# Chapter 18 — Dialogue Doctor Audit

Manifest coverage: chapter 18 has one doctor-required scene — scene 05, lines 60–87 (Sunday, scarf return outside Sonia's; speakers June and Mara). Scenes 01–04 and 06 are manifest-marked not-required (0 dialogue lines; the Mara/Asha text exchanges are italic chat-form below the 4-line threshold and were checked only for register drift — none found rises to a finding). Special calibration applied: grief-forward register, zero tolerance for dialogue diagnosis in narration, Mara not an oracle, plain-speech floor.

SCENE 05 / Sunday, outside Sonia's (lines 60–87):

- **1. Voice convergence:** CLEAN — read with attributions covered; Mara runs medium, multi-clause hosting turns with imperatives and object logistics ("Luis made too much. There's pie under the turkey. Don't tilt it."), June runs single-clause compression that shortens under exposure ("I'm painting." / "I don't know about Tuesday."), matching both cards. Strongest counter-candidate: the adjacent clipped pair "And dried flat." / "Better than I treat it." — both four words, momentarily interchangeable — survives because Mara immediately re-expands into hosting register and June never does; the convergence lasts one beat and is the scene's only one.
- **2. Monotone Q/A rhythm:** CLEAN — the scene contains two probe→deflect pairs ("Wool soap?" → "And dried flat."; "You look like you're sleeping in shifts." → "I'm painting."), which is the strongest counter-candidate for a volley pattern. It survives because Mara breaks the pattern after the second deflection with acceptance plus object ("Okay," then the foil package) instead of a third probe, and turn weights are unequal throughout — Mara's longest turn is four sentences against June's two words.
- **3. Missing interiority:** CLEAN — June's mind is present and reacting, not narrating: she reads Mara's palm "resigned to it," clocks the look "a second longer than the scarf required," notes the scarf "was padding even in transit," and converts the pie into her own ledger ("June had come to pay off a loan and was leaving with a new one"). Strongest counter-candidate: the interiority skips Mara's non-response to "I don't know about Tuesday" and goes straight to the dish — survives because June's "Thank you for October" two lines later is the reaction, rendered as action per the book's interiority discipline; and the loan paragraph adds June's stance (zero as the goal she can't keep) rather than restating Mara's joke.
- **4. Questions-as-statements:** CLEAN — the scene's only question is "Wool soap?", a genuine verification that gets answered. Mara's positions arrive as statements and imperatives ("Sit by me Tuesday."), not portent-questions. Strongest counter-candidate: "You look like you're sleeping in shifts." — a probe dressed as observation — survives because it is grammatically and functionally a statement Mara lets drop the moment June deflects; no manufactured portent.
- **5. Fake-McCarthy minimalism:** CLEAN — every turn is anchored by a tag or a gesture (taking the fold, smoothing the fold, the foil brick, the tote strap); June's clipped lines are card-true compression under exposure, and the scene's quiet is earned by the chapter-17 rupture, not performed. Strongest counter-candidate: the untagged two-word "I'm painting." — survives because the prior tag and Mara's "Okay" keep the exchange trackable, and the reader already knows the working claim is a hedge from the Friday soup beat.
- **6. Jargon-trading without translation:** CLEAN — no world-terms in dialogue; the objects are self-weighing (wool soap, pie, dish). Strongest counter-candidate: "Ruth has opinions about wall spacing" — showcase shorthand — survives because Mara translates its weight in the same breath ("I need another painter at the table"), so a cold reader can weigh the ask without knowing the showcase logistics.
- **7. Attribution opacity:** CLEAN — two speakers in strict alternation, each turn tagged or gesture-anchored; a covered-attribution read never loses the thread. Strongest counter-candidate: the interrupted "Mara —" followed by Mara's cutoff line — survives because the dash plus the answering content ("so it's not even generous") makes the interruption mechanics unambiguous.
- **FAKE-SHARP:** FAIL — two narration beats around the dialogue, not the spoken lines:
    1. "Mara adjusted the tote strap and left it there." (narration, after June's "I don't know about Tuesday.") — "left it there" is a verdict on the conversational move, i.e., captioning the conversation, which the reading guide's zero-tolerance rule bans in any form; it is also a verbatim-shape revival of the retired refusal-to-conclude family ("left it alone / let it stand / left that thought" — capped at Ch05 in the tic tracker, repaired to zero in Ch13, "no new variants in Ch06+"). It lands at exactly the cut-list's loaded-short-line-plus-silence moment and resolves it with a composed button instead of observed behavior (Rule 8: this line "lands cleanly" where the scene needs friction). The tote business is also doubled — Mara "shifted the tote up her shoulder" one beat earlier.
    2. "She touched June's sleeve, once, on her way past — not a question, just contact — and was gone" (narration, Mara's exit) — the apposition announces the care move's category, which §5 of the reading guide bans ("never caption them"); it is also the second in-scene gloss of Mara's not-asking (after "left it there") and the chapter's fifth overall ("asked nothing else" / "There was no interrogation to refuse," line 13; "nothing to argue with, nothing asked," line 17), explaining twice what the Wednesday turkey-emoji beat already taught the reader (Rule 9's second direction: interiority must react, not re-explain). Strongest counter-candidate considered and passed: Mara's "It's a dish I want back, so it's not even generous. It's a hostage exchange." — quotable, but speakable, and it does hosting work (deflecting June's protest so the food can be accepted); June does not volley back, so the scene stays grief-side of banter. It survives, at the ceiling of Mara's punchline budget — the opposing rewriter should not add wit anywhere in this scene.
- **INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION:** CLEAN — the scene is not over-stripped: June's relationship to every offered object (scarf, pie, Tuesday seat, sleeve touch) is on the page, and what June refuses (committing to Tuesday) and accepts (the food, the new loan) is followable as text, satisfying the plain-speech floor — June's "I don't know about Tuesday" and "Thank you for October" and Mara's "Sit by me Tuesday... I need another painter at the table" are the required unguarded sentences. Strongest counter-candidate: the unmarked gap after "left it there" — survives because "Thank you for October" is June's registered reaction in action form; the failure there is over-polish (filed above), not absence.

