The Distance Between
Copyright© 2025 by Art Samms
Epilogue
ELIAS
Some mornings still feel unreal.
Five years ago, I woke up in small rentals—short leases, borrowed furniture, pile-of-suitcases lives. Now I’m standing barefoot in the kitchen of our two-story house in Galway, looking out the wide window at the bay, where soft morning light spills over the water like someone brushed it there with gentle certainty.
Behind me, Kieran, our three-year-old son is making small dinosaur noises as he marches his toy T-rex across the kitchen tiles. Our daughter Caitlin—now one year old—is in her high chair, dropping pieces of banana with royal authority. Leila hums as she wipes the counter, her hair tied up in a loose knot, glowing in that way she always seems to be, as if the years of fear and uncertainty melted into something steadier, brighter.
I take in the scene and my chest tightens with that quiet kind of happiness that still surprises me. A life that is ours. A life that stayed.
We live on a quiet street, a short walk from the sea. Three houses down, Darya and Lucas live in a home that is as loud and chaotic as you’d expect. Lucas still greets me with, “Berlin, there you are,” every single time he sees me, as if it were my legal name. I pretend to be annoyed, of course—he’d be disappointed if I didn’t.
Nomad Compass, the travel business the four of us founded, now fills our days—European and Turkish tours, every season a new route. Lucas and I handle logistics; Leila translates in seven languages, because naturally she would; and Darya narrates history, myth, and mischief with her usual dramatic flair. It works better than any of us could have scripted.
A few weeks ago, all four of us returned from something we’d talked about for years—a long trip to the U.S. The moment Leila and Darya got their EU passports, we booked it.
It was strange and wonderful to show Leila pieces of my old life.
New York—the city that once felt too fast for me—seemed to thrill her. She walked through Central Park with our daughter in her arms, speaking softly in French to soothe her. Our son fell asleep in his stroller right in the middle of Times Square, much to Darya’s dismay, who wanted him to remember the “neon epicness,” as she put it.
Washington was calmer. Leila held my hand a little tighter there.
Cape Cod, though—that she loved. The quiet beaches, the lighthouses. She stood with her feet in the Atlantic while our son threw sand at Lucas, and said, “This feels like breathing.”
We visited the Pennsylvania Dutch countryside because she insisted. I didn’t know how much she’d been curious about it until she saw it. Something about the simplicity, the clean lines, the quiet—it captivated her.
Now we’re planning our first North American tour. Leila is already practicing tour scripts in English faster than I can keep up.
I pour myself coffee, and from downstairs I hear Caitlin squeal with delight. Leila laughs—one of those bright, soft sounds that once kept me alive in the dark and still carries me forward now.
I step back into the kitchen, kiss the top of Kieran’s head, and slide my arm around Leila’s waist. She leans into me like she’s always known where she belongs.
Some lives are built slowly. Some are fought for. Some are found by accident, at a food stand in Shiraz.
Ours is all three.
DARYA
I never imagined marriage would involve this many arguments about where to put shoes.
“Dar,” Lucas calls from the front room, “if your cursed heels get any closer to the door, someone’s going to break a leg.”
I roll my eyes as I swipe mascara under my lashes. “Then don’t walk into them.”
“Brilliant! I’ll just float everywhere. Problem solved.”
Four years of marriage and the man still treats every domestic inconvenience like a national crisis. I love him more every day.