The audit is saved to `output/critiques/claude/chapter_23.dialogue_doctor_round4.md` and verified intact (header, all seven scene blocks S01–S07, revision orders, and overall verdict present).

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# Dialogue Doctor — Chapter 23: Finished Together / Labels (Round 4)

Read cold against `checks/audits/dialogue_doctor.md`, the reading guide's binding voice rules (plain-speech floor §2/§8, zero-tolerance dialogue-diagnosis §2/§6), the voice cards, `tics.md` calibration, and the Chapter 23 card. Round 4 exists to confirm that the **Positive Prose repair pass** (`chapter_23.positive_prose.md`, verified INHABITED), which rewrote dialogue and dialogue-adjacent prose *after* the prior clean dialogue pass (`chapter_23.dialogue_doctor_round3.md`), did not (a) flatten June/Theo voice, (b) introduce stiffness, (c) create attribution opacity, (d) undercut the emotional stakes, or reintroduce fake-sharp or dialogue-diagnosis. Four changed areas are verified line-by-line against the current text, then all seven manifest scenes are re-scanned cold. Findings are BLOCKING and resolve via opposing-model rewrite.

Round-3→current delta (the four repaired areas): L85 (Theo's consolation → concrete Kessler timing), L87 (June's tidy self-diagnosis cut), L89 (June's balanced glad/not-go maxim → brush-scrape + "Good. It should."), and L119 (generic proximity-posture → concrete optics + held hands). Critically, the Positive Prose pass **removed** the line Round 3 flagged as the chapter's single most vulnerable fake-sharp beat — Theo's "March is a long way to carry January" (old L85) — so the chapter's fake-sharp ceiling is now *lower* than at Round 3; the burden here is to confirm nothing new rose to replace it.

**Global checks.** Contraction policy (Rule 4/5) verified per speaker across the current text: June, Theo, Priya, Ben, Odile all default-contract; no stiff uncontracted form appears in any repaired or unrepaired line (repair-site spot: Theo "That's two months before Kessler… I know it doesn't solve anything" L85; June "It doesn't solve it… The helpful version costs me the room" L87; June "Good. It should." L89). Odile's cut-precisely full-form license is not exercised and is not needed; her two lines (L13 instruction, L19 diagnosis) are contraction-neutral. Plain-speech floor (§2) met in every scene and *raised* at the repair site — S04 now lands its floor on the plain "I'm not sorry I'm not going. I wanted to say that out loud in a room" (L89) and Theo's "That's all I get to say about it. I know it doesn't solve anything" (L85) rather than on an aphorism. Per-scene floor anchors: S01 Theo "the bottom half is Tuesday mornings, and it's blank, and it stays blank" (L21); S02 June "I'm not taking it down for a study. I know it by heart" (L37); S03 June "Leave the seam" (L57); S04 as above; S05 Ben "I'm scared it's the wrong call. That's the real thing under the eleven minutes" (L105) / Priya "That's my condition. Not the apartment. That." (L109); S06 June "I want a backup" (L149); S07 June "I'll be at the coffee pretending I'm not watching the door" (L175). Followability test (§8) passes for every exchange — a cold reader can state what each party asked, learned, or refused without decoding, including the repaired S04 (June reports Dana's key/money terms and affirms the tradeoff; Theo names the interval and refuses to fix it; June names that his help would cost her the room; June shares the Asha news and states she is not sorry she is not going). Reading-guide exclusions: no chat-format or non-standard dialogue form is present in this chapter, so no generic-failure exclusion is claimed; the ordinary-talk allowance is honored for the studio working-talk — flat functional lines ("Hi." / "Hi." L29–31; "I saw." L33; "Yeah," L111; "I know." L173) are left un-sharpened. Dialogue-diagnosis sweep: zero `load-bearing`; the round-1/2 speech-act captions Round 3 confirmed removed ("it wasn't a question," "which was her way of remarking on it," "came out as a question," "which was a thing he was learning to do") remain absent; the Positive Prose repairs introduced no new speech-caption — the two closest surviving narration glosses ("not sharp about it" L63; "she said the other one sideways" L89) both pre-date this pass and are dispositioned in their scene blocks.

