A knock reverberated through the house, filling the empty spaces. I dropped the picture and stood, tensed for flight, even though I knew it was probably a delivery or something. But as I hurried out of the bedroom, the knocking continued and the doorbell rang, one sound, then the other, frantically, relentlessly alternating.

I opened the door as a young woman in a light-pink hijab pushed past me. With one hand she pulled me back into the house; with the other she clenched a cell phone. She had a small white dog yapping in the crook of her arm, and she still managed to elbow the door shut behind us. She was frantic, her eyes wide.

I recognized her as the woman who had walked past me the other morning with the same small dog prancing on the end of a leash in one hand and a little boy with a huge backpack clinging to her other. She had smiled at me, and for a second her whole face had been a perfect circle under her sky-blue hijab. Today her eyes were round with fear. She dropped the dog, who began spinning as well as barking, and her fluttering hands were everywhere, clutching at my arm, raising her phone to her ear, motioning me to lock the door, to move away from the windows, until finally we sank into chairs at the kitchen table.

“I’m sorry.” She gestured to the front door. “But I couldn’t go home.”

“What is it? What’s wrong?” My thoughts raced. Could it be an animal in her house? An abusive husband? A home invasion? “I’ll call the police.”

I half rose from my chair, because my phone was still in the closet, but she stopped me. “They know. The police are at my house now.”

She spoke a stream of words into her own cell phone, a language that to my ignorant ears sounded like water spilling over stones.

“What happened?” I asked, my fear subsiding a little. If the police were already there, someone was handling the crisis, whatever it was. But I didn’t understand why she was here instead of there, talking to the cops.