The round-2 Fresh-Reader Clarity Pass is complete and saved to `output/critiques/claude/chapter_23.clarity_pass_round2.md`. The audit:

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# Fresh-Reader Clarity Pass (Round 2) — Chapter 23: Finished Together / Labels

Reader position: first-time reader, knowing only Ch01–22 (rolling summaries + continuity) and the reading guide's declared difficulties. POV is Theo; the chapter is the December 8 pre-showcase setup, 4 p.m., where June and Theo finish the joint diptych *After Class*. Round 2 exists to confirm that the Positive-Prose repairs made *after* the prior clean clarity pass (`chapter_23.clarity_pass.md`, CLEAR-UNDER-COMPLEXITY) did not introduce accidental opacity. Four sites changed in place (no line-number shift): **L85** (Theo's consolation → concrete Kessler timing), **L87** (June's self-diagnosis cut → barer trade), **L89** (June's glad/not-go maxim → brush-scrape + "Good. It should."), **L119** (generic proximity-posture → two-vantage optics + held-still hands). The mechanical delta is verified against the current text; then the whole chapter is re-read cold for comprehension. Per the chapter-specific instruction, earned craft vocabulary (pentimento, underpainting, block-in, ground, foreshortening, primer, seam, flat file) is judged for legibility, not penalized as difficulty. Time idiom re-checked and internally consistent: half three (3:30, L3) → twenty of four (3:40, L11) → four on the nose (4:00, L27) → ten past five (5:10, L93) → half six (6:30, L119).

## PLAIN-EVENT SUMMARY

By 3:30 Theo has taken the folding chairs off the storage rack and counted them twice — a nerve tell, "rehearsing four o'clock" when June is due (L3). He sets one good-hinged chair apart for June (she paints standing but sits to look), catches himself "arrang[ing] a room around a woman who wasn't in it," and leaves it (L3). He hangs a hand-made CHECK-OUT clipboard by the freight door so anything leaving the showcase leaves with a legible signature — tied explicitly to his November mistake of carrying "nine catalogs out of this building on no signature but his own good judgment" (L5). *After Class* (12×16) stands on the work easel, split by blue tape into "his eight inches and hers": his side the classroom block-in with a corner "leaning a degree off true"; her side nearly bare but for a "thumb-length umber stain" and a clean jar he set out and she told him to leave (L7). He fills a second jar for his own side and decides not to top off her water (L7). Fetching a second easel and card stock, he passes "the study" — a faced-away panel, painted side to the brick, pencil label outward — and notes turning it is June's alone, "either way not his" (L9).

At 3:40 Odile comes down with a mug and a folder (L11), tells Theo to pull "the Rauch and the little Diebenkorn" from the third flat file for the Hallorans to view after class (L13). Theo agrees but sets terms: the drawings go on his sign-out sheet and not during class — "The room's the cohort's until eight" (L15). He hands Odile a sheet fixing his January hours: paid archive work kept, but "Tuesday mornings ... blank, and it stays blank" for his own work in the front studio (L21). Odile pockets it and takes a chair "where she meant to sit and watch," remaining a silent presence through the work (L23; confirmed L115).

June arrives at 4:00 through the staff freight door with a portfolio and a tote holding Mara's cobalt "blue dish," wrapped, to return to Mara that evening (L27). She clocks the two jars and leaves them; Theo states which is hers, which is his (L31). She sets out four hand-sized oil panels — her leaving-side studies (door half-closed; chairs from behind; the table "foreshortened so hard the far end fell off a cliff"; the room "with the track lights off") — and says a fifth, her empty chair, stays home; the dark lights-off panel is "the source for my side," the rest "for finding the shapes" (L35–37). Theo registers that all four are "the room leaving," six feet from his half "where he'd painted the same room staying put" (L39).

They work. Theo is tempted to raise June's receding table to meet his lit table at the seam "so an eye could cross the tape without a bump," loads the brush, then stops — smoothing would collapse two rooms into one: "pick one door and paint the other one shut" (L45–47). June, without looking, tells him to leave the seam ("They're not the same height because they're not the same table. Line them up and you get a third one neither of us saw"); he does (L49–57). She builds her side into dark, turning the umber stain into "the unlit rectangle of the hall, the exact last thing you'd see looking back from the door" (L61). Twice his brush drifts to her side, twice she says "Mine"; he keeps to his half and lets her reach her own jar (L63). On his side he works thin so the underdrawing shows — "Pentimento, the word for it, the older picture surfacing through the newer one because the maker let it" — leaving the leaning corner up on purpose (L65), while quietly correcting one too-upright chair, a fix "he kept opaque, because it wasn't a confession, it was only drawing" (L73).