## Round-4 changed-line verification (four areas; axes: voice-flatten / stiffness / attribution / stakes, plus fake-sharp + dialogue-diagnosis)

1. **Theo's L85 consolation → concrete Kessler timing. HOLDS; de-escalates the chapter's fake-sharp ceiling.** Now: *"That's two months before Kessler," he said. "That's all I get to say about it. I know it doesn't solve anything."* **Voice (flatten?):** not flattened — *more* in-card than the excised aphorism. Theo's card bans "polished aphorisms about care" and runs "practical-to-emotional"; the line opens on a timing fact (the January key / broke-January is two months short of March's Kessler money, keyed to L81) and closes on humble restraint — the practical-to-emotional shape in miniature — with the warmth sitting in the *withholding* (he is holding back the four fixes he inventories at L83). **Stiffness:** none — "That's," "I know it doesn't" contract. **Attribution:** "he said," explicit. **Stakes:** *sharpened*, not undercut — the plain interval keeps June's precarity costly (chapter card: "practical pressure, not romance rescue") where the seasons-aphorism prettified it. **Fake-sharp:** this is the removal of the chapter's most vulnerable line; nothing lyrical replaces it. **Dialogue-diagnosis:** none. **Watch (not a finding):** the twinned sentence-openers "That's… / That's…" are intra-turn anaphora enacting Theo's clamp-down — speakable, not an exchange-rhythm defect; dispositioned in the S04 monotone line.

2. **June's L87 self-diagnosis cut. HOLDS; improves voice fidelity.** Now: *"It doesn't solve it," she said. Almost a smile. "The helpful version costs me the room."* **Voice (flatten?):** not flattened — the excised "I only just learned to tell them apart" was therapy-bow diction her card bans ("never says: … therapy-speak speeches"); cutting it ends her turn on a concrete dry trade, which is her register. **Stiffness:** none ("It doesn't," "costs me the room"). **Attribution:** "she said," explicit; "Almost a smile" de-dramatizes. **Stakes:** preserved — she still chooses precarity over Theo's help; the button now lands on the cost, not a resolution. **Fake-sharp:** "The helpful version costs me the room" is compressed but grounded (the "room" is Dana's studio room from L81; "the helpful version" = the four fixes at L83), carries the scene's real content, and is speakable dry-June; survives, and is dispositioned as the S04 fake-sharp counter-candidate. **Dialogue-diagnosis:** "the helpful version" names a counterfactual of Theo's *action* (if he had helped), not his phrasing; clean.

3. **June's L89 maxim → brush-scrape + "Good. It should." HOLDS; roughens the beat and adds a focalizer-registered cost.** Now: *… She scraped the brush on the palette, too hard. "Good. It should." … "I'm not sorry I'm not going. I wanted to say that out loud in a room instead of just deciding it in my kitchen."* **Voice (flatten?):** not flattened — the cut "I can be glad for her and still not go" was a pre-resolved both-sides formula; the replacement fumbles the same feeling through June's canonical stress behavior (physical brush-busywork; card: "cleans brushes she has not used," "compresses when exposed"). **Stiffness:** none — "Good. It should." is clipped, not stiff. **Attribution:** carried by action beats ("She scraped the brush… too hard," "She went back to the doorway"); speaker never in doubt. **Stakes:** *heightened* — the too-hard scrape keeps June's complicated non-envy unresolved where the maxim tied it off. **Fake-sharp:** "Good. It should." is earned by the scrape and is a self-directed correction, not a zinger; "like it was a sonogram" is June's painter-eye simile anchored to the physical form; both survive. **Interiority (over-strip?):** the repair *adds* interiority — "too hard" is the focalizer (Theo) registering what the news costs June, satisfying the cut-list "unmarked silence" bullet; not over-stripped. **Dialogue-diagnosis:** none.

4. **L119 posture → concrete optics + held hands. HOLDS (prose, dialogue-adjacent); supports interiority around S06.** Now: *"They stood back from it together for the first time all afternoon. On his side the track-light bar stopped at the strip of primer. On hers the doorway held its dark. He kept his hands at his sides and looked from the leaning corner to the place where her room began."* Not dialogue, but it opens Scene 06: it replaces a genre proximity-posture with Theo's specific two-vantage read and his held (un-fixing) hands, **enriching** the focalizer's presence before the label edit rather than stripping it. No attribution opacity or stiffness bleeds into the following dialogue; the hands beat is the chapter's one foregrounded instance, within cap.

