One evening a few weeks after the earthquake, there was a knock on our door. I opened the door and standing there was the elderly lady I had met during the earthquake. She was holding a chocolate Bundt cake. As soon as she saw me, she burst into tears. Handing me the cake, she took out a wad of tissue and said, “I just vanted to tell you,” but she got no further. Her sobs got louder. “I just vanted to tell you,” she said again, “dat you saved my life. My name eez Golda Rubenshtein and you saved my life.”

She continued to sob. I thanked her and told her that she had actually saved my parents’ life, since her phone was the only one working and . . . She didn’t let me finish. “I just vanted to tank you and make sure you knew that you saved my life.”

I thanked her for the cake again and told her I was glad that she was fine. I also thanked her again for letting me use her phone.

For a week after the earthquake, all the phones in our building had been dead. My parents later told me that after my phone call, they had turned on the news and seen the devastation. “Had it not been for your phone call,” they always say, “we would’ve worried ourselves to death.” Golda’s was the only phone in the entire building that had been working.

A month later, Golda made another surprise visit, this time bringing only half a chocolate Bundt cake. Once again, I opened my door and she burst into tears. Handing me the cake, she took out a wad of tissue. In between sobs, she said, “I called my son and I says, ‘Yakov,’ I says, ‘Yakov, an angel came to me. An angel saved my life.’ ” Listening to her own reenactment of the phone call, she sobbed louder.

I thanked her for the cake and told her how grateful I was for what she had done for my parents, but she didn’t want to hear any of it.

Every month, like clockwork, Golda came to our door with half a chocolate Bundt cake, a heart full of gratitude, and eyes full of tears. One time when I wasn’t home, she had encountered François and asked him whether he knew that he was married to an angel. She had also told him that he was too skinny and she was going to fatten him up.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I wasn’t sure which, my mother-in-law’s china had not broken. The earthquake did, however, make her rethink her impulsive burst of generosity. This did not surprise us. I would not be singing “Kumbaya” with this woman any time soon.