June's phone lights: Dana. "Keys January second," the eight hundred for the room and wall share due "by the tenth, which is Thursday"; "Kessler's money doesn't land till March, so January's a lot of lentils," but "there's a key with a date on it now. That's a real thing to be broke toward" (L81). Theo silently inventories four concrete ways he could help — a cash framer, a floated advance, a moving-outfit name, a Ridgewood crate he could drive himself — and offers none, saying only, **"That's two months before Kessler. That's all I get to say about it. I know it doesn't solve anything"** (L83–85). June agrees: **"It doesn't solve it," "The helpful version costs me the room"** (L87). Later she reports that Asha, whom she recommended, was flown out by Tasker and "offered ... the keys I turned down"; she sent June "a photo of the studio-access form like it was a sonogram"; June put Asha's name in "because she's good, not because I felt bad," scrapes the brush "too hard," says **"Good. It should,"** and closes: "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" (L89).

Priya and Ben arrive at 5:10, early [UNCLEAR: where they came from — "the place they came from wasn't working" names no place; non-load-bearing]; Ben has showcase flyers, Priya two coffees (sets one before June, then asks if she wants it; June takes it) (L93). Ben says they were approved for the Suffolk apartment ("first and last, keys the fifteenth") but did not sign: the numbers "worked so well it started making the decision," he couldn't fill the "ready" column, so they passed — separate places through winter, "look again in April when it's not rent doing the talking" — the real fear being "it's the wrong call" (L97–105). Priya's condition: "I want to know what you want, not what the rent wants. Can you come to April knowing that?" Ben agrees (L109–111). Odile crosses to the flat file, pulls the Rauch and Diebenkorn herself, and signs them out on Theo's clipboard "in her own square hand ... a form her nephew had made her that morning," then carries them up to her office (L115).

By 6:30 the piece is "as done as it was going to get": "His wall, lit and leaning and thin enough to show its own first draft under the last one. Her room, going down into the dark around a doorway that used to be a spill." They stand back 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"** (L119). Theo prints a first label draft on his condition-tag thermal printer — a wordy "collaborative diptych ... exploring two perspectives" (L125) — which June rejects as "a wall text ... explaining the joke before anyone tells it" (L131). Through two more drafts (June cutting "views" and moving names to the stretcher back) they land the final label: "After Class. Two underpaintings of one room, finished together" (L143); "underpaintings" is defined a line earlier as work where "both show the start through the finish" (L137). Theo starts to object it omits who finished which side and "when we—"; June cuts him off: "It says finished together. That's the part the label gets" (L147–149); she has him print a flat-file backup (L149).

Last, the tape — down since October, now chalky. June lifts it "at the shallow angle you use so the tape lifts clean," revealing "a hard sixteenth of bare priming" between "his lit room and her dark one"; the seam stays visible (L161). They stand the finished piece on the second easel in the cohort's row; June sets its angle "square to the room, not canted to catch anyone from the door" herself; Theo mounts the label at his usual height (L163). Passing the stockroom, Theo notes the faced-in study — "June would turn it tonight or she wouldn't" — and kills the back lights (L165). June rinses her brushes into her own jar, taking the dirty water home, blue dish packed to hand back to Mara "in the crowded part of the evening" (L167). The freight buzzer sounds — the first cohort, "too early for class" (L169). June looks at the piece from "her angle, the leaving one," and tells Theo that when someone offers to fix the leaning corner, "tell them it's supposed to. Then come find me. I'll be at the coffee" (L171–175). Theo goes to prop [UNCLEAR: "the second door" — an interior/second door is implied; Priya has already propped the freight door; non-load-bearing] as the boots reach the landing (L177).

Only two genuine first-read hedges, both trivial and non-load-bearing (L93 unnamed prior location; L177 unlocated "second door"). No plot-bearing event — including all four repaired beats — required guessing.

