Good deed for the day?

Yesterday I got an email from Marie about a recent phone call with her "little" brother Hermanito. It seemed pleasant enough: kind of aimless, but chatty in the way that sibling phone calls can be.

Had a very nice chat with Hermanito.  We talked about my upcoming trip to Paris, his proposed big motorcycle jaunt next summer with his girlfriend (who was in the background, occasionally chiming in), his generator and home repairs (he's replacing his plumbing, his water heater, and his generator, all in the next two weeks), his proposal to visit Auntie for Thanksgiving if his girlfriend can get enough time off (she said she could, but he seemed more doubtful), [and so on]. It was a good conversation.  He once made a comment about liberals like me and Natasha, but I deflected with a question about his summer plans.  And he teased me about my book collection, so I agreed, compared it to Mom's doll collection, and recounted the story of how I showed pictures of her house to a doll-phobic coworker.  So we happily agreed that I was evil, and that was that.

At the end he said love ya sis.

Maybe I'm learning how to talk to him again? 

For context, Hermanito is the same brother that showed up in story number (III) in this post, about the election of Donald Trump. Hermanito is the brother who voted for Trump, and to whom Marie shrieked in rage, "If I kill myself will that make America great enough for you?" So polite chit-chat has been sorely lacking between these two for a while. That they were able to talk so pleasantly yesterday was great news, and I told her so.

Then today she followed up with a remark that took me completely by surprise:

I almost certainly would not have called him last night had I not been inspired by Sangha to want to reach out, and by your encouragement of me not to isolate myself from people I don't share every opinion in the universe with.... 

I hope you realize that in this matter, you are a definite good influence on me.

Wait, what? No, never mind, don't repeat it. It was hard enough to hear it the first time. I guess I must have inadvertently snuck in a good deed sometime back when I wasn't paying attention. Fortunately the other 364 days of the year aren't burdened in the same way. But since this is an anonymous blog I can afford to admit lapses like this.