Making Space for Love Stories at Every Age

I recently read Alice Munro’s short story, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain,” about a married couple in their 70s navigating sexuality and love after the wife, Fiona, develops dementia and enters a nursing home. Here, Fiona begins an intimate friendship with a wheelchair-bound man named Aubrey while her husband, Grant, reminisces about a series of affairs he had during their marriage. After grappling with his discomfort over Fiona and Aubrey’s friendship, Grant has a change of heart when Fiona’s health begins to decline after Aubrey’s wife takes him out of the nursing home.