# Chapter 18 Initial Draft Assessment

Target: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_18.round_01.md`
Integrated base: `output/chapters/chapter_18.md`

## Verdict

ACCEPT AS BASE WITH REPAIRS.

## Contract Check

- POV / placement: holds June close-third, Wednesday Nov 25 through Monday Nov 30, no assignment card.
- Rupture function: absence is active labor through scarf washing, group chat refusal, Tasker columns, studio-room studies, and catalog return logistics.
- Protected threads: Theo receives no repair scene; Odile stays off-page; Tasker is not accepted or declined; New York is not decided; `After Class` is not solved; eight catalogs remain in June's control for a non-Theo return route.
- Required payoff: Mara's scarf is returned in a social, ordinary, costly exchange rather than another threshold evidence drop.
- Forward pressure: Ch19 is armed by June's Tuesday 9 a.m. post-office plan and her explicit nonattendance; the class will see the empty chair before explanation.

## Base Strengths Kept

- Scarf action opens the chapter physically rather than as mood.
- The flyer/group-chat pressure makes the public kiss visible without turning the cohort investigative.
- The Thanksgiving/weekend structure lets absence cost several days, not one isolated mood.
- The studio-room studies give June an active art response and make the leaving side of `After Class` concrete.
- Mara's exchange is warm but non-advisory; she notices enough to be kind and not enough to solve.
- The final nail-hole repair turns the chapter's insight into action instead of a proverb.

## Repairs Already Executed in Integration

- Mechanical blockers: removed two `, then` sequential-action hits, one `let herself` permission construction, one echo-line (`They were good. They were...`), and reduced trailing-participle density below cap.
- Continuity / scene noise: removed the accidental second sister reference in Mara's Tuesday invitation.
- Register/tic repairs: reduced object-as-agent and thesis-caption phrasing, replaced generic Thanksgiving simile, reduced light-image pressure, and de-quotablized one `that was the whole...` family instance.

## Remaining Audit Risks

- Mara dialogue may still be too polished (`hostage exchange`, `sleeping in shifts`) and needs Dialogue Doctor / Comedy Doctor pressure.
- Reflective passages around Tasker and `After Class` may over-explain June's agency; Thought Development and Narrator-Publicist should test this.
- The chapter is intentionally quiet; Comedy Doctor should allow a thinner grief-forward comic density while still cutting portable wit.
