Free Why Men Lie by Linden MacIntyre

driver. The only thing that mattered in the long run was Cassie’s happiness. And she was, again, embarrassed by the superficiality.
    Piss off
, she told herself.
Chances are you’ll meet the bugger once or twice before he vanishes like all the others into the legions of the Unremembered and the Never-more-referred-to
.
    She was tempted to pour a drink, thought better of it. Poured one anyway. Sat for a moment, legs crossed, studying her bobbing foot. Then stood, drink untouched, to fill a pot with water. She remembered the mess in the spare room, where she’d left the litter from her Christmas wrapping. The bed was covered in festive paper, twine, tape and scissors. Maybe they planned to stay.
    Cassie’s gift was on the bed too. Effie had splurged on a Vuitton overnight bag. As a business writer, Cassie travelled frequently, mostly short trips to Ottawa, New York, Washington. Effie had also wrapped a modest gift for Ray. A book. A le Carré novel that she liked a lot.
A Perfect Spy
. But now she was having second thoughts.
    Ray, the doctor, might have already read it. Or might find it trite. She rebuked herself again.
What am I thinking? He’s no more literary than I am. Less so, depending on how you look at it
. But still, she changed her mind about the book. She picked it up and carried it to her bedroom, found herself downstairs again, distracted.
    If they stayed, she thought, it would surely be a sign of something substantial. Possibly commitment. If he was a doctor, he must be in his thirties, depending on what kind of doctor. Even a GP would be nearly thirty, a perfect time to settle down.
    She had a new CD, a gift from JC, Celtic music played in the Baroque style that originally inspired it. Cape Breton music, local, insular and, until just a few years earlier, considered primitive. Just like the language of the old people. Passé. But now in fashion, studied for its classical connections, its origins in ancient cultures. It made her smile. Where was all the scholarship when it might have nourished and perhaps restored a dying world to relevance?
    She put the CD on, and the music warmed the room. She wondered who Ray was, really. What did he look like? Did he have siblings? Would she get to know his parents? She hadn’t heard a surname yet. Maybe he had connections with home. Sudbury, she knew, was a vast and rowdy diaspora of people from her part of the east coast. Or maybe he was a foreigner. A Pakistani. She chuckled, imagining the look on Sextus’s face when he found out. “A Paki? Jesus Christ!” She could actually hear him, the irrational distress. Then again, who knows? He might surprise her. He often did.
    She had retrieved her drink and was sipping it when the doorbell rang. Then she heard the key, and the door opened. Cassie stood there, kicking snow from her boots. Effie rose quickly and rushed toward her, and they embraced.
    “Ray is getting something from the car,” Cassie said.
    “You found a place to park.”
    “Half a block away.”
    “You’re lucky,” Effie said. “The snow.”
    Cassie stared at her. “You call this snow? Mother, we just came from Sudbury.”
    She saw a man moving quickly up the walkway, carrying a shopping bag. He was bulky in a zipped-up leather jacket, collar up, and a baseball cap pulled down. He was of average height, built athletically.
    Cassie, whose back was to the street, was whispering, “Mom, Ray isn’t what—”
    “Well, you must be Ray,” said Effie.
    She saw a broad smile. He put the bag down. “Dr. Gillis,” he said.
    There was something seasoned in the voice that caught her by surprise. Maturity, she thought. Then he removed the ball cap. His close-cropped hair was grey. And, as he moved toward her and into the light, extending a cold, firm hand for her to shake, she saw the deep lines in his face. For a moment, she thought,
They’ve brought Ray’s dad along!
    But she knew that this was Ray. Prematurely aged by the pressures of his work? Or