## INVENTORY

Repair-touched load-bearing items first, then the carried set (re-verified against current text):

- **"That's two months before Kessler" / the January gap** — introduced: L85 — first plot weight: L85 (Theo names the cost interval and declines to act on it) — orientation: SUFFICIENT. June's immediately prior line supplies the anchor: "Kessler's money doesn't land till March, so January's a lot of lentils" (L81) and "there's a key with a date on it now. That's a real thing to be broke toward." Theo's line converts her reframe into a measured span — the thing she's broke toward (the Jan-2 key / lean January) sits ~two months ahead of March's Kessler money. The interval is recoverable from the page; "Kessler" is bound to "money ... till March" one beat earlier, so "before Kessler" reads as "before Kessler's [March] money." (Antecedent of "That" is loose — key-date vs. January — but neither reading changes the literal event; see Confusion Map.)
- **"the helpful version" / "the room"** (L87) — introduced: L87 — first plot weight: L87 (June names why she refuses rescue) — orientation: SUFFICIENT. Grounded backward: "the room" is Dana's Ridgewood room from L81 ("the eight hundred for the room and the wall share"); "the helpful version" points at the four fixes Theo has just inventoried and withheld at L83 ("a framer ... an advance ... a name at a moving outfit, a crate he could drive to Ridgewood himself"). The barer line (self-diagnosis "I only just learned to tell them apart" removed) still lets a reader state the trade: accepting Theo's help would cost June the self-standing room she is paying her own way into.
- **"the keys I turned down" / Tasker / Asha** (L89) — introduced (reappearing): L89 — first plot weight: L89 (June's care-move payoff; her stay is affirmed aloud) — orientation: SUFFICIENT. Role-inference is in-line: "Tasker flew her out Friday. They offered her the keys I turned down" tells a first-time reader Tasker is the elsewhere job June declined; "I put her name in because she's good" places Asha as the peer June recommended; "I'm not sorry I'm not going" confirms June is staying. The cut maxim ("I can be glad for her and still not go") is re-enacted, not lost: "Good. It should" (glad for Asha) + "I'm not sorry I'm not going" (still declining) carry both halves.
- **the two-vantage seam optics** (L119) — introduced: L119 — first plot weight: L119 (the finished piece read as two rooms meeting at a seam) — orientation: SUFFICIENT. Welded to the geometry established at L7 ("his eight inches and hers," the taped seam) and L73 ("At the tape the light stopped and her dark began"): "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" reads as restraint (Theo not fixing), not romantic hand-holding. (Minor prolepsis on "strip of primer" while the tape is still down — see Confusion Map; retro-confirmed at L161.)
- "CHECK-OUT clipboard / sign-out form" — introduced: L5 — first plot weight: L115 (Odile submits to it) — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("it existed because in November he had carried nine catalogs out of this building on no signature but his own good judgment").
- "Theo's January hours / Tuesday mornings blank" — introduced: L21 — first plot weight: L23 (Odile accepts) — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("it's blank, and it stays blank. I've got the front studio Tuesday mornings for my own work").
- "pentimento" — introduced: L65 — first plot weight: L65 / L137 (the label concept) — orientation: SUFFICIENT (defined in-line, anchored to his condition-report work).
- "underpainting(s)" — introduced: L137 — first plot weight: L143 (the fixed label) — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("Both sides. Yours and mine both show the start through the finish").
- "the study" (Theo's faced-in portrait of June) — introduced (reappearing): L9 — first plot weight: L165 — orientation: SUFFICIENT for the beat that matters ("Turning that panel around would be a thing June did with her own arm ... either way not his"; "June would turn it tonight or she wouldn't"). Object identity (a Theo portrait of June) rides on Ch21–22 memory, never re-stated; sub-threshold because the consent beat needs only June's sole authority, which is explicit. Unchanged by the repairs.
- "the Hallorans / the Rauch / the little Diebenkorn" — introduced: L13 — first plot weight: L115 — orientation: SUFFICIENT (named as collectors and as drawings from the flat file).
- "Dana" — introduced (reappearing): L81 — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("Keys January second. She wants the eight hundred for the room" — role recoverable as June's room/landlord).
- "the Suffolk place" — introduced (reappearing): L97 — first plot weight: L101–109 — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("We got it. Approved, first and last, keys the fifteenth" + the "ready" column).
- "the blue dish" — introduced (reappearing): L27 — first plot weight: L167 — orientation: SUFFICIENT ("she'd hand it back to Mara").
- "the seam / 'eight inches' / the umber stain" — introduced: L7 — first plot weight: L45–61 — orientation: SUFFICIENT (12×16 split into two eight-inch fields; stain tracked from mark to "unlit rectangle of the hall").

