This Isn't the Sort of Thing that Happens to Someone Like You, by Jon McGregor

He wasn't naive; he knew when to say no. It was just that he didn't always think being spun a yarn was a good enough reason for not doing what he could to help. It's the desperate ones who come up with the best stories, he used to say, and Catherine had admired him for this, once, for his refusal to let cynicism accumulate with each knock at the church office door.