REVISION ORDERS:

1. Replace "Mara adjusted the tote strap and left it there." (narration following June's "I don't know about Tuesday," scene 05). Failure: FAKE-SHARP / conversation-captioning narration (reading guide §2 zero-tolerance) and a banned refusal-to-conclude variant (tic tracker, Ch05 cap row). Rewrite direction: render Mara's declining-to-press as pure physical behavior with no summary clause — per her card she is a smoother who fills gaps with hosting, not verdicts, so either close the beat on a concrete action alone (re-settling the dishes, a nod, turning toward the Corolla) or give her one strictly functional hosting line (food or seat logistics, no wit, no comment on June's answer). Do not duplicate the tote gesture from the previous beat, and do not have June's narration characterize what Mara just did with the topic — June's existing next move ("Thank you for October") already carries the registration.
2. Cut the apposition "— not a question, just contact —" from "She touched June's sleeve, once, on her way past — not a question, just contact — and was gone toward a double-parked Corolla." (scene 05 close). Failure: FAKE-SHARP / announced care move (reading guide §5 "never caption them") and Rule 9 explaining-twice — the chapter has already established at the Wednesday text beat that Mara's asking-nothing is what costs June. Rewrite direction: let the touch stand untranslated ("She touched June's sleeve, once, on her way past, and was gone toward..."); if the beat feels bare, spend the space on June's optical register (what her painter's eye fixes on as Mara goes — the tote, the swing, the dishes) rather than on naming the gesture's meaning. Add no new gloss of Mara's restraint anywhere in the scene; the chapter's quota for that observation is spent.

OVERALL: BLOCKING (2 findings)
