My social psychology professor gave us a simple assignment: text the words I love you to the family member we were closest to, then record their first reaction. My parents had died seven years earlier in an ambush meant for the DeLuca family. With no one else to text, I sent the message to Roman DeLuca -the youngest Don in New York's underworld and the man the court had once appointed as my temporary guardian. The typing bubble appeared and disappeared all night. At two in the morning, his answer finally came. [Mara, don't confuse dependence with love. Whatever exists between us can never cross that line.] The next day, he stripped away every privilege he had ever given me, disconnected our private line, and ordered his underboss, Luca, to stop reporting anything about me. When I went to DeLuca Tower in Lower Manhattan, security blocked me at the revolving doors. "The Don's exact words were that we could let a rival family walk in tonight, but not you." After that, whenever Roman saw me at a party or in a hallway, he left first. He kept it up for six months. Then a doctor told me an aggressive, high-grade glioma was growing inside my brain. It was pressing into the part that held language and memory, and the time I had left might be just long enough for one goodbye.
