# Synthesis Memo - Chapter 17

Chapter: 17, `The Acknowledgment Page`

## Draft Provenance

- Claude prose draft: `output/drafts/claude/chapter_17.round_01.md`
- Codex parallel draft: `output/drafts/codex/chapter_17.md`
- Integrated chapter: `output/chapters/chapter_17.md`

Claude's draft is the prose base. Codex's parallel draft was used only as pressure testing because Claude's `codex_tic_audit` found 15 Codex-tic findings in it; no passage from the Codex draft was imported wholesale.

## What Was Kept

- The small, accidental catalog discovery through label work and back matter.
- The acknowledgment-page reveal naming Eileen Brennan and Theo Brennan.
- June's measurement/checking procedure as the shock engine.
- The back-stair confrontation, including Theo's payroll/job defense, the family confirmation, and the task-offer spiral.
- June's refusal to let Theo turn the rupture into work: `You're not getting a task.`
- One catalog returned / eight outstanding, and the final exit past the unvarnished pair.

## Major Repairs Accepted

- Mechanical gate repairs: dash density, markdown bold in the catalog insert, one-sentence paragraph cap, echoing `She checked...`, and `said finally`.
- Dialogue Doctor rounds 1-2: removed delivery diagnosis, de-sharpened portable grievance phrasing, cut face/self-commentary, replaced `Strangers know the way out`, and verified round 3 `OVERALL: CLEAN`.
- Comedy Doctor round 1: removed narrator wink/captioning around the parcel, problem-with-history, hands-hold-a-job, and pairs-hang-together residues; round 2 returned `CLEAR`.
- Narrator-Publicist: cut `She took no pleasure in it`; round 2 returned `CRITICAL-DISTANCE-HELD`.
- Plain Translation rounds 1-4: repaired the opening antecedent, removed the capped filing figure, replaced `carried a different weight`, reduced `the way` scaffolds to four, cut `Then the facts came`, restored catalog signature formatting, and de-quotablized `Saying *I know*...` to `Saying that...`. Final round returned `REGISTER-HOLDS`.

## Rejected / Protected

- Rejected the Codex parallel draft as a source because it leaned toward Codex arrangement/taxonomy defaults.
- Protected Odile's knew-all-along reveal: the chapter lets June suspect the shelf/catalog path matters but does not state Odile's motive or knowledge.
- Protected June's Tasker decision: Nia/Dec 4 stays present as private pressure but is not resolved and is not driven by Theo.
- Protected cohort knowledge: no class member learns the nephew truth or fake-couple truth in Ch17.

## Final Verification

- `bash scripts/quality_gate.sh`: PASS, open=0, allowlisted=0, WATCH=1051.
- `bash scripts/dialogue_scene_manifest.sh`: OK, missing_doctor_files=0.
- Final chapter word count: 2,046.
- Total manuscript word count after Ch17: 41,563.

## Tracker Disposition

Continuity, thread ledger, timeline, event ripple tracker, canon sheet, NPC goals, rolling summary, and tic ledger were updated for the nephew reveal, one returned catalog/eight outstanding, June's Week 7 absence, and protected future obligations.