## CONFUSION MAP

Repair sites (the round-2 hunt), then carried opacities:

- "That's two months before Kessler." (L85) — reader could ask: two months *from what* — the Dec-10 deposit, the Jan-2 key, or January generally? — opacity: ASSIGNED (voice — Theo's logistical register converts June's emotional reframe into a concrete span; the literal event, that he names the broke-stretch and refuses to fix it, is not in doubt). Foothold: June's "Kessler's money doesn't land till March, so January's a lot of lentils" (L81) fixes both ends of the interval one beat earlier. Not accidental: no scene mechanic hidden.
- "The helpful version costs me the room." (L87) — reader loses: an explicit statement of what "the helpful version" indexes (the self-diagnosis that used to gloss it is cut) — opacity: ASSIGNED (voice / restraint — dry-June compression; card bans therapy-bow diction). Foothold: the four withheld fixes at L83 + "the room" at L81 make the trade recoverable. Second-heaviest changed line; holds.
- "She scraped the brush on the palette, too hard. 'Good. It should.'" (L89) — reader loses: the balanced "glad-but-not-going" formula that was cut — opacity: ASSIGNED (voice / interiority — Theo (focalizer) reads the cost through June's canonical stress-busywork; "too hard" marks what the news costs her). Foothold: "Good. It should" + "I'm not sorry I'm not going" re-supply both halves the maxim used to state. Holds.
- "On his side the track-light bar stopped at the strip of primer." (L119) — reader could ask: with the tape still down (removed only at L155), how is the primer strip already visible? — opacity: sub-threshold nearest-accidental item. It does NOT hide scene logistics: the orientation (his lit side | central seam | her dark side) is intact and reinforced, and the narration names the seam by its underlying material rather than contradicting the tape. Retro-confirmed at L161 ("a hard sixteenth of bare priming ... between his lit room and her dark one"). Flagged as the strongest counter-candidate for an accidental finding and given an optional tightening (Order O-4); not a blocking finding because comprehension of the two-vantage read survives.
- "the painted side reading out at no one. Turning that panel around would be a thing June did with her own arm ... either way not his" (L9; echoed L165) — reader loses (faint-memory reader): what the faced-away study depicts — opacity: ASSIGNED (privacy / later payoff — Ch23 card orders the study "stays where it is, faced in, unless June herself chooses to turn it"; the image is withheld on purpose). Load-bearing fact — June alone turns it — is plain at L9 and L165. Unchanged by the repairs.
- "It doesn't say who finished which side. It doesn't say when we—" (L147) — reader loses: what Theo would have said — opacity: ASSIGNED (voice — his over-encoding reflex; June's "It says finished together" closes the sentence's function).
- The two-view structure rendered only through Theo's perception, never named aloud (L39, L119) — opacity: ASSIGNED (craft / outcome rule — the Ch23 card forbids any character naming the two-panel metaphor aloud; the reader is given two concrete rooms and lets them mean).
- Odile's continuous silent presence during the private work (a reader could assume she left at the L25 break) — opacity: ASSIGNED (voice / reread — the conduct-by-watching motif; footholds at L23 "where she meant to sit and watch" and L27 June setting the tote "on Odile's chair").
- "the place they came from wasn't working" (L93) — reader loses: what/where that place is — opacity: ASSIGNED (economy — withheld to keep focus on Ben's admission; the beat needs only that they arrive early and unsettled). Non-blocking.

No passage hides scene logistics a first-time reader needs. The repairs added no accidental opacity; all withholding is deliberate and covered by the reading guide / Ch23 card.

