A woman in slippers handed me a better shovel and dug out my car

A snowplow buried my car in the North End on a Sunday and I stood on the sidewalk with a plastic shovel and a sinking feeling. A woman came out of her house in slippers, handed me a better shovel, and the two of us dug for twenty minutes. She would not let me thank her properly. She said, we all get buried. I left a loaf of bread on her step. She left the shovel on mine. I have not returned it. I think that is what she wants.