OK, Martha, I was reading "Feeling Good" over the weekend, and I was in the chapter about how to deal with criticism. The author says you need to ask questions to elicit specific information and to find something to agree with in the statements the other person makes even if you totally disagree with them. This diffuses the other person's anger and opens up space for the conversation to happen. It's hard to do this in the moment, especially when you feel blindsided, but I thought this sounded like a good strategy.