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**SCENE 01 — L2–23, Odile boundary / the check-out clipboard (Odile, Theo)** — unchanged by this pass; cold re-scan.
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — Odile's clipped imperative "Pull the two drawings from the third flat file, the Rauch and the little Diebenkorn, and stand them in my office" (L13) vs. Theo's boundary-list "They go on the sheet by the door, out and back, my writing or yours. And they're not out during class" (L15); blind-POV holds. Counter: Theo's "If your collectors want a private view they can want it at eight-oh-five" (L15) is his nearest approach to her clipped edge, but it is a logistics boundary in his warm-with-spikes register, not her insult-as-diagnosis.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — instruction-plus-counter-terms; no question traded, so no volley. Counter: none forms a Q/A pair.
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — "He let that be true, because it was" (L21) keeps Theo reading her (Rule 9). Counter: the "sit and watch" close (L23) tends external, but L21 anchors his mind first.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — all declarative. Counter: none.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — attribution intact; lines carry logistics, no unearned starkness. Counter: "A form," she said. (L19) is short but immediately expanded, not clipped-for-effect.
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "the Rauch and the little Diebenkorn" (L13), "the Zurich loan you keep not calling about" (L21) are weighable as named drawings and a stalled loan; "condition reports, the digitization" (L21) glossed by "That's paid and I'll do it right."
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, never lost.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — strongest counter-candidate: "You met your feelings and issued a form." (L19). The chapter's one licensed high-density line; Odile is the sole style-bible voice cleared for it, it is her only aphorism in the scene, it names the clipboard he physically just built, and it is speakable. Not a floating zinger.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — the round-2 removal of "which from her was a yes" leaves Odile's assent as action ("she folded it into thirds and put it in the cardigan pocket… where she meant to sit and watch," L23); the action legibly carries the yes and the role-reversal, and L21 keeps Theo present. Discipline, not a dark scene.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — "You met your feelings and issued a form" targets Theo's *act* (bureaucratizing feeling), not his wording/rhythm/delivery; §2 permits Odile diagnoses aimed at the person/work. Counter: "She read the clipboard from where she stood and found the fault in it" (L17) reads her appraisal of an *object*.

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**SCENE 02 — L26–41, June enters with the four studies (June, Theo)** — unchanged by this pass; cold re-scan.
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — June inventories studies optically ("That one's the source for my side," L37) while Theo catalogs jar/water ("Your jar's the one you told me to keep. The full one's mine," L31). Counter: both terse, but hers is a painter's inventory, his a logistics inventory.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — "Hi." / "Hi." (L29–31) then statements; no volley. Counter: the greeting pair is earned-ordinary (Rule 7), not a Q/A rhythm.
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — Theo reads her at L27 ("He watched her clock the second jar… and leave it alone") and interprets the studies at L39. Counter: none — interiority-rich.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — none. Counter: none.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — greeting is earned ordinary, attribution present. Counter: "I saw." (L33) is clipped but tagged with action ("already unbuckling the portfolio").
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — studies given by function ("The rest are for finding the shapes," L37). Counter: "oil on board" glossed by the described images.
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, tracked.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — the nearest heightened line is interiority, not dialogue: "She had spent the fall painting her own exit from four angles" (L39); it supplies the read June withholds. Counter within dialogue: "I know it by heart" (L37) — plain, not quotable-for-effect.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — June's functional "That one's the source for my side" (L37) vs. Theo's "Every one of them was the room leaving" (L39): the interiority adds the meaning June declines to state; no double-explain.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — no utterance captioned. Counter: "He watched her clock the second jar… and leave it alone" (L27) reads a *non-verbal* choice.

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**SCENE 03 — L44–73, the shared canvas / the table / "Mine" / the corner (June, Theo)** — unchanged by this pass; cold re-scan.
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — June's clipped painterly imperatives ("Don't." L53; "Leave the seam." L57; "Mine." L63) vs. Theo's explanatory turn ("I was going to bring your edge up to mine. So it reads across." L51). Counter: "I'm not." (L55) is as clipped as June, but it is a denial nested in his longer explanatory register.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — "Don't." / "I'm not." / "I know you're not. You put the brush down." (L53–57) is command/denial/observation broken by June's longer "Leave the seam…" turn, not question/answer. Counter: none is a Q/A pair.
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — Theo present in the table calculation (L45–47) and at the corner (L67). Counter: none — richly focalized.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — "You're doing the table" (L49), "You left the corner" (L69) are flat painter's observations, not portentous questions. Counter: neither carries manufactured portent.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — the clipped "Mine" run is earned by the brush-down action and de-dramatized in narration ("not sharp about it," L63). Counter: "He left the brush where it was." (L71) — spare but earned by the brush already stopped "an inch off" the corner.
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "So it reads across" (L51), "plumb the corner" (L67), "pentimento" (L65) glossed by action/narration ("the older picture surfacing through the newer one because the maker let it," L65).
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers tracked across a mostly-silent working stretch.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — strongest counter-candidate: "Line them up and you get a third one neither of us saw." (L57). Quotable, but a real painting judgment in June's precise register that does the scene's actual work (why the seam must stay). Speakable, not composed.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — Theo's table calculation (L45–47) reaches the "don't merge" insight June then states at L57, but the two do different jobs (his private temptation-and-restraint vs. her spoken aesthetic law + "a third one" escalation); not verbatim re-explanation. The pentimento passage (L65) stays oriented through his condition-report knowledge.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — no speech-act caption; L71 reads "He left the brush where it was." (action). Closest surviving counter-candidate: "twice she said 'Mine' before he'd decided whether to cross, not sharp about it" (L63). "Not sharp about it" is emotional-*tone*/manner attribution oriented through Theo (he is gauging whether her territorial claim is combative), the conventional show-the-manner register — distinct from rating a line's *construction* ("careful / rehearsed / lawyerly / the rhythm of a partial answer"), which §2 bans. Unchanged by this pass; survives on the tone-vs-craft line; overridable at routing.

