She had just an instant earlier caught my eye and there was no one else in sight�it flooded my mind that she must be talking to me but I didn't say, "I'm so sorry," I didn't think of it. Instead I was asking myself, Am I the Buddha?

Then she repeated her call and this time I followed her gaze across the street to where another woman standing by a car door squinted back, open-mouthed, a preoccupied Brooklynite trying to remember whether she'd even known the woman shouting at her had a sister.