Rainey, who is not a sports enthusiast but keeps up out of necessity, asks as she squeezes lemon into her iced tea, “Doesn’t it seem strange that even though nearly all the players are black, people still care as much as they did when they were white?”

“We only care if they win,” Sarah observes, looking to me for my response. My daughter is at the age where she challenges almost every utterance out of my mouth.

My relationships with other women, the way I practice law, and my treatment of Rainey (who sometimes seems more like a saint than a woman to my daughter) are all put under a microscope and rarely seem to pass inspection.

I sip at a goblet of Cabernet red wine I picked up at Warehouse Liquor. Ever since “60 Minutes” aired that piece about how the French develop relatively little heart disease, I have religiously drunk a couple of glasses for dinner and have escaped criticism from the two women in my life. Knowing I will get Rainey’s goat, I say, “If they win, we don’t care what color they are. That’s what makes this country great. Winning is everything.”

Rainey, dainty as the first time I had lunch with her at Wendy’s (she had a salad that day as well), dabs at her mouth with a cloth napkin she insists is ecologically correct, despite the energy expended to clean it.

“We’re great all right,” she says sourly.

“All the wealth in this country, and millions of people don’t even have health insurance. With the cuts in Medicaid, I wonder how people live as long as they do.”

Content to be a white American middle-class male, I savor the taste on my tongue. God, wine tastes good with a meal. If the French weren’t such snobs, they could still civilize us.

“Genetics,” I say, undercutting my excuse to guzzle more booze.

“I’m beginning to think your body gets a certain number of years no matter what you do to it.”

“You don’t believe that!” Rainey practically snorts, shaking her head.