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**SCENE 04 — L76–89, the phone / Dana's keys / Asha (June, Theo)** — **PRIMARY REPAIR SCENE (L85, L87, L89).**
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — June's money-plus-craft plainness ("It empties the account down to a number I don't love… January's a lot of lentils," L81) vs. Theo's restrained-usefulness register ("That's all I get to say about it," L85); post-repair the two are *more* differentiated, since Theo no longer reaches for a lyrical line. Counter: both are plain here, but June counts money and Theo counts what he is forbidding himself.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — statements throughout, no question traded, no volley. Counter-candidate (repair site): Theo's twinned "That's two months before Kessler… That's all I get to say about it" (L85) — intra-turn anaphora, not an exchange rhythm; it enacts his clamp-down and is speakable, so it does not read as mechanical parallelism. June's "It doesn't solve it" (L87) picking up his "doesn't solve anything" (L85) is a natural agreement-echo before she diverges into her own register, not convergence.
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — the withheld-help inventory drives the scene ("He had four things he could have said… He picked his brush back up," L83); Theo also registers "the arithmetic he could see her not wanting help with" (L81) and, post-repair, "She scraped the brush on the palette, too hard" (L89), reading the cost of the Asha news. Counter: L89 is the thinnest Theo-presence stretch (June narrates the Asha beat), but "too hard" marks the cost, clearing the cut-list "unmarked silence" bullet.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — none. Counter: none.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — attribution and interiority intact; no clipped-for-effect run. Counter: "Almost a smile." (L87) is a fragment but expression-tagging, not stripped speech; "Good. It should." (L89) is clipped but tagged to the too-hard scrape — earned, not performed.
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "Kessler's money doesn't land till March" (L81), "the studio-access form" (L89) are weighable in the established work-network context. Counter: "the wall share" glossed by "the eight hundred for the room."
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers tracked; the repaired L89 carries the speaker through its action beats.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — the repair **removed** the chapter's most vulnerable line (old L85 "March is a long way to carry January"); nothing lyrical replaces it. Strongest surviving counter-candidate: "The helpful version costs me the room." (L87). Compressed, but grounded (the "room" is Dana's studio room, L81; "the helpful version" = the four fixes Theo forbids himself, L83), carries the scene's real content (accepting help would cost June the deal on her own terms — chapter card's "practical pressure, not romance rescue"), and is speakable dry-June; survives. Also weighed: "like it was a sonogram" (L89) — June's painter-eye simile anchored to the concrete form; survives.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — not stripped; the withheld-help inventory (L83) is the interiority, and the L89 repair *added* a focalizer-registered cost ("too hard"). Counter: none close.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — no new speech-caption from the repair. Closest surviving counter-candidate: "she said the other one sideways" (L89). "Sideways" is June's canonical descriptor (card: "says the true thing sideways") pointing at *topic-approach* — she broaches the Asha news obliquely — not a rating of the sentence's wording or rhythm; it renders what she does, focalized through Theo. Unchanged by this pass; overridable at routing.