## CHARACTER CLARITY

- Theo Brennan (POV) — PLACEABLE ("he had arranged a room around a woman who wasn't in it, out of her habits, for her comfort, without being asked," L3; "a form her nephew had made her," L115, re-anchors his relation to Odile).
- June Park — PLACEABLE ("June came in at four on the nose through the freight door ... her big portfolio under one arm," L27 — placed by entrance and immediate craft talk).
- Odile Marchetti — PLACEABLE ("Odile came down at twenty of four in the gray cardigan with the paint on the cuff ... a manila folder," L11 — dress, register, drawing-loan authority).
- Priya Nair & Ben Adler — PLACEABLE ("We didn't sign the Suffolk place," L97, ties Ben to the established lease thread; "I made a spreadsheet with a column for whether we were ready," L101; Priya placed by the coffee-care beat and the April condition, L93/109). Only cohort couple on-page.
- Mara (off-page) — PLACEABLE ("she'd hand it back to Mara," L167).
- The Hallorans (new, off-page) — PLACEABLE ("The Hallorans are coming tonight ... They can look after the students go," L13).
- Dana / Kessler / Tasker / Asha (off-page referents in June's logistics, incl. the repaired barer lines) — PLACEABLE by in-line role-inference: room/landlord (L81); late-paying employer, "Kessler's money doesn't land till March" (L81); the elsewhere job June declined, "the keys I turned down" (L89); the peer June recommended, "I put her name in because she's good" (L89). The barering of L85/L87/L89 did not strip these role hooks.

Shared-surface-marker checks:

- **"the keys I turned down" (Tasker, L89) / "Keys January second" (Dana, L81)** — two key-tokens one section apart — UN-CONFUSABLE. Differentiated by opposed verbs and referents: Dana's keys are being *taken* ("Keys January second," for "the room," Ridgewood, local), Tasker's are *turned down* ("the keys I turned down," a job Tasker "flew her out" for, elsewhere; "I'm not sorry I'm not going"). A careful reader cannot swap June's acquired room-key for the declined job-key. (New-this-round check, prompted by the barer L89.)
- June Park / Priya Nair — UN-CONFUSABLE (June co-paints the diptych all chapter; Priya arrives at 5:10 with coffees and speaks only to the housing choice).
- Theo Brennan / Ben Adler — UN-CONFUSABLE (Theo is the focalizing host "he"; Ben is named, carries flyers, owns the Suffolk/spreadsheet material, L95–105).
- Dana / Diebenkorn (both D-initial, same chapter) — UN-CONFUSABLE (Dana is June's Ridgewood room, L81; "the little Diebenkorn" is one of Odile's flat-file drawings, L13).
- Kessler / Halloran (off-page surnames) — UN-CONFUSABLE (Kessler = June's late-paying employer, L81; the Hallorans = Odile's collectors, L13).
- "the study" (Theo's portrait) / "a study," "studies" (June's reference panels) — UN-CONFUSABLE by dominant naming and context (the portrait is singular, stockroom, faced to brick, stretcher label, "June would turn"; June's are "four small panels ... along the baseboard," in active use). The one avoidable overlap — June's generic "I'm not taking it down for a study" (L37) — is carried from round 1 (Order O-2, optional).

## COMPLEXITY CHECKS

1. Scene action / physical orientation / focalizer perception / plot-bearing consequence available on first read — HOLDS. Panel geometry (his eight inches, hers, the seam, the tray, two jars) is mapped at L7 and used consistently; the repaired L119 optics re-use that map ("On his side the track-light bar stopped at the strip of primer. On hers the doorway held its dark"). Consequence is legible (piece finished/placed, label fixed, Priya/Ben pass, June's NY path advancing, Theo's boundary set). Strongest counter-candidate: L119's "strip of primer" while the tape is still down — resolves as the seam named by material, retro-confirmed at L161; orientation not lost.
2. New terms plain before carrying plot weight — HOLDS. "Pentimento" defined at L65 as used; "underpaintings" defined at L137 before the label leans on it (L143); the clipboard and January-hours boundary self-explain in their beats. Strongest counter-candidate: the Dana/Kessler/Asha/Tasker cluster (L81–89) after the repairs — each still carries an in-line role hook, so no term reaches weight unexplained.
3. Mysteries deliberately genre-apt vs. accidental underexplanation — HOLDS. Withholdings (whether June turns the study; the clipped "when we—"; the unspoken diptych metaphor; Odile's watching; "the place they came from") are covered by the reading guide's assigned difficulty and the Ch23 card's outcome rules. Strongest counter-candidate: "the place they came from wasn't working" (L93) — underspecified but non-load-bearing, not a hidden mechanic.
4. Plain footholds at high load — HOLDS. The densest craft beat plants definitions and plain logic ("Pentimento ... the older picture surfacing through the newer one because the maker let it," L65; "Same table. Two rooms," L45; "They're not the same height because they're not the same table," L57). At the densest logistics beat — now barer after the repairs — June's own plain clauses carry it: "Kessler's money doesn't land till March, so January's a lot of lentils" (L81), and the withheld-help inventory at L83 grounds "The helpful version costs me the room" (L87).
5. Aliases / near-synonyms make one concept look like several (or several like one) — HOLDS. The painting-term cluster (block-in, ground, underdrawing, pentimento, underpainting) keeps distinct correct referents. Two-keys check (Tasker turned-down vs. Dana taken) resolves by verb and referent. Strongest counter-candidate: "study" reused for June's reference panel at L37 while "the study" denotes Theo's portrait (L9/165) — dominant "panels" naming and strong differentiating detail keep the two objects separate (optional Order O-2).

