# Chapter 21 Initial Draft Assessment

## Verdict

Accepted as the prose base after raw mechanical and continuity repair.

## Why It Works

- The chapter obeys the compressed-map function: Theo confronts Odile, receives no clean absolution, makes work of his own, and asks June for the diner conversation without using the painting as an apology.
- Protected threads hold: no public fake-couple disclosure, no cohort nephew disclosure, no Odile final knew-from-night-one reveal, and no Tasker/Asha/Dana/Kessler facts reach Theo.
- The catalog aftermath is concrete and causal: the eight catalogs return through Ruth/Sam, Theo logs the non-June route, and Odile's initials become a true-partial admission of responsibility.
- The Week 6 fear canvas drives action rather than summary. Theo handles the canvas, sees the useful-hands/blank-ground diagnosis, and puts the drill down.
- The hidden Week 3 portrait is finished as a consent-governed object, faced to the wall with its label outward.
- The closing text exchange sets up Ch22 and keeps the ask plain: Sonia's, Sunday, just coffee.

## Required Integration Repairs Already Made

- Fixed canon-name hallucination: `R. Calloway & S. Okafor` became `R. Kim / S. Rivera`.
- Removed raw hard-gate blockers: em-dash over-cap, comma-then constructions, `let himself` allowance phrases, false-profound negation, and echo-line poetics.
- Reduced several publicist/thematic captions: `Everyone who needed to know now knew`, a mirror-like self-explanation, and repeated permission-slip syntax.

## Risks To Audit Hard

- Odile dialogue is strong but close to quotable-density ceiling; Dialogue Doctor and Narrator-Publicist should test whether her true partials become a speech.
- The portrait section risks reading as authorial thesis if later audits do not protect its object work.
- Hands are intentionally foregrounded but high-density; watch for hand/body shorthand not doing real work.
- The ending repeats a lock-and-keys close family from Theo chapters; acceptable only if the faced-to-wall study remains the actual final pressure, not just another shutdown ritual.
