
“Lies,” Darya said, already admiring the brooch from over Leila’s shoulder. “Slander. Defamation.”
“You’re holding it,” I pointed out.
She looked down, surprised, as if the brooch had teleported into her hand. “Oh. Well. That’s a separate issue.”
We stopped at a stall selling pastries that should honestly be illegal. The three of us stood there inhaling the sweet smell while the vendor—a cheerful older woman with silver hair in a messy bun—grinned at us.
“First time at the market?” she asked Darya.
“Yes,” Darya said reverently. “Please tell me this is normal. Weekly. Not a seasonal thing. I have emotionally committed.”
The woman laughed. “Every Saturday, love. What’ll you have?”
Darya pointed at a pistachio-filled croissant like she was declaring war. “That.”
Leila chose a plain butter croissant because she is a minimalist with the soul of a poet. I picked something described only as ’the lads’ favorite.’ I didn’t ask questions.
We found a spot near the old church wall to stand and eat. For a few minutes, there was silence—the holy silence of three people having a transcendent pastry experience.
Then Darya stopped mid-bite, eyes widening. “Oh. My God.”
Leila laughed. “Good?”
“This croissant is better than most of my relationships.”
I made a show of looking offended. “Excuse me, that croissant hasn’t known you for years.”
“That’s why it’s good,” she shot back.
Leila cackled so loudly a passing dog looked startled.
A busker started playing a fiddle nearby, fast and bright. Darya swayed with it, pastry still in hand, her hair catching the morning light. It hit me—again—how far she’d come, and how surreal it still was that we were all here, in this easy, messy, warm little world.
Leila nudged me and nodded toward Darya. “She’s glowing.”
“She’s hopped up on sugar,” I said. “She’s dangerous.”
“I heard that!” Darya yelled over the music, not turning around.
“You were meant to!” I yelled back.
She spun dramatically, pointed a croissant crumb at me, and said, “You wait. When I get my Irish driver’s license, you will all fear me.”
Leila groaned. “We already do.”
“I’m starting lessons soon,” Darya declared. “This country won’t know what hit it.”
A gust of wind blew through then—cool, fresh, smelling faintly of sea air—and I swear all three of us paused at the same time. Just long enough to feel it.
It was a few days after The Great Farmers Market Caper. When I got home that evening, the flat was calm and warm, the way it gets when Leila finishes work early and lets the place breathe a little. Her office door was open, soft music drifting out, and I found her curled up on the sofa with a cup of tea, looking pleasantly done with the world.
“Good day, habibi?” I asked, leaning down to kiss her.
She nodded. “Very. And you?”
“Not bad. Your husband survived another day of Irish adolescents who think sarcasm is a sport.”
She smiled just as the front door burst open with the subtlety of a small earthquake.
“I have arrived!” Darya announced, arms loaded with shopping bags—bright ones, shiny ones, one suspiciously oversized one that looked capable of holding an entire circus tent.
I stared. “Should we ... be worried?”
“You should prepare yourselves, ” she said, sweeping dramatically into the living room and dumping the bags onto the floor. “My wardrobe has been expanded. Consider this a formal warning. That walk-in closet is now on borrowed time.”
Leila was already scrambling off the couch. “Show me. Show me everything.”
And that was that. I lost them both to the vortex.
They sat on the floor, surrounded by fabric and color and commentary that ranged from “this is adorable” to “no, that one is criminally powerful,” while I made myself a cup of tea and watched the chaos unfold.
Darya held up a pair of boots with a proud flourish. “Look at these. They’re perfect for Ireland. Stylish, but also capable of kicking down a door.”
“Why would you ever need to kick down a door?” I asked.
She tossed her hair. “One never knows.”
I just sipped my tea and accepted that the walk-in closet was already doomed.
After dinner, after the dishes, after Darya had finally stopped giving Leila a fashion show in the hallway, I found myself with a few minutes of quiet. I stacked some papers on the kitchen table, half-focused, half-distracted by the low hum of voices down the hall.
Something tugged at me then—curiosity, maybe. Or just the feeling that I hadn’t checked in with them since the shopping-bag explosion.
I walked softly toward Darya’s room and peeked in through the half-open door.
And there they were.
They looked like two teenagers at a sleepover. Both sat on the bed, legs tucked under them. Darya’s hair was damp from a late shower, Leila’s was falling over her shoulder, and the two of them were talking over each other, laughing, leaning close, hands flying as they gestured wildly.
I didn’t know what they were discussing—probably clothes, or work, or memories of Shiraz, or some hybrid topic that only the two of them could understand. But whatever it was, it made them radiate.
God, I’d missed this for them.
Back in Berlin, that closeness had always felt half-shut behind glass, weakened by distance and worry and years of Darya being trapped somewhere that just didn’t suit her. Now? Now it was right in front of me. Tangible. Loud. Alive.
I smiled—quiet, private—and stepped back without saying a word.
They deserved this moment. And many more like it. Just the two of them.
I let the door fall gently back to where it was, and walked away, leaving them to their laughter.
The Silver Rose was buzzing in that warm, familiar Saturday-night way—candlelight flickering against dark wood, low conversations weaving through fiddle music, the smell of stew and whiskey rising like some comforting fog. Darya had already fallen in love with the place. She said it felt “like the soul of Ireland wearing a wool sweater.”
She wasn’t wrong.
The three of us squeezed into our usual corner table, and Darya was in full storytelling mode—something about a coworker who’d accidentally microwaved metal at lunch and nearly set off an evacuation.
Leila and I were laughing when a loud voice cut through the room.
“There he is—Berlin himself!”
I didn’t even need to turn. Lucas Brogan was in the house.
He strode toward us with that same lopsided, borderline-chaotic grin, a pint in each hand. His hair was windblown, his coat half-buttoned, and he radiated a kind of cheerful menace—like a golden retriever who’d learned sarcasm.
“Evening, Berlin,” he said as he set down the extra pint in front of me. “For when you inevitably start whining about the weather.”
“I don’t whine,” I said.
“Oh, you absolutely do,” Leila replied, taking a sip of her drink without missing a beat.
But it was Darya who blinked at him first—then grinned like someone had just handed her a new toy.
“So you’re Lucas,” she said, folding her arms with affected scrutiny. “They’ve warned me about you.”
He blinked back. “And you must be—ah—Daria?”
“Darya, ” she corrected, raising one eyebrow with surgical precision.
“Right. Darya. Lovely to meet you. I’ve heard you’ve come to make Ireland more interesting.”
“And you’re here to ... what exactly? Terrorize foreigners?”
The table went silent.
Then Lucas barked out a laugh so loud the couple behind us jumped.
“Oh, she’s dangerous, ” he said, pointing at her. “I like her.”
Darya smirked. “You’ll learn.”
And that was it. They were off.
Lucas first did his usual routine—mocking me for being from Berlin and therefore pathologically organized.
“This man,” Lucas said to Darya, “color-codes his thoughts.”
“I do not,” I protested. “I only color-code my planner.”
Darya leaned in theatrically. “What color am I?”
“Red,” Lucas said instantly. “Chaos and danger.”
She gave a satisfied nod. “Correct answer.”
Then she started firing back at him.
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