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**SCENE 05 — L92–115, Priya/Ben slower-choice payoff (Ben, Priya, Theo, June)** — unchanged by this pass; cold re-scan.
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — Priya asks the real thing ("Can you come to April knowing that?" L109); Ben talks logistics-as-emotion ("I checked the walk between our two buildings. Eleven minutes. I checked twice." L105); Theo is the spare witness. Counter: both speak in plans, but Priya interrogates readiness while Ben narrates his own fear.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — mostly declarative with one genuine question (L109); no volley. Counter: "So you passed." / "We passed." (L103–105) is a near-pair, but it is confirmation and the reply corrects the pronoun ("you" → "we").
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — "Theo waited, mouth shut." (L99) plus the focalized watch of Priya crossing to June (L107) keep the scene in Theo's vantage. Counter: this is the chapter's thinnest Theo-presence scene — see INTERIORITY line.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — "Can you come to April knowing that? That's my condition." (L109) is a real question then framed plainly. Counter: none manufactured.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — attribution carried across four bodies ("he said, to a chair," L97; "from behind a chair," L111; "Priya nodded once," L93). Counter: none stripped.
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "Approved, first and last, keys the fifteenth" (L101) is weighable lease shorthand, self-evident in context. Counter: "first and last" needs no gloss.
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — four speakers, each tracked. Counter-candidate: "So you passed." (L103) is unattributed, but the two-person chair-unstacking frame (Theo + Ben, L95) and Ben's pronoun-correcting reply ("We passed," L105) make the speaker unambiguously Theo. Survives.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — strongest counter-candidate: "Who knew. Everyone. Everyone knew that." (L105). A self-answer deflation, speakable, attached to real stakes, and it *follows* the plain fear ("I'm scared it's the wrong call. That's the real thing under the eleven minutes.") rather than replacing it. Ben's de-polished spreadsheet line ("The blank part just sat there," L101) keeps his comic pressure under his fear.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — by design a spare-witness scene (a payoff for another couple that Theo is learning to watch without managing); focalization stays in his vantage (he watches Priya cross, reads her "not managing anything," L107), so Rule 9 is met through his watching position — his mind is deliberately quiet, not dark. Counter: none.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — "She wasn't managing anything" (L107) characterizes Priya's behavioral *mode* (managing conditions vs. asking), not the wording or delivery of a line. No surviving caption on speech.

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**SCENE 06 — L118–151, the label (June, Theo)** — L119 lead-in repaired (prose); dialogue unchanged.
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — June's editorial imperatives ("Cut it." L131; "So say only that." L139; "That one." L145) vs. Theo's literal over-building ("It's accurate." L129; "It doesn't say who finished which side. It doesn't say when we—" L147). Counter: "Closer." (L135) is terse like Theo's fragments, but it grades the copy where his fragments defend it.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — a working edit with varied line lengths, not a volley. Counter: "No." / "It's accurate." (L127–129) is a near-pair, but it opens a revision, not a Q/A rhythm.
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — Theo present at the setup ("the one Theo wanted to over-build," L121) and the close ("He didn't write a paragraph in his head about what the label meant… let them be two cards," L151); the repaired L119 lead-in enriches his POV ("He kept his hands at his sides and looked from the leaning corner to the place where her room began"). Counter: none.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — "What are they. Actually. Under the paint." (L135) is a genuine prompt fragmented for pressure, not portent. Counter: none disguised.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — attribution intact through the edit. Counter: "No," June said. (L127) opens an expanded critique, not stripped starkness.
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "wall text" (L131), "stretcher" (L135), "underpaintings" (L137) grounded by the editing action and Theo's in-line gloss ("Both sides. Yours and mine both show the start through the finish," L137). Counter: "stretcher" glossed by "that's where you keep them."
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, tracked.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN **at ceiling** — strongest counter-candidate in the chapter now that old L85 is gone: "It's explaining the joke before anyone tells it." (L131) and "'views' is a tour bus." (L135). Quotable, but they are work-critique of a jointly-authored *label artifact* (June's sanctioned precise-critique care move), explicitly guarded in-scene ("She wasn't grading him. She was doing to the card what she'd done to the doorway, lifting away everything that wasn't the thing," L135), and the beat resolves on the plain "What are they. Actually. Under the paint." / "So say only that." Unchanged by this pass; at ceiling — add no more aphoristic shape and do not let it migrate to spoken-relationship dialogue.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — "He didn't write a paragraph in his head about what the label meant… let them be two cards" (L151) keeps Theo present while showing him *not* re-explaining — the opposite of double-explain. Counter: none.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — June critiques the *label copy* (a designed object she and Theo are editing), not Theo's conversational phrasing: "'views' is a tour bus" is a diction verdict on the *card*, "It's a wall text" names the artifact's genre, and the narration draws the line ("She wasn't grading him," L135). Work-critique of an artifact is distinct from captioning an interlocutor's delivery, and it respects the chapter card's outcome rule (June removes "two perspectives" rather than naming the two-panel metaphor aloud). Counter: "Closer." (L135) grades the copy's progress, not Theo's conduct.

