There are just a few reliable things in life: death, taxes, hunger and the precision of William Trevor’s short stories. The Irish-born writer never waivers in his nuanced examinations of loneliness and the peculiar ways people find themselves connecting to each other.

The title of Trevor’s new collection, “Cheating at Canasta” (Viking, $24.95), refers to the common theme linking the 12 stories – attempts at kind lies, the delusions necessary to making relationships work for inarticulate people.

A reformed adulterer says he’s going shopping when he’s really off for a clandestine drink with an old flame. Meanwhile, his wife stands over a tea kettle, steaming open a letter from the other woman and proudly recalling how deft she became over the years in gluing these envelopes shut again.

A doubting minister tends to his sister on her deathbed, crushing his urge to tell her “there will be nothing” even as she clings to her faith for strength when painkillers are delayed. A mechanic drives two newlyweds to a weeping Virgin for a blessing, omitting the fact that the statue’s tears had been debunked. What’s the harm? Trevor asks. To the deceived, seeking rest, none; the liars are left curious to know if they can forgive themselves.

In the title story, an Englishman lets his ailing wife win at canasta, picking up the cards that fall from her fumbling fingers without helping his own hand. He honors his promises that they will always play cards and he will return to the Venice bar they once loved. In the bar, he eavesdrops on a young American couple quarreling, then covering each other’s shame when interrupted by his greeting. “Again the playing cards fall. Again he picks them up. She wins and then is happy, not knowing why,” he muses over one marriage ended and another just beginning.

Trevor doesn’t judge his liars, who share generous amounts of blame and redemption with the loved ones to whom they lie. Sometimes they cannot find the words and simply walk away, and Trevor examines the debris in their wake. The cigarette pack’s cellophane pinched into butterfly wings – mere fidgeting, or a lovely parting gift?

He finds the lies neither noble nor selfish, but survivable. Trevor writes: “Damage was not destruction and was not meant to be.”