I n the morning Mom would put on her maid uniform and go to work, and Tad 
would wake up sometime later and colonize the sofa in front of the big 
living-room mediatron. Harv would creep around the edges of the apartment, 
foraging for breakfast, some of which he'd bring back to Nell. Then Harv would 
usually leave the apartment and not come back until after Tad had departed, 
typically in late afternoon, to chill with his homeboys. Mom would come home 
with a little plastic bag of salad that she'd taken from work and a tiny 
injector; after picking at the salad, she'd put the injector against her arm 
for a moment and then spend the rest of the evening watching old passives on 
the mediatron. Harv would drift in and out with some of his friends. Usually he 
wasn't there when Nell decided to go to sleep, but he was there when she woke 
up. Tad might come home at any time of the night, and he'd be angry if Mom 
wasn't awake.