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**SCENE 07 — L154–177, the tape / the close at the door (June, Theo)** — unchanged by this pass; cold re-scan.
- 1 Voice convergence: CLEAN — June's exit-and-wanting register ("I'll be at the coffee pretending I'm not watching the door," L175) vs. Theo's spare warmth ("I know." L173). Counter: "Yours. You've guarded it all afternoon. Finish the job." (L159) is imperative like June, but it hands her the closing act rather than claiming it.
- 2 Monotone Q/A: CLEAN — "Mine or yours" (L157) answered with a term and a reason, not a volley. Counter: the single question is functional (who pulls the tape).
- 3 Missing interiority: CLEAN — "June would turn it tonight or she wouldn't." (L165) and "from her angle, the leaving one" (L169) keep Theo present. Counter: spare but not dark.
- 4 Questions-as-statements: CLEAN — "Mine or yours" is a real choice offered, not portent. Counter: none.
- 5 Fake-McCarthy: CLEAN — "I know." (L173) is spare but earned by the whole afternoon of the leaning corner. Counter: "The corner still leans." (L171) — flat, functional.
- 6 Jargon-trading: CLEAN — "the shallow angle you use so the tape lifts clean and doesn't take the paint with it" (L161) self-glosses. Counter: none untranslated.
- 7 Attribution opacity: CLEAN — two speakers, tracked.
- FAKE-SHARP: CLEAN — strongest counter-candidate: "Someone's going to tell you it's crooked and offer to fix it… tell them it's supposed to." (L175). Thesis-bearing, but plainly said in June's warning-as-care register and closed by the vulnerable, speakable "I'll be at the coffee pretending I'm not watching the door." Character-true, not a detached aphorism.
- INTERIORITY-OVERCORRECTION: CLEAN — spare close, Theo's mind present at the study (L165) and the piece (L169); not stripped. Counter: none.
- DIALOGUE-DIAGNOSIS: CLEAN — June's "Someone's going to tell you it's crooked" is about the *painting's* leaning corner and others' predicted reactions to the artwork, not anyone's wording/rhythm/delivery. Counter: none surviving.

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## REVISION ORDERS

None. All four Positive-Prose-repaired areas are verified against the current text: Theo's L85 concrete-timing line, June's L87 cut, June's L89 scrape + "Good. It should.", and the L119 optics/held-hands lead-in each hold their speaker's voice and register without introducing stiffness, attribution opacity, or fake-sharpness, and none undercuts the stakes — L85 and L89 in fact sharpen them, and the pass *removed* the chapter's most vulnerable fake-sharp line (old L85 "March is a long way to carry January"). The cold re-scan of all seven manifest scenes surfaced no new or residual voice-convergence, monotone, missing-interiority, questions-as-statements, fake-McCarthy, jargon, attribution, fake-sharp, interiority-overcorrection, or dialogue-diagnosis defect.

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**OVERALL: CLEAN** — Seven of seven manifest scenes all-CLEAN with per-criterion counter-candidates shown. The Positive Prose repair pass did not flatten voice (Theo's L85 timing line and June's L87/L89 beats are *more* in-card than the lines they replaced — the excised seasons-aphorism and therapy-bow both violated card never-says lists), did not create stiffness (every repaired line contracts and reads as speech), did not create attribution opacity (each repaired turn is tagged or carried by an unambiguous action beat), and did not undercut the emotional stakes (L85's plain interval and L89's too-hard scrape keep June's precarity and complicated non-envy costly and unresolved; L119's held hands make Theo's restraint concrete). It also lowered the chapter's fake-sharp ceiling by removing "March is a long way to carry January"; the sole remaining at-ceiling line, S06 L131 "It's explaining the joke before anyone tells it," pre-dates the pass and survives as guarded artifact-critique. Zero-tolerance dialogue-diagnosis holds: the repairs introduced no new speech-caption, and the two closest surviving narration glosses — S03 "not sharp about it" (L63, emotional-tone/manner) and S04 "she said the other one sideways" (L89, topic-approach) — sit on the permitted side of the tone/topic-vs-construction line, each retained with reasoning so it is overridable at routing. Plain-speech floor, followability, contraction policy, and Theo's focalizing presence hold across the chapter, and no principal beat is explained twice.
