Val came back in twenty-three minutes.
She had said twenty. She didn't apologize for the extra three. She came through the door with both hands occupied—something from the kitchen, not arranged on a tray but carried the way you carry things when you went to get one item and found three others that seemed relevant. She set them on the nightstand with the confidence of someone who has decided that the nightstand belongs to the project and the project is Raven getting through the afternoon, and then she pulled the corner chair back to the bedside and sat in it like she'd never left.
