Excerpt from Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Late in the afternoon there was a soft knock at the front door. It was Holly, with an armload of Tupperwares.

"She's asleep," Eliot whispered.

"I'll be quiet."

In the kitchen Holly put the food in the fridge, explaining what was in each container as she went. "How was it?"

Eliot shrugged.

"Anticlimactic?"

"He was sweet. In the waiting room beforehand we saw that girl."

"Shit. Did she talk to her?"

The girl had appeared in the infusion suite some months earlier, occupying the chair next to Claire's. Ewing sarcoma, twelve years old. Claire had fallen in love with her a little, the two of them chatting about the girl's preference for small dogs over big ones and her attempts the previous summer to learn how to do flips off the diving board. It was one of Claire's talents, forming swift, sweet friendships. A couple weeks later she invited the girl to the house and taught her how to make meringues.

"Just waved," Eliot said.

"How was she?"

Eliot knew Holly meant Claire, but he had answered this question too many times over the past eight-plus years. His heart had withdrawn, and he felt wooden when he was forced to answer anyway. He pretended to think Holly was asking about the girl. "She was pretty far away, beyond the aquarium. Hard to tell."
Holly gave him a searching look. Now she'd ask how he was.

"How are you, Eliot?"

"It was just a formality, going in."

"I know."

She reached into her purse and pulled out lip balm, apparently in no hurry to leave. The understanding was that the two of them were a team, president and vice president of Claire's support system. They traded information, observations. But Eliot wanted to be alone. He wanted to do his back exercises, maybe have a beer.

In the distance the bedroom door opened. Eliot heard Claire's walker bump the door frame, the familiar sound of her cough. When she saw Holly, she broke into a smile. "You're here."

They fell into each other's arms. Tall, robust Holly with her thick auburn hair, her muscular body. Claire was engulfed. Holly's shoulders shook, and Claire made soft shushing sounds, then wept a little herself. She tilted her head in the direction of the bedroom, and they headed off together, likely to be out of sight for hours.

To Eliot's surprise, Holly reappeared just ten or fifteen minutes later.

"Leaving?"

"She wants ramen. Is that OK, if I pick some up for her?"

Eliot doubted Claire would eat it once it arrived, but it was certainly OK. "Of course."

"Do you want some? She specifically said we should 'all have ramen'—it was like a vision. Remember in the old days when we had those Friday night dinners and the littlest kids wouldn't eat the pizza?"

Eliot remembered children kneeling on the ladder-backed dining chairs he and Claire had inherited from his grandmother. The chairs had high centers of gravity and sometimes tipped over if their occupants were too rambunctious. Eliot pictured the noisy, crowded dining room, three, sometimes four families squeezed together. Claire in her prime, seeing everything, knowing everything. Late on those evenings, as Eliot loaded the dishwasher, Claire told him everyone's business, information gleaned as much through observation as report. Dave Moulton had some kind of secret—gambling maybe, or drugs; or who knew, maybe an affair. The Baxter boy was having trouble in school, and the Baxter marriage was in trouble again. Eliot loved hearing Claire talk about people, her combination of warmth and dispassion. Holly called her "Oh Wise One" for how evenly she viewed the small, ordinary problems of family life. In those years especially, Holly could be quite judgmental.

"Right," Eliot said to Holly now. "They ate ramen instead. I might have a few packages here."

"No, she wants it fresh, from the place. I'll get you one, you can decide later."

Excerpted from Some Bright Nowhere by Ann Packer. Copyright © 2026 by Ann Packer. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.