## REVISION ORDERS

No mandatory orders. The four repairs introduced no UNCLEAR (beyond two trivial, non-load-bearing hedges), INSUFFICIENT, ACCIDENTAL, UNPLACED, CONFUSABLE, or FAILS finding; each repaired beat is legible on first read and the beats it must protect (Kessler timing, June's Asha/Tasker decision, the piece's physical orientation) survive.

Optional strengthenings (sub-threshold; each keeps within the book's assigned privacy and adds no gloss):

- **O-4 (new this round): "strip of primer" prolepsis (L119).** The tape is not lifted until L155; at L119 the seam is still masked, so "the track-light bar stopped at the strip of primer" names a strip not yet uncovered. If a tightening is wanted, have the light stop "at the taped seam" (or "at the blue tape") at L119 and let the primer be revealed only when June lifts the tape at L161 — this preserves the two-vantage optics and keeps the bare-strip reveal for its sanctioned moment. Do not otherwise alter the vantage or the held-hands beat.
- **O-1 (carried): "the study" object-identity (L9).** For the faint-memory reader, let Theo's eye catch the outward stretcher-bar label as he passes — e.g., the "pencil label ... reading out at anyone" reads "J. Park" in his glance — re-placing it as the portrait of June by texture, not recap. Do not describe what is painted.
- **O-2 (carried): "study" alias (L37).** Change June's generic "I'm not taking it down for a study" to "for reference" (or "to copy from"), reserving "study" for the faced-in portrait so the two load-bearing objects never share the word.
- **O-3 (carried, softened): Dana/Kessler role hooks (L81).** L81 already self-tags both ("Keys January second. She wants the eight hundred for the room"; "Kessler's money doesn't land till March"); no change needed for comprehension. Optional only if a later pass wants belt-and-suspenders for a reader who has lost the proper nouns from Ch09/15/20.

## OVERALL: CLEAR-UNDER-COMPLEXITY

The Positive-Prose repairs did not create accidental confusion. All four changed beats are followable on first read, and the chapter-specific risks are met on the page: Kessler timing is oriented by June's "Kessler's money doesn't land till March, so January's a lot of lentils" (L81) one beat before Theo's concrete interval (L85); June's Asha/Tasker decision reads through in-line role hooks ("the keys I turned down," "I put her name in because she's good," "I'm not sorry I'm not going," L89) even with the balanced maxim cut; and the finished piece's physical orientation is welded to the L7 geometry and reinforced by the L119 two-vantage optics, with "He kept his hands at his sides" plain as restraint. The dense process terms stay legible (pentimento L65, underpainting L137, seam/eight-inches L7, flat-file logistics L13/149), portrait consent is explicit (L9/165), the Dana/Kessler/Asha/Tasker cost is felt through plain clauses without a gloss, the Priya/Ben slower choice is anchored to the established Suffolk thread (L97–109), and the final label (L143) and tape lift (L161) are both physically and emotionally followable.

Heaviest-load passage under this round's repairs: the L81–L89 Dana/Kessler/Asha logistics stretch, now barer at L85/L87/L89. Foothold that carries it: June's plain footings — "Kessler's money doesn't land till March, so January's a lot of lentils" (L81) and "the keys I turned down ... I'm not sorry I'm not going" (L89) — plus Theo's concrete withheld-help inventory at L83, which grounds both his "That's two months before Kessler" (L85) and her "The helpful version costs me the room" (L87). The single item worth a second look — "strip of primer" naming the still-taped seam at L119 — is sub-threshold (orientation intact, retro-confirmed at L161) and addressed by optional Order O-4.
